Welcome!
Isn't it telling that we have adopted the word "viral" to describe the spread of media posts? It connotes infection, danger, and a need for inoculation while at the same time, many of us (including me on this site) hope that the content we disseminate will do just that—spread exponentially. The ongoing conversations that will take place on this page are intended to strengthen our information savvy and our capacities for nurturing information literacy in the members of our learning communities. I invite you to join the conversations and engage with me and each other to these ends.
Jacquelyn Whiting
Instructional Coach and Technology Integrator, Connecticut
Jacquelyn Whiting
Instructional Coach and Technology Integrator, Connecticut
On Self-Awareness
by Jaquelyn WhitingThrough these articles you will get to know me and understand the different aspects of my identity and my educational priorities as well as my interests and passions. I never expected Comedy Central's The Daily Show to provide a potent example of the impact of our implicit biases on our understanding of shared experiences, but that's what happened.
As educators, we must come to terms with how a readers' biases impact their information access. Before we tackle the texts, we have to face ourselves. Nurturing self-awareness in our students and guiding them to see how their biases interact with their information acquisition is a fundamental element in helping them develop media literacy and the communication skills essential for civil discourse. Until we become aware of our biases and how they emerge through our language, we can fall into the bias confirmation trap. Read More >>
Video
![Using Student-Created TED Talks to Teach Media Literacy in Elementary School [9:00]](https://schoollibraryconnection.com/assets/mediaserver/SLC/2292/2292121s.jpg)
Discover how Jacquelyn Whiting gave her students the opportunity to create, present, and post their own original TED Talks in this dynamic lesson that teaches important fundamentals of argument and information literacy. And see how students themselves describe the experience!
Lesson Plan
In this lesson, students practice recognizing their own bias and examine how that influences their understanding of what they read, as well as what they convey in their own writing.
Webinars
In this weinbar, Tasha Bergson-Michelson and two students discuss how they collaboratively plan instruction about news consumption and literacy.
Article
Research in sociology, communication, and other disciplines suggest worldview, culture, socioeconomic status, and gender as foundations of difference. Understanding each of these dimensions can help school librarians design effective learning sessions.
Feature
School librarians have always been leaders in information literacy. The challenge has become more evident in recent years. Thankfully, new tools and resources are constantly being shared to help us better equip our students with the means to sift through news sources.
Feature
As elementary students begin consuming contemporary media, skills they learn when working with historic newspapers can give them a foundation that will help them interpret and understand information now and in the future.
Feature
While we typically hear the term "customized" or "personalized" in a positive light, when seeking information, those customizations can actually translate into bias and ignorance. But the algorithms used to provide targeted search results and tailored news feeds are creating a distorted and divided reality by only revealing one side of the story—the side you want to see.
Lesson Plan
Using Kent State as the featured text, students will learn ways to evaluate sources for accuracy, bias, and reliability, with resources from the Stanford History Education Group and the News Literacy Project.
Article
Using problem-posing learning activities leads students to reflect not only on the role of the dominant forces that oppress affected groups but also on the way in which related information and knowledge can be constructed and disseminated to further their oppression.
Lesson
![Culturally Relevant Pedagogy [5:59]](https://schoollibraryconnection.com/assets/mediaserver/SLC/2253/2253699s.jpg)
Culturally relevant pedagogy is an empowering and multidimensional approach rather than a simple celebration of diversity or set of steps to follow.
Review
The mission of this resource is to "free people from filter bubbles so they can understand the world and each other." Educators and librarians teaching the topic of media literacy will find this to be a solid resource for discussing bias, balanced news, and the difference between fact and opinion in the media world.