Digital Literacy in the Library

My 7th graders love this lesson. When they take notes, I tell them to leave space for a title, which they will come up with after the presentation. I'm constantly mixing things up on this lesson (just added the EasyBib Website Evaluator link after a co-worker in my district found it during a library conference this week.) Today one class was very focused on the fake news slide, so I had them come up with a clickbait headline for their notes. It certainly generated more conversation than when I asked for a title! 

Most classes go to the computers after the presentation and look at Media Bias Fact Check to choose two news sources that are far right and far left, then compare stories on similar topics. If I have time, I let students work in pairs, so each student reads one article, takes notes and summarizes. I ask them to focus on word choice, since often the only difference in the articles are the adjectives used. 

I added detailed notes at the bottom of the slides. Feel free to make a copy and use, share or modify.

This episode of the series might need a little editing for middle school (I had divided opinions from teachers about the use of the "BS" abbreviation) but I think the GLAD acronym is a good one to use along with the points in the On the Media handbook . I subscribed to the Above the Noise YouTube channel and look forward to seeing more episodes.

I listened to this story on the way home from work, and smiled all the way. A ray of hope in this era of alternative facts. 

I did a quick presentation for 6th graders on website evaluation. The link is the the Slides. I have added some notes on each slide to give a better idea of what I'm telling students. Here's a link to the bookmark I give them. I couldn't fit both "Appropriate" and "Accurate" on it, but most 6th graders at our school keep a JAR (Journal of Academic Research) so they paste the bookmark in their JAR and take notes next to it. 

I also have students look at other sites and analyze in small groups, using what they learned in the presentation. Interestingly, I just spent the day at the local university learning from the librarians there about how they present research to freshman. One of the librarians mentioned she doesn't like the CRAP acronym because she doesn't want students to think currency is most important. So I will be sure to stress that to students. Could be a good discussion question for them, too!

There's a link in this article to the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education from the Association of College and Research Libraries. Barclay notes that, "This new approach asks students to put in the time and effort required to determine the credibility and appropriateness of each information source for the use to which they intend to put it." If we in the primary and secondary libraries haven't educated students on how to do this, I don't think they'll have the mental stamina to do it in college! This makes me even more excited about the workshop our local state university is offering to get secondary library staff to understand what info literacy skills college students need, and to design collaborative lessons to help our students strengthen (or build) those skills.

Mica shares some ideas you can adopt in your library. Our role is always changing, so I was immediately intrigued by Mica's suggestion to shift from "website evaluation" to "resource evaluation." After all, so much of the information we're evaluating doesn't come from a website anymore--think of memes, shared items on social media, etc. It would be interesting to have students analyze a week of their "news" exposure to see how much of it comes from traditional sources such as The New York Times compared to social media, etc. 

I am aware I am sharing this without doing the deep reading and reflection that the article calls for (I will go back and read again later when I have uninterrupted time) but I wanted to save and share it now.

Kris gives some examples of the insidious nature of misinformation, of the need for better "crap detection", and some thoughtful guidelines for how to combat the false information being spread. What jumped out at me was his recommendation to thoughtfully curate resources that provide accurate information and keep them visible in the social media stream. This is something librarians should excel at, right? I feel that responsibility more than ever!

And speaking of curation, thanks to School Library Connection for reposting this article from Joyce Valenza. If you don't curate, Joyce thoughtfully outlines why you should!

There are some good resources here. While I think the We the Voters video might be too intense for my 6th graders, I would love to use the "New Media Literacies" video with 7th graders.  Students could explore the terms the narrators list to describe what's involved in being media literate-- judgment, negotiation, appropriation, play, etc.--and create examples to foster understanding for other students (and staff!)

I wish that media literacy was embedded in our curriculum. I work with a few teachers who address it, but it's such a critical skill that every subject area teacher could find a way to work it into their classroom. Addressing it once a month in the library is not enough!

Frank speaks about calling out the fake news by challenging the sender of the message. I would love to discuss that with students to come up with wording that would both make clear the fake news is just that AND not put the sender on the defensive. My approach, of sharing a link to Snopes or another site that refutes the fake news, has not been well received. I've been told I should share the correction privately. I get that no one likes to be corrected publicly, but so few people post corrections, or even delete the fake news. (Of course, this man tried to fix his mistake, but again, a retraction in social media was far too late to stop the damage.) I'd be very interested to hear how students would approach this!

There's a lot to dig into here. I'm not sure most students are aware of bots or of buying followers, which is a good place to start. When I talk about digital citizenship, I always address cyberbullying. I emphasize that being an upstander by making a comment of support to the person being bullied, or by merely commenting that the bully is being unkind, can go a long way. Now, here is some statistical proof of that, with some caveats. It would be interesting to hear students' take on what "sharing a social identity" means to them. Thanks to Diane Main, @Dowbiggin on Twitter for sharing this.

The irony of spending the week of the election presenting to my 6th graders on digital citizenship and digital literacy did not escape me. That slide on how cyberbullying can destroy relationships? Or the one on keeping your language clean online because you're creating a digital tattoo? It all seems so quaint now. David Tollerton reflects on this post-election effect as he begins grading his university students' essays.

Tollerton writes about how both the presidential and Brexit campaigns were based on emotion and the ignorance of facts. As I've worked with students doing research and writing essays, I've tried to help them focus on proving their arguments with reputable sources. One of the things I like most about Common Core is that emphasis on text-based evidence. If Common Core is one of the many things the Trump administration tosses overboard, I hope that at least some states continue to teach the importance of facts, expertise, research, etc. Because right now, reality really does bite.

Teaching students to apply critical thinking skills across the curriculum is exactly what we do in the library! It's great to see research that supports what we do every day.

I just finished a lesson on hoax websites, using the Save the Guinea Worm site as an introduction. I think next year I may use some pseudoscience sites instead. After all, the Carter Center just declared that as of January 2017, there are no cases of dracunculiasis in the world! There are lots of good ideas in Tom's article to get me started.

I found this via Lee Watanabe Crockett's post, but wanted to share Samantha Lile's full version. Lately I've been focused on students as consumers of digital information. It's important to remember they will be--indeed, they already are--creators of digital information, too! 

We'll be doing a digital storytelling project later this year, so I'll be sharing these tips with our student authors. 

Advice on fake news written to a teen audience. I like how Colglazier compares fake news to high school rumors and think it would be a good comparison to share with students. How about getting them to write their own pledge of allegiance to be more critical thinkers?

I've been presenting the Staten Island Ferry Disaster and the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus to 6th graders (Octopi: Heartless Killer or Adorable and Endangered?) I will be adding some points from this article in our discussion.

Be sure to click on the report to see the rewritten terms and conditions. Do your students understand all their DMs are mined by Instagram (and do they care?) 

An interesting site to explore with students. It works best when you can compare a claim and fact check as one data set. When I looked at the claim and fact check on "Obama signs Christmas bill making alternative media illegal," the data showed how the claim appeared and was shared for two days before any fact checking was shared. That alone could be a great discussion point for students. Share the quote often attributed to Winston Churchill: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on," or the updated versions in this New York Times headline: "A Lie Races Across Twitter Before the Truth Can Boot Up." (And that four year old article is also a fine one to add to your fake news discussion!)

Things that stood out for me:

• While the idea of an extension or plug-in that would flag fake news is appealing, Leetaru notes that fake news is "not black and white, it is a hundred shades of gray." The emotional language and the political disposition of the reader both play a part in the interpretation of fake news. (Although I'm still not clear how one can "interpret" facts differently, I get that two people could have different conclusions based on those facts.)
• Leetaru's idea of a 3D graph to analyze coverage of a topic is intriguing, and easily adaptable for a class project. Looking at an organization's coverage of a topic and determining, on average, how positive or negative it is, how often (and in what detail) the topic is covered, and finally how emotionally charged the coverage is could be a fascinating project in a middle or high school classroom.  I'd love to tie this to the project we did with 7th grade science classes on using social media to sway public opinion on environmental issues.(And this year, I'd love to explore developing bots for that!) This all would be a great tie-in for anyone using Paul Fleischman's Eyes Wide Open book and website. 

Why can't we just do an entire semester on this topic? Every day I find more articles about fake news, post-truth, social media, etc. that I want to share with students. This election cycle should wake us up to the fact that so many of us--adults, not just students--are simply illiterate when it comes to media. It is such a critical role for librarians!

I don't think the results would be much different if we asked adults to complete the survey! I still remember this post because I was so shocked that adults gave credence to comments on an article about vaccines because they assumed the person commenting must know something about the topic if they took the time to say something!

And why can't "increased instruction in basic reading and math skills" include media literacy? The focus on text-based evidence and informational text in the Common Core lends itself to finding credible sources, determining bias, etc., which is the very core of becoming media literate. Teaching media literacy shouldn't be a stand-alone topic: critical thinking should imbue every subject area.

This is a great timeline to share with students, and a reminder that once you post something on social media, you no longer control the narrative.