Media Literacy, and the critical thinking that is required as part of our everyday lives and all the media we see and hear, is becoming a vital skill with which many of our kiddos struggle. Only 44% of kids felt they could tell fake news stories from real ones. 31% of kids have shared a news story online only to find out later that it was wrong or inaccurate. Check out other interesting facts from this study done by Common Sense Media!
So here are some resources that might help kids evaluate news and information!
ELEMENTARY K-2 Here are two books that help evaluate commercials and tv advertisements.
ELEMENTARY AND INTERMEDIATE
Here are a couple of videos with some good introductions to Media Literacy and the 5 questions that every student needs to know to ask.
What is Media Literacy?
5 Essential Media Literacy Questions for Kids
Elementary and Intermediate Resources:
- Media Education Lab Media Literacy Units: https://mediaeducationlab.com/assignment-media-literacy
- Tackling Fake News: Strategies for Teaching Media Literacy: https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/john-depasquale/2017/Tackling-Fake-News--Strategies-for-Teaching-Media-Literacy/
- If your campus has Brainpop - Here are some of the resources for Media Literacy they provide! https://www.brainpop.com/technology/digitalcitizenship/medialiteracy/
- Here is an interesting game that works through the manipulation of information online and why it happens from the perspective of the fake news "bad guys": https://getbadnews.com/droggame_book/junior/#intro
- And don't forget the TISD Digital Citizenship Curriculum and Be Internet Awesome unit Don't Fall for Fake:
MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL
- This is where the topic really takes off. Social Media, including YouTube and Facebook, are the primary source of news for tweens and teens. How do we know what is true and not true???
- Here is a great site for Civic Online Reasoning from Stanford University: https://cor.stanford.edu/
- Media Education Lab Media Literacy Units: https://mediaeducationlab.com/assignment-media-literacy
- Here are a bunch of lessons with videos as the hook, that go a little deeper in exploring those 5 essential questions and show how to really look at news and advertising: http://mediasmarts.ca/media-literacy-101
- NewseumED does a great job of providing news, but also in evaluating and analyzing. Here are two great resources:
- Here is an interesting game that works through the manipulation of information online and why it happens from the perspective of the fake news "bad guys": https://getbadnews.com/#intro
- And don't forget the TISD Digital Citizenship Curriculum with Common Sense Media: https://sites.google.com/tomballschools.net/instructionaltechnology/digital-leadership/juniorhigh-school-scope-and-sequence
If you have other great resources and want to share, drop us a line and let us know! We are always looking for great resources!