Category: media literacy

Posted in 21st Century Learning, credibility, digital life, evaluating news, fake news, media literacy, media messages, parents and technology

Teach Students to Use Words Other Than Fake!

Posted on by Marti Weston

screen-shot-2017-02-19-at-10-06-52-amFake is a generic term. It means one thing to one person and another thing to someone else. Anyone can say that something is fake or made up.

More descriptive words make it more difficult to label information that is untrue, and easier to challenge. We — kids, adults, parents, and teachers — need all the help we can get in this 21st Century connected world when it comes to evaluating credibility

My ideas?

  • Confirmed news
  • Authoritative news
  • Substantiated news
  • Verified or validated news
  • Corroborated news
  • Proven news
  • Authenticated news
  • Reliable news
  • Credible news
  • Unambiguous news

Teaching our children and all citizens to check for credibility, evaluate, and celebrate substantiated news has become more urgent In today’s hyper-connected world. Read my more detailed post on this topic.

Posted in 21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, evaluating news, media literacy, news literacy, parents and technology

The News User Manual — A Great New MediaLit Teaching Tool

Posted on by Marti Weston
Visit the The News User Manual website.
Visit The News User Manual website.

If you have not discovered The News User Manual as a media and news literacy resource for 21st Century digital kids and yes, even for their parents, do check out the website.

Started by two seasoned broadcast journalists, Jim Kane and Rich Nagle, The News User Manual features ongoing podcast conversations (sometimes we call them casts) that encourage individuals to ask questions, think about, evaluate, gain an understanding of, and develop personal news curating skills. The News User Manual’s mission encourages listeners to ask lots of questions about the news. In one cast they comment:

The thing to remember is to neither believe nor disbelieve what you’re reading, hearing or watching online. Rather, ask yourself how, when, why and where it was reaching you.

How, when, why, and where — media literacy at it’s best!

Continue reading “The News User Manual — A Great New MediaLit Teaching Tool” →

Posted in connected world problems, digital kids, digital life, digital literacy, media literacy, media messages, parents and technology

Media Literacy Educators Are Not Responsible for Society’s Digital Problems

Posted on by Marti Weston

screen-shot-2017-01-11-at-10-39-42-pmThe Media Literacy community is dedicated and passionate about its work — but not according to danah boyd (yes she spells her name this way).

I’ve just read her article, Did Media Literacy Backfire? and honestly, I am puzzled. Boyd aptly describes today’s problems with unsubstantiated information and dramatic cultural divides, but she goes on to blame media literacy.

Medialit has no causal relationship with the cultural issues that divide us. In fact, if there is any connection between today’s digital information and cultural communication problems it’s that we don’t have nearly enough school literacy programs to help all students learn how to deconstruct and consume media.

Continue reading “Media Literacy Educators Are Not Responsible for Society’s Digital Problems” →

Posted in 21st Century Learning, 21st Century life, evaluating news, media literacy, news, parents and technology

Can We Stop Using the Word Fake to Describe Made Up News?

Posted on by Marti Weston

describing-real-newsFake is a generic term. We don’t use it much when we teach — in any subject — because it’s judgmental and doesn’t tell us much about whatever it’s supposed to be characterizing. Besides, anyone can say that something — anything — is fake or made up.

So let’s not use fake to describe the news.

I recently read The Fight Against Fake News Starts in the Classroom, an article that describes media literacy lessons developed by Project Look Smart (at Ithaca College) and the principles of evaluating, deconstructing, and applying unambiguous descriptions to the news. The literacy lessons aim to help students gain more understanding of the practice of media evaluation and inquiry rather than simply designating something as true or false. When I finished reading the article and look over the wonderful teaching units, I realized that every lesson can be completed without focusing much, or at all on the word fake.         Continue reading “Can We Stop Using the Word Fake to Describe Made Up News?” →

Posted in 21st Century parenting, 21st Century teaching, digital learning, fake news, media literacy, parents and technology

Video Visually Demonstrates Sharing Fake News vs. Checking It First

Posted on by Marti Weston

A media company in Sweden, MetroSverige, shared this excellent video visualization that depicts the differences between checking on the validity of a piece of news and just sharing it without pausing to consider whether it or not it is fake news.

Posted in data collecting, media literacy, media messages, parents and technology, searching

Your News, My News – Do We Get the Same Views?

Posted on by Marti Weston

screen-shot-2016-12-07-at-10-24-28-amAccording to a video shared by the DuckDuckGo website, when we  search for information on Google each of us can get slightly different, or sometimes enormously different results – even if we use the exact search terms in the exact order and at about the same time. DuckDuckGo, a search engine that emphasizes privacy, is a Google competitor.

The order of Google’s results may guided by what it knows about the individual who is doing the search. (Check out Ghostery to identify trackers on any or all of your pages.)

Collected information – including any previous searches, where we live, what we read, where we get our news, what we purchase, how much we travel, and much more can affect what we see in the results. I never thought about this much, but I do remember how a few years ago a group of my middle school students were searching on Google for information, and I noticed and was puzzled that similar searches sometimes generated lists of slightly different results. Continue reading “Your News, My News – Do We Get the Same Views?” →

Posted in 21st Century Learning, 21st Century life, credibility, evaluating news, evaluating web site resources, fake news, information credibility, media literacy, parents and technology

Real or Fake? How to Check Yourself

Posted on by Marti Weston

img_7661If you think a lot about fake news these days, and if you aim to help your students or family members develop the ability to effectively evaluate and decide what’s real and what’s not, National Public Radio (NPR) just published an excellent article, Fake or Real? How to Self-Check the News and Get the Facts. This piece highlights six steps that individuals can use to judge the stories they encounter, and the article includes a detailed description about how to go about following through with each step.

The entire NPR post, which is chock full of helpful information, will be a useful teaching tool for anyone who wants to gauge a news item’s authenticity, and the six basic steps are easy to master. Post the list near computers, on the refrigerator, and in rooms where family members use digital devices and on digital devices’ note pads.

News Evaluation Steps from National Public Radio (Read the article for lots more detail.) Continue reading “Real or Fake? How to Check Yourself” →