Posted in digital life, evaluating news, fact-checking, information credibility, media literacy, parents and technology

7 Games & Simulations that Can Strengthen Fact-Checking Skills

7 fact checking games
Click to read about the games at the Poynter fact-checking newsletter.

Today everyone needs to get better at fact-checking –a critical digital world skill. Interestingly, as we parents and educators help young people learn to distinguish what is true from what is not, we quickly discover that many adults need as much or more practice than the kids.

Online games and simulation activities can help people supercharge their fact-checking and evaluation abilities and even have a bit of fun doing it. Recently the weekly Poynter fact-checking newsletter, Factually, featured a list of seven of these games that can help people fine-tune their content evaluation skills. While each of the games is different from the others, all of them aim to help individuals gain the confidence and competence to determine what is true and what is misinformation or disinformation. All can be good teaching tools.

I recently wrote a blog post about Factitious, a game that is included in Poynter’s list, but the other six games look like they have enormous potential when it comes to helping kids and adults practice and understand a lot more about the need to fact-check and how to go about it.

Posted in 21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, 21st Century vocabulary words, evaluating video, family conversations, media literacy, parents and technology

Building Habits of Video Evaluation into the Conversation & the Curriculum

Videos are everywhere on social media, but quite a few that we view on various sites are doctored and edited, often seeking to muck up the facts. Understanding how to evaluate and identify red flags in a video is now a critical 21st Century media literacy skill that everyone — parents, students, and educators — needs to acquire.

Recently the staff at Washington Post Fact Checker created a useful teaching and learning tool that can help all of us — young people and adults — understand more about today’s video landscape.

Seeing Isn't Believing
Click to visit the website as the Washington Post.

Seeing Isn’t Believing, the title of this guide to manipulated video, says it all. In today’s always- connected world, with people able to create and publish just about anything they want, we cannot always believe what we see in a video. Instead it’s necessary to take the time to evaluate — considering how the video is made, thinking about the purpose it serves, and looking closely to see if it has been doctored in some way.     Continue reading “Building Habits of Video Evaluation into the Conversation & the Curriculum”

Posted in evaluating news, media literacy, media literacy quiz, parents and technology

How Well Can You Identify News That’s Not True?

Screen Shot 2019-04-19 at 7.59.02 PMI am still having great fun with Factitiousa quiz that tests my ability to distinguish real news from the fake stuff. It’s a resource that can help individuals fine-tune their media literacy skills,  assisting them as they consider the truthfulness (or lack of truthfulness) of a news story.

I wrote about Factitious in June 2017, but recently I went back to the site and discovered that the game has expanded, with updated news for each year and a few more news evaluation levels. Last week I asked a group of friends play the game, and we all agreed it is a helpful teaching tool.     Continue reading “How Well Can You Identify News That’s Not True?”

Posted in digital citizenship, fact-checking, fake news, media literacy, parents and technology

What If We Just Stopped Using the Words FAKE NEWS?

screen-shot-2017-02-19-at-10-06-52-amTonight I looked at yet another post that yet another person labeled as Fake News (it wasn’t).  

What if we just stopped using the term fake news and gradually transitioned to other words? How much media literacy change would occur from this simple vocabulary adjustment?

  • Misinformation
  • Disinformation
  • Confirmed/Unconfirmed news
  • Authoritative news
  • Substantiated news
  • Verified or validated/unvalidated news
  • Corroborated news
  • Proven/Unproven news
  • Authenticated news
  • Reliable
  • Unambiguous news

Just wondering…

Posted in 21st Century Learning, digital learning resources, fact-checking, fake news, image evaluation, information credibility, media literacy

MediaWise: A Cool Initiative for Teens

describing-real-newsIf you are searching for an educational media literacy initiative that focuses on the mechanics of fact-checking, take a few minutes to learn about MediaWise, a project of the Poynter Institute.

Eighteen teenagers from around the United States are part of a MediaWise fact-checking network, learning about strategies and techniques that can help them identify misinformation. They participate in training that helps them understand how to determine what’s true and what’s not, and then the teens can set about investigating on their own. Finally, and this is the cool part, after the students decide whether the information is true or false, they create videos that illustrate the process they used to evaluate the information.

I’ve embedded two of the videos below.             Continue reading “MediaWise: A Cool Initiative for Teens”

Posted in 21st Century Learning, digital life, evaluating web site resources, media literacy, misinformation, vaccines

Ethan Lindenberger’s Senate Testimony: It’s About Evidence & Source Evaluation

Ethan Lindenberger grew up in an anti-vaccine (anti-vax) family, surrounded by misinformation, but at age 18 he decided to get his vaccinations despite his parents’ protests. He testified before the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on March 5, 2019, describing how anti-vax misinformation affected his life.

Ethan explained that as he grew older and learned to evaluate information, he began to understand and look for evidence-based information. He also told the Senators how social media had helped spread anti-vax materials.     Continue reading “Ethan Lindenberger’s Senate Testimony: It’s About Evidence & Source Evaluation”

Posted in 21st Century life, 21st Century teaching, American history, and media, digital learning, media literacy, museums, parents and technology

Video Tour of the Newseum’s News History Gallery

bill-of-rights-cropWatch this inside video tour (below) of the Newseum’s updated News History Gallery. The exhibit features 400-plus historical newspapers, newsbooks, and magazines —  documents that reported some of the greatest and most amazing news stories. You can visit the Newseum’s web site to explore some of the other exhibits without leaving your home or school.

After you watch the video, check out and sign up for NewseumEd, a site that is filled with ideas for teaching First Amendment and media literacy and with resources that can be easily downloaded. These are terrific connected world teaching tools that can be used in 21st Century classrooms.     Continue reading “Video Tour of the Newseum’s News History Gallery”