Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

In a “post-truth” era where people are increasingly influenced by their emotions and beliefs over factual information, fact and fiction can be difficult to distinguish, and fake news can spread rapidly through mainstream media sources and social networks. Moreover, fake news is often meant to do harm, by tricking us into believing a lie or unfairly discrediting a person or political movement.

One of the things I’ve been trying to convince people for the past year and a half is that the only viable literacy solution to web misinformation involves always checking any information in your stream that you find interesting, emotion-producing, or shareable. It’s not enough to check the stuff that is suspicious: if you apply your investigations selectively, you’ve already lost the battle.

Studies suggest that many U.S. students are too trusting of information found on the internet and rarely evaluate the credibility of a website’s information. For example, a survey found that only 4 percent of middle school students reported checking the accuracy of information found on the web at school, and even fewer did so at home (New Literacies Research Team & Internet Reading Research Group, 2006). At the same time, the web is often used as a source of information in school projects, even in early schooling, and sites with inaccurate information can come up high in search rankings.

In many parts of the UK, students who are attending pre-sessional courses are now in the midst of assessments and essay writing. 

Regardless whether learners are post-graduate, graduate or K12 students, it is always worth revising how to evaluate web sources with them. 

Below is a Padlet with suggestions to use with students.

WHEN MICHAEL BENNETT played for the Seattle Seahawks, he celebrated wins with a victory dance in the team locker room. He did not celebrate them by burning the American flag, contrary to a viral Photoshopped picture that began making the rounds online in September of 2017. If you'd read the fact-checks on sites like Snopes.com, Time, and yep, even WIRED, you would have known that the photo of Bennett burning a flag, his teammates and coach looking on joyfully, was fake.

We are constantly surrounded by information, and it is not always easy to know which sources to trust. Being able to evaluate the credibility of information is an important skill used in school, work, and day-to-day life. With so much advertising, controversy, and blogging going on, how do you sift through the chaff and cut to the chase?

When I teach students..

... about doing online research, one of things I tell them is to figure out who's posting this article.  

In other words, find out who wrote it, and what their possible motivations for writing this particular article really are.  People rarely just write--they're usually trying to convince you, the reader, of something they believe.

Studies suggest that many U.S. students are too trusting of information found on the internet and rarely evaluate the credibility of a website’s information. For example, a survey found that only 4 percent of middle school students reported checking the accuracy of information found on the web at school, and even fewer did so at home (New Literacies Research Team & Internet Reading Research Group, 2006).

Want to know if someone plagiarizes a speech? Is the content on a website copied from another website? Do those song lyrics sound familiar? What about those statements? Have they been stolen from books, articles or other public documents? Has a photograph been manipulated?