*Introduction to Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #1

How Can School Librarians Teach Media Literacy in Today's Highly Charged Media Landscape? I have been thinking quite a bit about media literacy for a long time now, and I have noticed that my training and career as a school librarian have really impacted how I consume media. I’m not able to casually listen to news on the radio, view a political ad on television, see a billboard, or hear a coworker discuss the day’s events without filtering those messages through several lenses, most notably the CRAAP detector I most often taught my middle and high school students. Currency, Reliability, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose are still my go-to means of determining the value of a particular piece of media, and I continually consider each aspect of media messages unconsciously as I move through my day. Our students are bombarded with an onslaught of information and news on a daily basis. They are acutely aware of injustice, persecution, civil unrest, and other societal ills, and this awareness cannot be ignored or discounted by school librarians and other educators.

The Fight Against ‘Fake News’ in the Classroom Gets a Boost Years before phrases like “fake news” and “alternative facts” made their way into the English lexicon, Alan Miller realized that a time was coming when the truth would need defending. It was 2006, and Miller—then an investigative reporter in the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times—had just spoken to 175 sixth graders at his daughter’s middle school about his job as a journalist and why it mattered. The internet had already begun transforming the news industry, in ways immediately apparent and yet to be seen, and he was thinking about—and giving talks about—what the future held for journalism. So when his daughter, then 12, brought home 175 handwritten thank you notes from her classmates that day, Miller’s wheels started turning. “I could see it resonated with them,” he says.

Machine Learning for Kids Machine learning projects These projects are downloadable step-by-step guides, with explanations and colour screenshots for students to follow. Each project is a stand-alone activity, written to last for a single lesson, and will guide children to create a game or interactive project that demonstrates a real-world use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Suggestions for new worksheets, suggestions of improvements to any of the worksheets, or contributions of new project worksheets, are all very welcome. Describe the glass Create a game in Scratch that learns when you describe a glass as half-full or half-empty.

Media Bias 101: The Difference Between News, Analysis, and Opinion Many media outlets do not properly label content. You can be easily deceived by media bias when you think you’re reading news, but are actually reading someone’s opinion or analysis. These guides can help you learn how to spot the difference.

Misinfo Nation - Internet Citizen In today’s media climate, it’s becoming harder and harder to tell what’s real and what isn’t. We’re bombarded daily with information — and misinformation — that’s trying to change the way we think about our government, our leaders, and even each other. Misinfo Nation, an Original Short Film from Mozilla We invite you to watch Mozilla’s original documentary short film, Misinfo Nation: Misinformation, Democracy, and the Internet.

What Is Fake News? - Fake News Websites You've definitely heard about fake news by now. There's a chance it's come up in class, around the dinner table with your family, or on Twitter. But the term may have left you wondering: WTF is fake news anyway? Section 2. Writing the Web: Hack the News Hack the News using X-Ray Goggles In the same pairs, if enough equipment is available, have the students open a modern web browser. Else, demonstrate on one computer and form small groups afterward so the students can try it on their own. Toolkit To spot bad and misleading information, ask yourself these three simple questions: Where’s it from? A trusted source is your safest option. If you don’t know the source, check out the about page or ask yourself why they’re sharing the story.

Inside Facebook, Twitter and Google's AI battle over your social lives When you sign up for Facebook on your phone, the app isn't just giving you the latest updates and photos from your friends and family. In the background, it's utilizing the phone's gyroscope to detect subtle movements that come from breathing. It's measuring how quickly you tap on the screen, and even looking at what angle the phone is being held. Sound creepy? These are just some of the ways that Facebook is verifying that you're actually human and not one of the tens of millions of bots attempting to invade the social network each day.

Fact Finder: Your Foolproof Guide to Media Literacy Are your students savvy searchers? Can they spot the difference between a straight news article and an opinion piece? Do they recognize bias in their sources … or in themselves? Tackle these challenges and more using Fact Finder’s 11 flexible, multimedia lesson plans. Eight skill-building lesson plans introduce essential media literacy concepts through engaging explainer videos and colorful infographics that help students revisit, retain and apply the key concepts. The accompanying News or Noise?

Primary lesson resources ChildNet 'Trust Me' lesson - introduction to extreme content online Trust Me by Childnet is a set of five lesson plans for primary and secondary schools that focus on counter-extremism, critical thinking skills and online safety. They are quality assured by The PSHE Association. Download this resource First News Education First News Education delivers tailored learning tools to develop children’s literacy skills at KS2 through the exploration of weekly worldwide news stories. Learn more The Guardian Education Centre: resources for teachers The Guardian Education Centre provides free resources and content for use in news literacy lessons.

How to Choose Your News How the media landscape has changed Media visionary Clay Shirky gave a TED Talk on how the media landscape has changed. “The moment we’re living through, the moment our historical generation is living through, is the largest increase in expressive capability in human history.” In other words, the amount of information we are capable of capturing is unprecedented. As a result, we need new techniques to filter through the information and need to work much harder than previous generation to better understand our world. Watch Clay Shirky’s fascinating media discussion on TED-Ed. SIFT (The Four Moves) So if long lists of things to think about only make things worse, how do we get better at sorting truth from fiction and everything in-between? Our solution is to give students and others a short list of things to do when looking at a source, and hook each of those things to one or two highly effective web techniques. We call the “things to do” moves and there are four of them: Stop The first move is the simplest. STOP reminds you of two things.

Everyone Has Invisible Bias. This Lesson Shows Students How to Recognize It. Last year, an English teacher at my school came to me with an all-too-common concern about an essay a student named Kyle had just turned in. The teacher’s 10th grade class had just finished op-ed essays on a topic of their choice, and Kyle had chosen to examine the economic impact of illegal immigration on the U.S. economy. But in his submitted draft every source in his bibliography—and I do mean every—leaned toward one political bias, and sometimes quite heavily.