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digital citizenship week
CybersecurityDigital Literacy

It’s Digital Citizenship Week

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

Civics classes can help students learn their rights, privileges, and duties as a part of a larger society. For that reason, we include civics in most education programs. But today, being a positive part of society includes not only our words, actions, and behaviors in “the real world” — but those online as well.

Helping anyone, including students, understand the potential and potential dangers of the online world can be tough. Luckily, many are working on spreading awareness of what it takes to be a good digital citizen.

Defining Digital Citizenship

It’s all about staying safe while staying connected and understanding the realities of the digital world that we spend so much of our time in. Being aware of one’s actions online is a lot like our behavior in face-to-face society. That is, a good citizen should also be a good digital citizen.

With so many aspects of our lives online — no less now because of restrictions to gatherings — from banking to schooling, it’s important to consider our digital behaviors, and for educators to help learners understand the potential and potential pitfalls of the connected life.

Here’s a simple, memorable definition:

“The quality of habits, actions, and consumption patterns that impact the ecology of digital content and communities.”

Terry Heick, https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/the-definition-of-digital-citzenship/

Virtual Library offers this definition: 

Digital citizenship can be defined as engaging in appropriate and responsible behaviour when using technology.

It encompasses digital literacy, ethics, etiquette, online safety, norms, rights, culture and more.

A digital citizen is one who knows what is right and wrong, exhibits intelligent technology behavior, and makes good choices when using technology.

https://www.virtuallibrary.info/digital-citizenship.html

Good digital literacy could include using strong passwords and password managers, understanding our personal online “brand,” and ensuring that our actions and words online are safe and secure, and that privacy is maintained, especially for students. 

Defining the Event

Digital Citizenship Week is designed to promote awareness of sound digital literacy habits and inspire best practices in organizations and individuals. That means sharing ways to interact safely online. This year, it is observed October 19–23. 

Common Sense Education is sharing events you can take part in to better understand your role as a good digital citizen.

  • Digital Citizenship and Supporting Young People’s Lives Online (RSVP)
  • Helping Kids Use Social Media Responsibly: An Educator’s Guide to “Social Media TestDrive” (RSVP)
  • Workshop for Educators: Digital Citizenship and Supporting Young People’s Lives Online (RSVP)
  • And more!

You can also check out a planning calendar, activities organized by age and grade, and many other resources. 

More from TechNotes

Looking for more ways to understand this topic, and inform your students (and staff, educators, and families) about staying smart online? Check out more digital literacy resources from TCEA below, and don’t forget to share your ideas in the comments!

More Digital Citizenship Week Links

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Digital LiteracyWriting

Email Writing for Students

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Most of us have been using email for a large portion of our lives. So it’s natural to assume that everyone knows how to send a “good” email. But that’s definitely not true, especially for students. Just like any other skill, learning to send a meaningful, accurate, and polite email must be taught. Let’s look at how we as educators can do that.

Age-Appropriate Email Strategies

Depending on the age of the student, the following tips are appropriate (from the article Email Etiquette for Students):

Elementary School:

  • Using proper sentence structure
  • Spell checking
  • Privacy for both the student and the recipient(s)

Middle School:

  • Thinking before clicking Send
  • What to share and what not to share
  • Basic courtesies in email and texting

High School:

  • When to email or text and when not to
  • Not all communications should be emoji or acronym based
  • How to clearly communicate with you mean

College:

  • How grammar and approach can leave an impression
  • How to use email for employment opportunities
  • Portraying a serious intent and professional tone

Start with the Basics of Writing an Email

As a former English teacher, I would begin helping students learn about emails by discussing that writing an email is a different type of writing than, say, writing a text message or a legal document or a joke. There are certain ways that it should be done. Then I would show them this easy-to-understand infographic.

The five steps above, if followed, would result in a polite, informative, email that is a call to action to resolve some problem or question. (Please note that, while this is formulaic writing, something I don’t normally believe in, I do feel that it would work well as an introduction to students on the art of composing an email. Once they’ve mastered it, they can branch off on their own more.)

I would go over this with the students and then pull up several example emails that I had created previously, having the whole class talk through how they could be improved. For each email, I would ask the students, sometimes in pair, sometimes alone, to think through the five steps to see if there were changes in any of them that needed to be made. For me, I would use these as my examples in this order (from simple to more complex):

  • An email with no greeting or closing
  • An email that doesn’t state the problem or question
  • An email that has too long or too short a subject line

Next, ask students what information they think would need to be added to the five steps to help a busy teacher. (Perhaps the class period of the student?) I would then talk about voice in writing and how, since this email is going to their teacher and not a friend, it needs to be grammatically correct. That’s a good time to show them the spell checker and how to use it. This is also a great time to show them how to create their own signature for an email, even several (one for more formal messages and also an informal one for their friends or family).

Finally, I would ask students when sending an email may not be a good idea. I would hope they would come up with when they are angry or when it’s an urgent matter that really needs a face-to-face (or Zoom to Zoom) discussion. They might also say that a student shouldn’t send an email if he/she can just ask the teacher the next day (for something minor).

Putting It into Practice

Before turning your students loose with email, it would be good to have them practice first. Here are two different ways to do that (taken from Classroom Activities: Email).

Class Email

Foster new friendships and help students practice their reading and writing skills. Pair students up in the classroom (or with students in other classrooms) and have them exchange email addresses. Ask one to write a message to the other and start an email change. You may want them to write about a specific topic, such as a response to an issue or a piece of writing, or you may want them to just share what happened that day. Once your students are comfortable with this, they could become e-pen pals with students in another city, state, or country!

Community Leaders

Many government and community leaders, such as the mayor, governor, and even President of the United States, have email addresses that people can write to and share their thoughts. Discuss different issues in the community with your students. What can be changed? What seems unfair? What issues should leaders be working on or improving? Brainstorm different ideas and then have students write emails to their community or government leaders. Remind them that in formal messages, they should refrain from abbreviations and emoticons.

Writing an Email Resources

To help your students learn more about the art of email creation, here are a few good resources:

An Additional Resource

Thanks to Lindsay Foster from Gainsville ISD who created two wonderful infographics to share with GISD students from the information in this blog. One of them is in English and the other is in Spanish. Perhaps you could use these as a starting point for an infographic for your students!

writing an email

*This blog post was updated with new content on August 19, 2021.

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news literacy
Digital LiteracyGood Teaching

Digital Tools for News Literacy

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

Today, we have more sources of information, more ways to access that information, and more knowledge in general than probably any other time in history. This large amount of information, however, can be tough to understand. It can be hard to judge news sources, analyze data, and do it all in rapidly changing circumstances.

That’s why digital literacy, and news literacy in particular, are crucial skills for all people, and a vital piece of preparing and educating students.

What Is News Literacy?

Understanding how journalists work and hows news is reported has always been an important skill for an engaged and informed populous. But the digital age poses new opportunities — and new challenges. As Richard Hornik of the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University outlines:

The Digital Age poses four serious information literacy challenges for civil society:

1) The amount of information we are flooded with daily makes it difficult to sort out what’s reliable.

2) New technologies to create and share information make it easy to create content that only appears authoritative and then to spread it virally.

4) The conflict between speed and accuracy has been exacerbated by Digital Age demands for delivering information as fast as possible, but accelerating that process increases the chance it will be wrong.

4) Humans prefer information that supports our beliefs, and the Internet and social media make it much easier for us to select only the information that supports our ideas, reinforcing rather than challenging them.

Richard Hornik, “Why News Literacy Matters, A NEW LITERACY FOR CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE 21st CENTURY”

News literacy is meant to combat these challenges. Teaching students how to read, judge, analyze, and make decisions based on new media “teaches students to think for themselves, seek out credible information and sources, look the world full in the face and not turn away from what might make them uncomfortable,” according to the News Literacy Project, a nonprofit that provides resources for educators.

Timely Tools

In recent years, digital tools have been developed to help teach and assess students’ ability to judge sources and tell fact from fiction (or simply exaggeration or inaccuracy).

Checkology, from the News Literacy Project, is a popular tool for teaching the subject. Complete with lessons, games, and practice exercises that students can pursue in independent learning, asynchronous environments, and anywhere they can access the browser-based and tablet-compatible product. It even comes with emoji-filled discussion boards, Spanish language translation, and more.

Learn more about Checkology here and here. You can also access the News Literacy Project’s newsletter, The Sift, here.

New Options with Newslea

Ed tech company Newslea has developed content libraries that focus on delivering news and information from vetted sources for students and teachers, with editions that focus on ELA, social studies, science, as well as Essentials, which has a cross-curricular focus. They’ve recently added Newslea SEL, to create and curate content meant to develop social-emotional learning.

Newslea can automatically differentiate texts based on reading level, and comes with reading comprehension quizzes, annotation tools, and writing prompts, as well as various collections and lessons. The Text Sets feature offers “thematically curated texts as well as lesson plans and activities that can give students a more holistic picture of a topic.”

The News Never Stops

Of course, there are many other sources, tools, and articles to help you expand and improve your teaching around news and media literacy. Here are some useful links from around the ed tech web:

More from TCEA

Photo by Sollok29 via Wikimedia Commons.

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typosquatting
CybersecurityTechnical Support

Are You a Victim of Typosquatting?

by Dr. Bruce Ellis
written by Dr. Bruce Ellis
Image of mysterious hacker

Educators have made great strides in teaching digital citizenship to students. Many students now know the value of a strong password (that is, not shared with anyone), common phishing scams via email, and even how to spot fake news sites.

But few students realize that if they misspell a website URL, they may end up at a site that is more than they’ve bargained for.

Cybercriminals have figured out how to scam folks, even those who are trying to do all the right things. It’s likely that this has happened to you or someone you know. You type in the URL and hit Enter, not realizing that you made a small typo in the address. But you end up at the intended site, or so it seems, so you don’t catch your error.

Little do you know that those criminals have planned for your typo and created a mock site at which they hope to solicit personal information from you and/or gladly share malware with your system. The term given to this type of nefarious activity is typosquatting; you may have also heard of it by other names such as URL hijacking or cybersquatting.

To counter this, many retailers purchase misspellings of their own URL and have it automatically direct users to the intended URL. Those retailers who aren’t quite so savvy, or slow to purchase the misspelled domains however, may find that the criminals are getting free traffic each time a user accidentally makes that typo.

For example, Google’s main site is http://www.google.com. But they also have these other domains that, if you type, will automatically direct you to the correct page: gooogle.com (notice the additional “o”), googel.com (it should be “le”), and gogle.com (oops! an “o” is missing).

Strategies to Lessen the Likelihood of Being a Victim

Check Your Spelling

If you are typing the URL in the search box, be sure that you are typing the address accurately. Just a small typo can land you on a website that can be nefarious and damaging to your computer. If you have ended up at a typosquatting website, check to see if your browser allows you to block specific websites. If so, add the site to your list to prevent the mistake from happening again.

If you aren’t sure if your browser has this feature, check out Computer Hope’s post; you’ll find a variety of ways to block the website to protect you and others that may share your computer.

Verify Before You Click

If you are clicking on a link, be sure to check the spelling of the domain before clicking on the link. It is very easy to read what we think something says instead of what it really says, like the word puzzles that have “the the” in the sentence, but our minds only read it as one “the.”

If the URL is in a hyperlink in which the text is different than the URL, mouse over the hyperlinked text; you should notice the URL appear (typically in the bottom left of your browser). Paying attention to this can greatly reduce the chances that your computer is compromised by hackers who are creative enough to use typosquatting as one of their strategies.

Educate Your Users

If you are in a position that supports users and manages the network at your district, it is important to provide clear instruction and education to your employees. Though you probably already have SPF and DKIM included in your DNS and are utilizing anti-spoofing technology, don’t underestimate the creativity of hackers. After providing adequate training, make use of designated emails to catch those who are employing the strategies. All it takes is one user to infect their machine, which can then quickly spread to other users.

This education isn’t just limited to adult users. It is important for students to have appropriate information included as part of their digital citizenship curriculum. Also, it may be helpful (and appreciated) if basic information and strategies are shared with parents.

Are You Already a Victim of Typosquatting?

If you think you’ve been a victim, contact your information technology department. They can guide you in current strategies that are being used in the district, as well as specific recommendations for trusted browsers and possible browser extensions to use. They can also help make sure that your antivirus software is installed correctly and updates regularly without any effort on your part.

At TCEA, we want you to be safe as you surf the internet. For more information on how you can stay safe, check out our other posts related to cybersecurity, such as Five Cybersecurity Tips for Newbies and How to Adopt a Security Mindset, at https://blog.tcea.org/category/cybersecurity.

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digital citizenship
Digital Literacy

Celebrating Digital Citizenship Week with Powerful Resources

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

Digital citizens are critical thinkers. They carefully weigh evidence and sources and come to informed conclusions about what they encounter online. They are digitally literate, that is, they use information technology effectively and in ways that empower them to be lifelong learners. Creating an informed citizenry, one that can skillfully use ubiquitous and evolving tech tools, is a central goal of education, and the primary goal of digital citizenship.

What’s more, a good digital citizen is safe online. As we increasingly live our lives through connected devices, understanding the smartest and safest ways to use them, and the networks they run on, is vital to ensuring that students are well-prepared for life outside of school.

A Week of Celebration

Spreading awareness of these benefits is the purpose of Digital Citizenship Week, October 14–18, 2019.

Education nonprofit Common Sense describes the week as an opportunity to “amplify your students’ voices and give them ownership of their digital lives.” It’s a skill that today’s students will need not just in the future, but today. Want to bring digital citizenship into your classroom? Below are some resources that might help.

Digital Resources for a Digital World

  • Common Sense, mentioned above, offers a number of videos paired with lesson plans for elementary, middle, and secondary grades on a variety of digital citizenship and literacy topics. Best of all? You have access once you create a free account. Need resources in Spanish? They’ve got you covered.
  • Nearpod offers starter-pack lesson plans for K-12. Once you teach them, you can receive a limited edition Nearpod badge to use in your classroom or email signature. And they have day-by-day activities recommended, too.
  • For a day-by-day outline of digital citizenship, check out this post from curriculum developer AES Education. Written for last year’s commemoration, this piece lays out a progressive understanding of the topic, one day at a time.
  • If you’re willing to go the route of resources available for purchase, ISTE’s Digital Citizenship in Action, Empowering Students to Engage in Online Communities, written by high school librarian Kristen Mattson, is all about flipping old practices on their head. Instead of teaching what not to do, she explores what action students can take to be good digital citizens.
  • Those looking to dig into more detailed topics might want to explore the educator tools at DigitalLiteracy.gov, a joint project of ten federal agencies. Notably, the site’s powerful search and filtering function lets you find the right tool based on your interest.
  • Digizen, as the name implies, is a website all about digital citizenship, with pages specifically designed for teachers, parents, and students.
  • Be sure to scroll through Cyberwise’s massive trove of digital resources on the subject.
  • Find out what the fandom around the incredibly popular Korean pop band BTS can tell us about digital citizenship.

Photo: Tim Gouw

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filter bubble
Digital LiteracyLibraries

Research in the Age of the Filter Bubble

by Heather Lister, Guest Author
written by Heather Lister, Guest Author

We live in a personalized world. Everything from the music we listen to, the firmness of our mattresses, and the news briefings delivered to us online, it’s all personalized and tailored to our preferences. And who wouldn’t want to listen to a radio station that only plays music they like? Advances in technology have allowed companies to give a custom experience to each of its users — and those users include the students in our classrooms.

A Custom World

As educators, we typically hear the term “customized” or “personalized” in a positive light. Yet when seeking information, those customizations can actually translate to bias and ignorance. It’s what Eli Pariser termed the “filter bubble,” the algorithms used to provide targeted search results and tailored news feeds are creating a distorted and divided reality by only revealing one side of the story — the side you want to see.

Websites use massive amounts of data to create an experience that we’re more likely to engage and interact with. This data is often collected by “trackers” that exist on numerous websites. Google trackers can be found on the top 75% of the top million websites. These trackers do just what they say they do; they track. They track everything from the time you spend on a site to the type of computer you’re using to the time you typically wake up in the morning. All of this somewhat personal data is gathered and used without us being aware we’re even providing it. So for those of us that think we do a pretty good job of keeping our online lives private, unfortunately our actions and behaviors online can tell companies just as much, if not more, information about our lives. 

For professionals dedicated to helping others search for facts and uncover the truth, this is obviously problematic.

Escaping the Bubble

Sadly, escaping this bubble is nearly impossible. Even methods that give the appearance of removing this bubble and putting the user in control of their data do very little. For example, private browsing such as Google’s “Incognito Mode” only prevents your browser history from being recorded on your computer and does not offer any additional protection such as preventing the websites you visit from collecting your information (e.g. your searches on a search engine). According to an engineer at Google, even when logged out, Google is still able to use 57 points of data to tailor your experience. Facebook’s privacy settings allow you to opt-out of seeing targeted ads, but they don’t stop the collection of data in the first place. This data and more is following us across the web, with vast implications.

So if the filter bubble is an issue, but there isn’t really a way to “pop” it, what do we do?

For better or for worse, customization is only going to get more precise and have a further reach. But unless you’re willing to go completely off the grid, we’re going to have to address this issue. This means taking a different approach to research and doing a better job of teaching students how the Internet actually works. 

A Different Approach

For starters, if you’re giving students a list of “pre-approved” websites or databases, stop (for two reasons). First, by hand picking resources for students, we are robbing them of the opportunity to navigate the resources themselves. They aren’t always going to have someone there to hand pick articles for them and tell them whether they are credible or not. It’s a skill they need to develop themselves, and what better time to practice that skill than when in school? Second, there is no such thing as a 100% credible site. Even databases curate resources from the open web, so directing students to databases is a flawed practice as well. Several sites and authors that were once considered “trustworthy” and “academic” have been called into question due to bias, misinformation, or misrepresentation. 

Additionally, students (and our colleagues) need to understand the existence of a filter bubble. They need to understand how companies are using data to tailor the results on nearly every site we visit. They need to understand that while their search results may have produced hundreds of “great” results, there are millions of other results they aren’t seeing. When we have students evaluate websites, encourage them to not only focus on what is in the article, but also what isn’t in the article. What perspectives are missing? What isn’t being discussed? Who wasn’t a part of the discussion?

Useful Resources

While librarians can be champions of this effort, it cannot be addressed by us alone. This is a societal issue and one that needs tackling by the community at large. While still limited, here are some resources to help teachers and librarians in this effort:

Checkology and The Sift from The News Literacy Project

Checkology is an online suite of tools aimed at making students better users of information. With lessons on algorithms, bias, identifying hoaxes, and more, it’s a comprehensive platform for addressing the many facets of media literacy. The Sift is a newsletter that shares current teachable news stories regarding misinformation, hoaxes, and other viral content.

Harvard’s Project Implicit

This resource includes a series of assessments aimed at identifying thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control. This is a great tool for your older students or your staff to help become more self aware of the biases they may have. 

Mozilla’s Teach the Web and Google’s Be Internet Awesome

Both organizations have an education branch focused on teaching how the web works. Yes, I recognize the irony, but they both have some excellent resources and activities. 

Choose Privacy Everyday from ALA

Each year, ALA and other organizations celebrate #chooseprivacy week in May. This website hosts resources to promote privacy and confidentiality year-round. The site includes programming and lessons for elementary school through adults.

Photo: Lanju Fotografie

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digital literacy
Coding/Computer ScienceDigital Literacy

Preparing Students with Digital Literacy Skills

by Kyle Ivey
written by Kyle Ivey

 

Why Coding?

Our staff lives by the saying, “If there is a problem, how do we solve it?” One of the problems that came to our attention was that students were not mastering the digital literacy skills needed to fill the 500,000+ careers open in coding. So our goal was to create a solution to help our students be prepared and hopefully secure some of the well-paid technology jobs in the future. As our staff studied coding, we knew that our students would gain more than just coding skills and be able to think and communicate better as well, skills that are important for careers outside of coding.

The Central ISD Difference

Our district has a culture to see kids succeed. Central’s ISD goal is to create opportunities for our kids to be able to compete for careers. If we don’t provide our students with this opportunity, then they will not be able to compete for the career of their dreams. Therefore, STEM was an easy sell to our staff and community because of all the skills obtained through STEM learning. The ability for our students to solve real-world problems was something that our district wanted and needed guidance in how to obtain. To Central, it’s not about test scores. It’s about our kids and producing successful, business-minded individuals.

The skills students learn will be beneficial to any career they choose. Central feels that students learn the benefits of collaboration and communicating ideas when they work together to code. We also want students to learn and persevere through failure. Students who play video games often fail; however, they learn from that failure and develop a new strategy to succeed. This is how we want our students to view coding. Students must also be fearless when coding – not being afraid of experimenting and hacking their way around programs to solve problems.

How Does Tynker Fit in to Digital Literacy?

According to our district plan, goal 1 is to close the achievement gaps by preparing all students for success with 21st century college and workforce readiness skills. Tynker allows us to provide all students (both beginners and advanced) a curriculum to develop and/or hone the skills needed to be successful in 21st century learning. Tynker allows students to remain engaged because of the game-like atmosphere and enjoy learning. Students have to think and be creative while using Tynker because it is all about problem solving. 

One of my favorite things I heard from a student who uses Tynker was after completing the STAAR test, the student said she was able to answer some questions on the STAAR test based on information she learned while using Tynker. This was worth all the money in the world for us as leaders. This is what educating students is about: giving them the opportunities and skills needed to succeed, not only on tests, but also in day-to-day life.

digital literacyKyle Ivey is the Instructional Technology Director in Central ISD. Central ISD is a 3A school district serving around 1700 students, 60% of whom are economically disadvantaged. Located in the heart of East Texas, Central strives to prepare youth to excel academically through positive relationships and quality instruction. You can follow Kyle on Twitter @1techydudekyle.

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handprints made of blue and red paint on a white canvas
iOS Tips and TricksSTEM/STEAM

Bring Digital Media into Your Classroom with Kid Pix

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

In the old days (circa 1990s), there was only one creation tool that mattered. Sure, word processors were plentiful.  For classrooms, though, Kid Pix ruled supreme. Today, a new version offers current content creators an even more powerful toolkit for creativity. Let’s take a quick look at the new Kid Pix 5, which makes digital media in the classroom easy.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Before we do that, let’s recall some of the main features of Kid Pix. These videos provide some awesome memories for those of you who had the chance to use it with students. I was one of those classroom teachers who loved to see what kids could come up with.

Kid Pix Goes Mobile

The new version of Kid Pix, version 5, includes an iPad version ($9.99). The desktop version costs $39.99 and a 15-day trial version is available.

digital media

Connect with Shirley Boyd to learn more about Kid Pix

The new version, focused on STEAM learning, seeks to combine art and science. Students are able to create digital stories while designing interactive quizzes. Students can create learning games, as well as be the narrator in their own documentaries. Animated characters can share the small stage as well.

Some notable, new features include the following five:

  • Collaborative video narration. Students using the iPad’s built-in dual camera can create a video narration. This makes it possible for them to appear in animated costume frames and appear as characters in digital stories.
  • Interactive tappable objects. Students can create interactive characters that react when tapped. This means the interactive characters can tell a story, sing a song, or make a funny noise.
  • Full-length voiceovers. Students can record full-length narration for their slideshow. They can also assign voices to all the characters in an animated tale they create.
  • Triple soundtracks for projects. Three soundtracks make it easy to combine voice and other audio. This makes it easy to create digital documentaries, stories, and presentations. Exporting it as video even results in an enhanced podcast published via YouTube!
  • Publish and share to many locations. With this version of Kid Pix, you can publish direct to YouTube, but also share to Google Drive (unlimited storage for G Suite EDU), Dropbox, or elsewhere.

Those are some of my favorite new enhancements to Kid Pix 5 for iPad. One additional feature I would like to see is green screen support. This would make combining content with the over 163 video backgrounds even better.

digital media

Visit the Projects Gallery

Curious about what your students can create with Kid Pix 5? Check out the Kid Pix Gallery. Amazing children’s voices find expression via Kid Pix. Ask yourself, how are you amplifying students’ voices with the technology you have now? If you’re stuck for answers, why not give Kid Pix a try?

Research on Kid Pix Use

Surprising as it may be for such a longstanding tool, Kid Pix is often dismissed as a drawing tool for children. Yet it offers many of the features we look for in drawing, animation, and story creation.

More importantly, there is a wealth of research supporting programs like Kid Pix for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Checkpoint 2.5. That checkpoint includes the following:

In formal schooling, there is a marked tendency to present the majority of information in language. That is, in printed text.  Many students for whom language is not a particular strength thus face persistent barriers not experienced by others. The experimental studies on the option of illustrating key concepts non-linguistically listed here span a range of media.

There is extensive research to support the representation of information through a variety of formats: video, diagram, image, music, animation, and more. The scholarly reviews and opinion pieces provide more classroom-based perspectives on the importance of using a range of media to convey content to students.

You can see the research on illustrating through multiple media online at the UDL Guidelines website. What’s more, in their book Digital Media in Today’s Classrooms, the authors point out:

  • When students create original products with multimedia, gains in achievement result (Goodlin, 2012).
  • Student-created digital media has demonstrated a positive effect on student achievement. Performance on high-stakes testing improves.
  • When students have the opportunity engage in active processing, academic achievement increases. Active processing includes five different levels: selecting words, selecting images, organizing words, organizing images, and integrating words and images.
  • Learners make sense of visuals sixty-thousand times faster than text.

Digital Media in the Classroom

Ready to get your students processing visual information sixty thousand times faster? Get them to start making things in tools like Kid Pix 5.

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news validity
Digital Literacy

Resources to Teach Students About News Validity

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

A critical part of digital literacy skills for everyone today is the ability to discern what is true and what isn’t. Discerning news validity is especially crucial in this age when photos and videos can be faked so easily. Here are some resources to help students develop these skills.

Media Bias Chart

Start off your discussion with students by having them examine this chart showing how potentially biased common news sources are. Ask them to discuss the following:

  • What might influence a news media to take one side over another?
  • What are the potential dangers of a biased news media?
  • Are there any patterns to bias in the chart?

TED-Ed

TED-Ed has released an excellent lesson plan and video entitled “Can You Spot the Problem with These Headlines?” The lesson is aimed at secondary students and includes a five-minute video. Once the students have viewed the video (perhaps in small groups), they then think about what was presented by answering five multiple choice and three open answer questions. They are then encouraged to dive deeper into the topic by exploring provided resources. Finally, there is a guided discussion for them to take part in.

A second video lesson that fits this topic is “This One Weird Trick Will Help You Spot Clickbait.” For other resources to help students (and adults) learn about clickbait, check out this blog.

Checkology

In the free plan, Checkology offers access to four foundational Checkology news literacy lessons for one-to-many delivery. Each of the modules is comprised of between 20 and 47 instructional video clips and interactive comprehension checks. As students move through the content, it becomes progressively more difficult. A free teacher account is required to access the materials.

Factitious

Factitious is an online, game-based, free activity designed specifically for students. There are six different articles for them to read through. Once they read one, they click the source listed at the bottom and then select either the green check mark or red X to indicate if the article is a real news story or not. Once a students responds, they get instant feedback and an explanation of how they can tell if the article was a real or fake news story. The articles start out easy and move to the hard level. No account is required unless students want to have their scores saved.

Discussions, Not Arguments

One of the big ideas that we need to help students grasp is the importance of having healthy discussions, and not arguments, about current events and issues. This is best done by actually having discussions on somewhat controversial topics in the classroom, with the teacher acting as “referee” to help students distinguish when their discussion becomes too argumentative.

news validity

graphic © eminentlyquotable.com

Additional News Validity Resources

You can find 15 more resources for helping students develop strong news literacy skills here.

 

 

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news literacy
Digital LiteracyLibraries

News Literacy for Educators (with 15 Tools)

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

Following the 2016 presidential election, America saw a steep rise in fake news and news designed for misinformation. As school librarians, we are also seeing a shift in how students consume news and information and their news source preferences. Now, more than ever, we need to integrate news literacy and media literacy into the teaching and learning students are engaged in through our libraries and curriculum.

What Is News Literacy?

According to the SchoolofJournalism.org

News literacy is the acquisition of 21st-century, critical-thinking skills for analyzing and judging the reliability of news and information, differentiating among facts, opinions and assertions in the media we consume, create and distribute.

We can’t talk news literacy without also addressing bias. We all have some level of bias acquired through our different experiences. Each of our individual biases is formed from a multitude of components including where we live, where we are from, culture (our own and our perceptions of others), pop culture, religion, and, of course, politics. What’s important for us to incorporate into our campuses about bias is helping our students and staff identify their own biases, understand that news sources contain bias, and then help them develop the skills to choose news sources in a more balanced way.

Why Teach News Literacy?

Many students want to have a better understanding of current events and news sources, but just don’t know where to begin. While doing a mini-lesson on news literacy with a group of 12th-grade students, they were asked, “What do you wish teachers/adults understood about how you get your news?” Here are a few telling responses:

“Sadly enough, sometimes I avoid watching the news, afraid of being subject to fake or heavily-biased news.”

“I do not watch the news that much except for on Snapchat. I wish we were actually taught about the current events.”

“I wish they understood that we don’t really know how or where to get the news. We also don’t really keep up with it as much as we should.”

In order to prepare students for the tumultuous news landscape of their present and future, we must hold frequent, candid conversations about evaluating sources for credibility, identifying bias, and striving for a balanced news diet. To develop these skills that are so essential to their growth as ethical global citizens, it is important for students to regularly interact with news, critically evaluate information, and engage in civil discourse.

Resources

  • FactCheck: FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. They are a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. They monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.
  • Politifact: PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics. PolitiFact is run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times, an independent newspaper in Florida. They use a number of scales they’ve created: Truth-O-Meter to gauge accuracy of statements, Flip-O-Meter to rate whether an elected official has been consistent on an issue, and Promise Meters to gauge progress made on campaign promises.
  • AllSides: AllSides is a news service aimed at cutting through one-sided bias and hyper-partisanship. They offer news stories on current topics “from the center.e ” “from thleft.” and “from the right” on a scale that rates the bias.
  • Snopes: Founded in 1994, Snopes is the oldest and largest fact-checking site on the internet. It is a common source for checking hoaxes, urban legends, email scams, and sensational, clickbait social media posts.
  • Britannica Insights: This is a Chrome extension tool to highlight Britannica School resources alongside your student’s search results. Free for Britannica School subscribers (18 states that have subscriptions). Doesn’t influence search results, but showcases those trustworthy sources that we always WANT students to use alongside their Google results. Once you click in, you will have all of the great features of Britannica, including adjustable leveling, videos, and other resources. Especially effective on historical events and people to help students gain context for their search.
  • TEDEd How to Choose Your News: Video discusses the history of news, how trust was broken with traditional news sources, and how the Internet has changed the way news is shared. Can lead to some great discussion with students on how the media landscape has changed. Explains the phenomenon of circular reporting and how fake news spreads so quickly and easily.
  • Source Deck Activity: This is a great research activity that I think would lend itself well to a news literacy conversation. Screenshot a variety of information sources and include the citation for each. Based on the snapshot and source information, students must evaluate the source and its relevance. Blog post on Britannica Learn with starter slides went up today.
  • Common Sense Media: I have loved their digital citizenship curriculum for years. They have compiled some great resources and lessons to help turn students into fact-finding web detectives. They are currently updating and adding new lessons to this collection.
  • NewseumED: NewseumED offers a wealth of resources for educators on media literacy, including lesson plans, artifacts, and case studies. They also offer virtual classes and professional development for educators.
  • Choices Program by Brown University: Non-profit at Brown University developing curricula on current and historical international and public policy issues. Students dig deep into multiple viewpoints on contested issues. Free lesson resources and complete curriculum available to purchase.
  • Checkology: A resource from the News Literacy Project that provides a virtual classroom with interactive lessons to help students learn to evaluate and interpret news. Activities to help them determine what news/information to trust, share, and act on. Topics include detecting/dissecting viral news rumors, investigating the impact of personalization algorithms, evaluating bias, and interpreting the First Amendment. Several sample lessons are available for free, with a paid subscription for the full curriculum.
  • Media Bias/ Fact Check: Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) is an independent online media outlet. On their About page, MBFC says they are dedicated to educating the public on media bias and deceptive news practices. This site can be used to look up news sources found online and through social media postings to help students understand where that particular news source rates on their bias and fact checking.
  • Above The Noise: This is a YouTube channel with great short videos about news literacy. Teachers can use the videos and have their students join the discussion on KQED Learn to investigate controversial topics and share their voices. 
  • Factitious: This is a great “game” to introduce students to bias and the importance of looking at news sources. This could easily be incorporated into a news literacy lesson and used in conjunction with many of the other resources listed here.  
  • Break Your Own News Image Maker: This is just a fun resource for students to make their own images like the ones you see in this blog post. It can also lead to discussions about the validity of images, image sources, reverse image searches, and how headlines are used as to gaslight and as misinformation.

Nancy Jo Lambert is a Google Certified Trainer and high school teacher librarian in Frisco ISD at Reedy High School. She is a presenter advocating for libraries by telling the story of the learning happening in her library. She holds positions in the Texas Library Association, American Library Association, American Association of School Librarians, Texas Association of School Librarians, and is the president of the TCEA LIB-SIG. She has been published in professional journals and won numerous awards and grants and was named TCEA Library Media Specialist of the Year the American Association of School Librarians Social Media Superstar Curriculum Champion in 2019. 

Tiffany Whitehead, the Mighty Little Librarian, is an obsessive reader, social media user, and technology geek. She is the Director of Library at Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Tiffany earned her undergraduate degree in Elementary Education and School Library Certification from Southeastern Louisiana University and her graduate degree in Educational Technology Leadership from Northwestern State University. She has served as the President of ISTE’s Librarians Network and was recognized as one of ISTE’s 2014 Emerging Leaders. Tiffany is National Board Certified in Library Media and was named one of the 2014 Library Journal Movers & Shakers. She was the 2016 recipient of the Louisiana Library Media Specialist Award and the 2019 ISTE Librarians Network Secondary Award Winner. 

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