Mind Over Media: Analyzing Contemporary Propaganda

School Librarians Are Teaching Digital Citizenship April Wathen photo: Jill Springer April Wathen, Kathy Lester, and Steven Yates. As technology and social media play an increasingly big role in the classroom, educators are faced with challenges of teaching students how to use technologies in appropriate ways, and how to be safe and responsible online—the basic tenets of what is known as digital citizenship, a close relative of digital literacy. Fortunately, classroom teachers often have an expert ally to assist them in getting the job done: their school librarian or media specialist. “Digital citizenship and digital literacy—and, in the bigger picture, information literacy—whether it’s print or digital, that is our curriculum,” says Gwenn Marchesano, a middle school librarian in Plymouth, Mich.

NLP offers new, urgently needed lesson on conspiratorial thinking Part of free e-learning platform Checkology, it teaches people to understand the allure of conspiracy theories and how to avoid them. WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 19, 2021 — As recent events underscore how easily Americans can be influenced by false conspiracy theories, the News Literacy Project (NLP) is introducing a new lesson to educate students and the public about how conspiratorial thinking develops and its effects. The comprehensive “Conspiratorial Thinking” lesson, included with NLP’s free Checkology® e-learning platform, seeks to help people understand the factors that allow conspiratorial thinking to take hold and conspiracy theories to flourish. It is available to educators and the general public.

UM Library Fake News Course The slides for the LOEX 2018 session entitled Fake News, Lies, and a For-credit Class: Lessons Learned from Teaching a 7-Week Fake News Undergraduate Library Course can be seen on the right. An open Canvas version of the course is available as well. Look for a Canvas version of the course in the Commons if you are a Canvas campus. The assignments in the Canvas Commons course take advantage of the integration of Google Drive and Canvas on our campus. Fake news and critical literacy resources This series of fake news and critical literacy resources have been created in response to the findings and recommendations from the Commission on Fake News and the Teaching of Critical Literacy Skills in Schools. These resources are designed to help primary and secondary teachers, parents and school librarians equip children with the critical literacy skills they need to survive and thrive in today's digital world. The resources include: Primary Primary teaching resource which includes practical lesson ideas, critical questions and a directory of useful organisations and further resourcesPrimary discussion cards to help students think more critically about the texts they read in lessonsPrimary poster for displaying in the classroom Secondary

Media Literacy By having students participate in activities prior to introducing new content, teachers can identify incomplete, faulty, or conflicting ideas or misconceptions, and accelerate students’ ability to successfully learn and apply new information. Activate Prior Knowledge Start by working as a full class to create a K-W-L chart on large chart paper. Critical readers in the (mis)information age Did you know that Chicago was the most dangerous city in the US in 2014? I didn’t. I would have thought it was some bigger city, but according to this set of FBI statistics of total murders, I was wrong. But actually, was I? It’s very easy to look at this graph at face value without digging much further into the narrative it presents.

The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories Editor's Note: The accuracy of the italicized portion of this story has been questioned. In case you haven't noticed, this site is currently being bombarded by a certain strand of conspiracy theorist. I'm still not entirely sure what these people believe in, apart from being absolutely certain that the government is developing brain-eating vaccines, spiking the water with lithium and trying to subdue the population with "reactive" medicine. School Library Journal Laura Gardner, 2016 SLJ School Librarian of the Year finalist, updates her lesson plans for the era of fake news. Last week, a new study from Stanford University revealed that many students are inept at discerning fact from opinion when reading articles online. The report, combined with the spike in fake and misleading news during the 2016 election, has school librarians, including me, rethinking how we teach evaluation of online sources to our students. How can we educate our students to evaluate the information they find online when so many adults are sharing inaccurate articles on social media? While social media isn’t the only reason for the surge in fake news over the last 10 years, it’s certainly making it harder for information consumers of every age to sort through fact and fiction. As articles about the Stanford study get shared around Facebook, I have two thoughts.

Thanks for visiting! Welcome to my homepage. On this site you will find links to many of my publications. Thank you so much for your support and for helping three of my books become Amazon Best Sellers! Check back now and again for updates and links to my new publications.Vivian 911memories Exploring Newspaper Front Pages By reading newspaper front pages and viewing videos, students use digital resources to gain knowledge that will prepare them for listening and interviewing people who remembered the events of September 11, 2001. Analyze Texts First, the teacher models newspaper analysis using the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages from September 12, 2001 to make some observations about the content and structure of the front pages.

Howard Rheingold: Check Facts With Crap Detection Resources - DML Central Want to know if someone plagiarizes a speech? Is the content on a website copied from another website? Do those song lyrics sound familiar? What about those statements? Have they been stolen from books, articles or other public documents? Has a photograph been manipulated? Our disinformation problem has been 70 years in the making Today’s disinformation problems far exceed those of the 1950s, in large part because of the amplifying effects of social media. But blaming disinformation solely on the rise of the attention economy overlooks the role of government secrecy and the consequent erosion of public trust. QAnon conspiracy theories and Alex Jones’s deep state mutterings feel less preposterous when you consider that only eight years ago, Edward Snowden revealed America’s secret global surveillance system. And the right is not alone in its conspiratorial thinking — many on the left still believe Trump’s concealed tax returns and shady dealings with Russia imply he was a “Manchurian Candidate”-style sleeper agent. Though some government secrecy is necessary for keeping sensitive information safe from bad actors, much of it in this country is excessive.

The long, tortured quest to make Google unbiased Next week, Sundar Pichai will try to reassure Congress that Google’s search engine isn’t rigged. The Google CEO is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, answering questions about “potential bias and the need for greater transparency” in Google’s business practices. It’s Republican lawmakers’ latest move in a series of hearings over Silicon Valley political bias. “Google has created some of the most powerful and impressive technology applications,” wrote House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in the announcement. “Unfortunately, recent reports suggest Google might not be wielding its vast power impartially.

911memories Participate in a Digital Conversation with Someone Who Remembers September 11, 2001 Students read about effective listening and questioning techniques and put these techniques into practice as they listen to memories from people who experienced September 11, 2001 and follow up with questions of their own. Engage Students select one or more articles from the The Art of Listening page at Psychology Today. As they read, they should construct a list of five Big Ideas that might help them as they listen to others talk about experiences of September 11, 2001 which may bring up many different emotions.