Beyond the Checklist: A News Literacy Toolkit (Sustainable ideas for schoolwide critical thinking) Joyce Valenza
Rutgers University�joycevalenza@gmail.com
Beyond the Checklist: A News Literacy Toolkit
https://tinyurl.com/newsliteracy2018
My site:
My blog:
http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/
My tweets:
@joycevalenza
Today: https://tinyurl.com/valenzanewshk
It’s about:
Sustainability, school culture, negotiating nuance
https://tinyurl.com/newsliteracy2018
It’s about skepticism
Developing heuristic habits of interrogation
https://tinyurl.com/newsliteracy2018
PMiCH:
Pivotal Moments
in Credibility History!
1729
. . . a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.
Swift’s satire
1863
Colbert, S. (2005). The Word--Truthiness. Colbert Report. 17 Oct. Retrieved from http://www.cc.com/video-clips/63ite2/the-colbert-report-the-word---truthiness
2012: Hurricane Sandy
The Filter Bubble:
How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think
“...the idea that personalization tools from companies like Facebook and Google have isolated us from opposing viewpoints, leading conservatives and liberals to feel like they occupy separate realities.”
Eli Pariser 2011
Who is an ?
What is a primary source?
23
Wineburg, Sam, et al. "Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning." (2016).
BLEAK!
Only 25% of high school students were able to identify an accurate news story when also given a fake one. Students could not distinguish between real and fake photographs. authentic and staged videos, or investigate the authority of a tweet.
p. 45
p. 46
Wineburg, Sam and McGrew, Sarah, Lateral Reading: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluating Digital Information (October 6, 2017). Stanford History Education Group Working Paper No. 2017-A1 . Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3048994 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3048994
lateral reading!
Name the Containers!”
LET’S PLAY: NAME THE CONTAINERS!
information is decanted
container collapse
Shift
Where do you get your news?
Where do your students/children get their news?
Shearer, E., & Gottfried, J. (2017). News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017. Pew Res Cent.
Shearer, E., & Gottfried, J. (2017). News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017. Pew Res Cent.
Shearer, E., & Gottfried, J. (2017). News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017. Pew Res Cent.
Shearer, E., & Gottfried, J. (2017). News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017. Pew Res Cent.
Shearer, E., & Gottfried, J. (2017). News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017. Pew Res Cent.
40
Fake news
43
Authority is constructed
and contextual.
Authority is constructed
and contextual.
solutions?
verified?
Notes from danah boyd
Freedom of speech?
Google and Reddit banning
Not everyone has the right to be amplified.
Companies trying different things.
But . . .
What are the problems?
No more prizes for predicting the rain, only prizes for building the arks.
Don Edward Beck
. . . it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make the reliability and credibility decisions. It is up to the reader or viewer to negotiate truth.
Mark Galeotti: senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague and coordinator of its Centre for European Security
What version of media literacy should we be working towards?
There is a perverted version of media literacy underway. Students are asked to distinguish between CNN and Fox.
You should not trust Wikipedia, but Google it.
I don’t see a way out.
Systemic level issues require systemic solutions.
We don’t know people who are not like us.
danah boyd @ SXSWedu
other solutions
(unscaled)
“The Internet is not going to change. They’re not going to only allow credible information. We’re the ones who are going to need to change and we get better by teaching students to do it.”
20 SHEG Assessments
80% of middle schoolers got this wrong even though it is labeled “sponsored content”
40% of high schoolers said it “presented pivotal evidence of the conditions near the power plant.”
Fewer than 20% demonstrated mastery on this one!
Review this tweet and answer the question that follows. You may use any online resources to help you.
https://twitter.com/masondsimpson/status/841758880338128898
Michelle and Jackie based the following prompts on this post.
Michelle Luhtala & Jackie Whiting
conversations
Rules of thumb
introducing a new glossary
confirmation bias
container collapse
content farm or content mill
echo chamber
fact checking
filter bubble
herding phenomenon
native advertising
Satisficing
triangulation or cross verification
virality
astro-turfing
vocabulary
virality: when information or media circulates rapidly from one user to another
click bait: sensational headlines or images designed to draw you in to generate revenue.
echo chamber: a situation in which information, ideas or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an enclosed system, where different or competing views are not provided.
Stebbins, L. F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield.
disintermediated information: the elimination of the intermediary in the supply chain between the producer and the consumer . . . eliminating the value that is added by publishers, editors, librarians, educators, scholars and others.
Stebbins, L. F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 160
Gaslighting is “a malicious and hidden form of mental and emotional abuse(link is external), designed to plant seeds of self-doubt and alter your perception of reality. Like all abuse, it's based on the need for power, control, or concealment.”
(Sarkis, S. (2017) “11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting.”Psychology Today.
herding behavior: In information rating systems, such as five-star rating systems, studies have shown that people are easily influenced by the ratings of others, especially when those ratings are positive.
Stebbins, L. F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 160
herding phenomenon: In reference to journalism, the number of journalists covering a story increases a herding phenomenon typically occurs consisting of individual reporters becoming likely to imitate the angle and approach previous reporters have developed.
Stebbins, L. F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield. P. 161
native advertising: paid, sponsored content that is designed to look almost identical to the other content offered by the media outlet.
Stebbins, L. F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield. P. 162.
reputation heuristic: relying on the name recognition of a source rather than seeking out other evaluative criteria. . . Even a vague familiarity with a source can strongly influence credibility judgments.
Stebbins, L. F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield. P. 162.
triangulation: The mixing of data or methods so that diverse viewpoints can shed light on a topic.
Stebbins, L. F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield. P. 166
trolls: People who post comments on social media or other websites that are specifically designed to stir up trouble.
Stebbins, L. F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield. P. 166
curating options
How might learners curate their own information lives?
Current Awareness: Alerts / Feeds
Curating news
Swiipe News That Knows You: A Tinder approach created by an Irish teen. Chose from 60 sources around the world to develop a personalized feed. Swipe left to delete a story, right to read, save, share.
Try Freedom of Speech, Gun Control, Racism, Abortion, Privilege, Microagression or dig into our entire dictionary below.
Read more about how the AllSides Dictionary got started here, and if you’re a teacher who is interested in helping your students better navigate these nuanced terms, be sure to check out our AllSides Dictionary lesson plan!
a few good tools for instruction across your learning culture
Instilling:
skepticism
dispositions
heuristics
Put the onus of the skepticism on the learner.
Our kids need new types of filters. Beyond larger notions of information literacy, Not as a lesson of good vs. bad. Not as an attempt to pitch traditional media against social media or peer review against popular publication. Not through the examination of hoaky hoax sites. And certainly not as a one-of, checklist type of lesson for a 9th grade social studies teacher in September.
We need to teach the important lessons of everyday civics for new consumption and production landscapes. These lessons involve sustained critical thinking, a practice to engage in regularly as we read and view and inquire with learners of all ages across disciplines.
Just for fun!
This work is complicated and nuanced and important.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. ‘
Abraham Lincoln (attributed)
Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it.
Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held.
Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books.
Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin.
Believe nothing just because someone else believes it.
Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.
Buddha [paraphrased]
My site:
My blog:
http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/
My tweets:
@joycevalenza
Today: https://tinyurl.com/valenzanewshk
...it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make the reliability and credibility decisions. It is up to the reader or viewer to negotiate truth.
We have a role in truth detection,
and truth creation.
But that’s another story.
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
“Perhaps the “almost true” is potent precisely because the audience has to bridge the gap of truth and in so doing become complicit in its viral spreading. The almost true needs us in a way that the actual truth does not. This is an established principle of theatre, of art, that the audience completes the illusion—makes it more real than real.”
Anthony Wing Kosner, “Mike Daisey, KONY 2012's Jason Russell and the Viral Allure of the Almost True.”Forbes . 19 May 2012
checklists and models
(use with caution)
CRAAP TEST
Currency
Relevance
Authority
Accuracy
Purpose
Meriam Library, California State University, Chico, and posted at http://www.csuchico.edu/lins/handouts/eval_websites.pdf
RADAR
Relevance: How does this source relate to your topic? What does this source add to the general knowledge?
Authority: Qualifications of the author? Is this source cited by other sources writing on the topic?
Date: currency?
Accuracy: Are the author’s claims supported by evidence (eg: references, citations, bibliography)?
Rationale: Is there a bias in relation to your topic?
Mandalios, J. (2013). RADAR: An approach for helping students evaluate Internet sources. Journal of Information Science, 39(4), 470-478.
From David Warlick:
Considering also: What is the researcher trying to accomplish?
“From this standpoint, we would not ask, "Is the author qualified?", but, "What aspects of the author's background help me accomplish my goal?" Under certain circumstances, a web page published by a neo-nazi organization might actually be appropriate for an assignment, while other resources, produced by people with credential would not. It depends on what the student wants to accomplish.
This approach actually serves three interesting purposes.
David Warlick, Evaluating Internet-based Information, A Goals-Based Approach.
Thinking about blogs as research sources
Thinking about Twitter . . .
Who is tweeting?
How many voices are you comparing?
Have you used hashtags (#) to gather a variety of voices?
Can you use other sources to triangulate the information?
If you are focusing on one voice:
How many followers does he or she have?
Is the tweeter an individual?
Does he or she represent a publication or an organization?
What does the profile reveal?
What type of language or vocabulary does the tweeter use?
How useful is it to your research?