News and Media Literacy: Building Critical Consumers and Creators - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

News and Media Literacy: Building Critical Consumers and Creators

Jeff Mao • @jmao121 • August 22, 2017

Senior Strategic Education Outreach Manager Wonder Workshop

• Senior Director, Education
• Common Sense Education
• Recovering Bureaucrat
• Maine Dept, of Education
• IT Director, Classroom teacher, coach, dorm

parent

• Maine School Administrative District 60
• Allendale Columbia School
• Brewster Academy

Jeff Mao

@jmao121 jeff.mao@makewonder.com

• Prototyped and field-tested

15 assessments (middle school, high school, college)

• Analyzed 7,804 student

responses

• Focused on civic online

reasoning

Stanford History Education Group

https://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/V3LessonPlans/Executive%20Summary%2011.21.16.pdf

Can Middle School Students Differentiate Between Ads and Editorial Content?

Homepage Analysis

! 75% of students correctly identified traditional ad and the news story. ! 82% of students believe the native advertisement, identified by the words “sponsored content” was a real news story.

• Students even mentioned

that it was “sponsored content” but still believed it was an article.

https://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/V3LessonPlans/Executive%20Summary%2011.21.16.pdf

Can High School Students Determine Source and Legitimacy of Information?

Evaluating Evidence

!“Students across grade levels were captivated by the photograph and relied on it to evaluate the trustworthiness of the post.” !40% argued the post provided strong evidence of toxic conditions near the nuclear plant, even though no source

• r location was given for the

photo. !25% of students argued the post did not provide strong evidence (but only because it did not show other plants or animals that may have been affected by radiation)

https://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/V3LessonPlans/Executive%20Summary%2011.21.16.pdf

What Can We Do?

http://www.MediaEducationLab.com

• Consider a Browser Extension
• Use Fact Checking Sites
• Buy the Newspaper (online)?

First steps

Center for Media Literacy

Five Key Questions Form Foundation for Media Inquiry

Core Concepts Key Questions Authorship All media messages are “constructed.” Who created this message? Format Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules. What creative techniques are used to attract my attention? Audience Different people experience the same media message differently. How might different people understand this message differently from me? Content Media have embedded values and points of view. What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message? Purpose Most media are organized to gain profit and/or power. Why is this message being sent? http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/five-key-questions-form-foundation-media-inquiry

Center for News Literacy

Five Key Nuances of News Literacy

http://www.centerfornewsliteracy.org/what-is-news-literacy/

! Recognize the difference between journalism and other kinds

• f information and between journalists and other information

purveyors; ! In the context of journalism, recognize the difference between news and opinion; ! In the context of news stories, analyze the difference between assertion and verification and between evidence and inference; ! Evaluate and deconstruct news reports across all news media platforms, based on the quality of evidence presented and the reliability of sources; ! Distinguish between news media bias and audience bias.

4 Tips!!

Tip #1

• Model and encourage

“lateral reading”

• Think like a Fact

Checker

• Read about the story
• r issue from multiple

sources

• Rather than trust the

“about” section of the site, research the org and author

Tip #2

• Teach about how the

system works, not just how to use the system

• How search rankings

work (not based on trustworthiness)

• Spotting online ads &

sponsored content

• Search algorithms
• Filter bubbles > Echo

chambers

Tip #3

• Encourage

students to think like reporters and create their own news.

• To be a critical

consumer, one must also be a creator

Tip #4

• Weave in

information literacy, media literacy, and news literacy into the curriculum.

• Common Sense

provides teaching and curricular resources (free)!

https://www.commonsense.org/education/toolkit/news-and-media-literacy

News & Media Literacy Toolkit

Common Sense Education

https://www.commonsense.org/education/toolkit/news-and-media-literacy

https://www.commonsense.org/education/teaching-strategies/turn-students-into-fact-finding-web-detectives

Teaching Strategies: Curated resources to support educators

• Articles
• Videos
• Posters
• Research

Additional Resources

Organizations / Sites Detecting Fake News

National Assoc. for Media Literacy Education How to Spot Fake News - Factcheck.org, 2016 News Literacy Project 10 Ways to Spot a Fake News Article Easy Bib, 2017 Center for News Literacy Fake Or Real? How To Self-Check the News and Get the Facts NPR, 2016 SchoolJournalism.org The Smell Test: Educators can Counter Fake News School Library Journal, 2017 The Lamp Can You Spot the Fake US Election News Stories? The Guardian, 2016 (QUIZ) Project Look Sharp In an Age of Fake News, Teaching Media Literacy + Quiz Providence Journal, 2016 Media Literacy Now A News Literacy Toolkit for a “Post-Truth” World School Library Journal, 2016 Mind over Media - Analyzing Contemporary Propaganda

PolitiFact's guide to fake news websites and what they peddle

List of known Fake News sites https://studentreportinglabs.org/

Digital Tools

PolitiFact.com FactCheck.org Snopes.com Tribeworthy Common Sense Education Fake News Alert | Stackup | This is Fake - Chrome Extensions

Jeff Mao @jmao121 jeff.mao@makewonder.com