Digital Literacy in the Library

I hope Mr. Baron's optimism in this quote is warranted. I've seen far too many  people sharing information about the election from what I consider biased sources. If we continue to read only what supports our political beliefs, regardless of whether the article is based on facts, we will get the government we deserve. 

This would be a great article to share with students! Ask their opinions first, as I'd bet they'd be surprised by the results of the study.

Wes poses several good questions for a student discussion on digital literacy. I've used the DHMO and the Guinea Worm Foundation sites with students. This year, I may lead off this discussion with a sober introduction of the new Staten Island Ferry Octopus Disaster Museum.

I've already played with three of these for orientation presentations. I'm not a design guru by any means, but I do want students to understand the power of good visuals in their work. I would also add Adobe Spark and PicMonkey to the list.

I recommend Snopes to teachers and students a lot. (NB: Be aware that some of the queries on the site are not school appropriate, so always test  before you open the site on your screen for all to see!) 

I learn so much reading Dan's blog! I'll be sharing this with teachers and students. Being able to Google a fact and being able to dig deeper to find the best resources and increase understanding is like the difference between knowing a tomato is a fruit, and knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. (Or better yet, knowing that in the United States we don't do that. In South Korea, cherry tomatoes in bingsu are a real treat!)

Maha Bali's article is worth sharing widely with anyone who needs to be nudged ever so gently into the 21st century of education. (We're 16% through it, folks!) Bali addresses the need to teach about digital skills and literacy in an authentic context, not a vacuum, and gives many concrete examples for doing that. 

I recently did a lesson on blogging with a 6th grade class. We looked at several tween and teen blogs, then reviewed good digital citizenship practices emphasizing student safety and copyright. Finally, each student created a blog on Blogger. Will they make mistakes? Probably. (When I specifically told them to keep it school appropriate, with nothing in the blog they wouldn't be allowed to do at school, and one student immediately started searching for "Call of Duty 3" images!) Will we all learn something from this? Absolutely. 

What a great article to open a media literacy conversation! Have lies become institutionalized? Where do students seek information? Do they know how to check sources? 

When I look at my own Facebook feed, I am amazed at how many adults repost or share articles that are hoaxes. Just today on LM_NET, someone asked about an article that mentioned a dubious news site. I can't find any verifiable information about the site itself or who is behind it, and I feel I have decent research skills. How do we expect our students to keep up with a flow of misinformation? 

I think this is such a critical skill--we could give hundreds of examples of the lack of this most basic vetting of sites from the current presidential election! Our 6th graders recently looked at Stormfront to determine if it was a valid site for research on Martin Luther King, and many had a difficult time with the steps required to find out who was behind the site. Sharing Dan's examples would demonstrate to students there isn't a one-click answer to these questions, even for experts. 

I can't wait to share the EPA example with 8th graders when we do our social media and environmental issues project. I used to provide vetted sites for students to use, but this time, I'll give them a list of sites and make them do an evaluation to find the most informative and credible sites.  

So much good stuff here! Not only Sullivan's insights--be sure to check out Media Breaker Studios from The Lamp. You can create units for students, using videos and links to articles, then have students "break" the video commercials or create their own. Having students analyze a wide range of sources to determine which are reliable is a large part of digital literacy.

I can see many uses for the Media Breaker tool. Last year I did a project with a 7th grade science teacher, in which students chose topics and created persuasive presentations. We discussed this article from The Smithsonian, and students worked collaboratively to determine which emotion they wanted to evoke from viewers. (Those against fracking chose rage, while the coral reef protection and endangered species groups tried to evoke awe.)  

Using the Media Breakers studio allows for a one stop set-up for teachers. Students should enjoy exploring the Breaker Gallery of commercials and videos, too!

I will be loosely paraphrasing attorney Jim Thomas from now on: "You can dance like no one is watching, but you better not text (or Snapchat, Instagram, etc.) unless you want the principal to see it."

A good follow-up to this and this article about the Ice Bucket Challenge and slacktivism. I think it's recent enough that students will remember the challenge, yet there's enough perspective to debate the value of such social media campaigns. 

This is 10 years old, but still a useful framework for information literacy. 

I'm doing presentations about infographics this month with 6th, 7th and 8th graders. The graphics in this article will be helpful in demonstrating how important it is to think about how the data in an infographic is displayed. For middle school, the phrase will be "Lies, darned lies, and statistics!" 

Robin Good has great insight into why focused curation matters. Reading this right after Dan Russell's post about syntopical reading made me think about how I curate. In an ideal experience of curating for learning  Robin states: "...each student becomes not just a learner, but, as it should be, he becomes also a reviewer, an investigator, an explorer and a contributor to the ideas and understanding surrounding that subject."

Let's make sure we're teaching students curation as a literacy skill. It's not just bookmarking or Pinning or Scooping links, but engaging with them, directing their own learning, and maybe even adding something that helps others learn.