As Facebook and now Google face scrutiny for promoting fake news stories, Melissa Zimdars, a communication and media professor from Merrimack College in Massachusetts, has compiled a handy list of websites you should think twice about trusting. “Below is a list of fake, false, regularly misleading, and otherwise questionable ‘news’ organizations that are commonly shared on Facebook and other social media sites,” Zimdars explains. “Many of these websites rely on ‘outrage’ by using distorted headlines and decontextualized or dubious information in order to generate likes, shares, and profits.” (Click here to see the list.)
Be warned: Zimdars’s list is expansive in scope, and stretches beyond the bootleg sites (many of them headquartered in Macedonia) that write fake news for the sole reason of selling advertisements. Right-wing sources and conspiracy theorists like Breitbart and Infowars appear alongside pure (but often misinterpreted) satire like the Onion and The New Yorker’s Borowitz Report. “Not all of these sources are always or inherently problematic, but I’m including them because they should be considered in conjunction with other news/info sources due to their tendency to rely on clickbait headlines,” Zimdars notes. You should read it closely, feel free to disagree, and, in the spirit of media literacy, do your own research.
She also includes some helpful tips for spotting fake news:
• Watch out if known/reputable news sites are not also reporting on the story. Sometimes lack of coverage is the result of corporate media bias and other factors, but there should typically be more than one source reporting on a topic or event.
• Odd domain names generally equal odd and rarely truthful news. […]
• If the story makes you REALLY ANGRY it’s probably a good idea to keep reading about the topic via other sources to make sure the story you read wasn’t purposefully trying to make you angry (with potentially misleading or false information) in order to generate shares and ad revenue.
All sound advice before you fuel the fire further and share a bogus story. Read the entire list here.
A recent study by the Stanford History Education Group “shows a dismaying inability by students to reason about information they see on the internet.” In addition, the fake news epidemic of 2016 has shown that civic online reasoning should be an addition to every school’s curriculum. This involves teaching students how to find accurate, valid, and credible sources. School librarians, computer, and classroom teachers should all work together to promote civic online reasoning and information literacy in schools.
Looking for ed-tech resources to help teach your students to be information literate? The News Literacy Project’s program, Checkology, has quite a few lessons that help students distinguish fact from fiction. In addition, InCtrl has various digital citizenship lessons that include activities on how to evaluate online sources.
To schedule an Information Literacy unit in your classroom (web evaluation, online research tools and databases, privacy, copyrights, digital ethics, cyberbullying) contact me directly.
Zoom In is a free, Web-based platform that helps students build literacy and historical thinking skills through “deep dives” into primary and secondary sources.
Zoom In’s online learning environment features 18 content-rich U.S. history units that supplement your regular instruction and help you use technology to support students’ mastery of both content and skills required by the new, higher standards:
Reading documents closely and critically
Identifying author's point of view and purpose
Engaging in higher-order, text-based discussions
Writing explanatory and argumentative essays grounded in evidence
Voted by the American Association of School Librarians as one of the best websites for teaching and learning 2016.
Useful all across the curriculum: Science, History, ELA, Health, Arts, Technology, Current Events... The quality of the Smithsonian in the classroom.
Tween Tribune hosts high interest, reputable current events articles for K-12 audiences compiled by the Smithsonian. The articles are categorized by grade, lexile, language (English/Spanish), and subject area. Each article is available across multiple lexiles for differentiation and has an associated comprehension assessment. Free educator accounts offer a plethora of features: Monday morning newsletters, class and student profiles, lesson plans, article assignment capability, and assessment score grade books. Student privacy is protected, and all comments are educator-moderated. Use Tween Tribune to compare bias/viewpoints from varying sources, support or inspire inquiry, or as a station highlighting literary styles
The Flume: NH Teen Reader’s Choice Award was created in 2005 in response to a New Hampshire teen’s request to have a book award geared towards high school students. This award is a state-wide venture led by a collaborative effort from school and public librarians. Each year teens nominate titles, published within the last two years, they think deserve to be recognized. Librarians narrow the group of titles to a shorter list. Teens then vote for the winning title from that list.
What are your other favorite books? Check on our catalog here if they are at the Media Center. If we do not have them, we will get them! Enter your favorite book(s) here. There are many other exciting book awards, regional, national, internationals. See some of the most popular here.
Several teachers and students have asked for a simple solution to record sound on Chromebooks. Here it is: Simple Audio Recorder. The file format is .wav and works seamlesssly with Wevideo (you can fully edit it and then send your edited file wherever you need it to be, music player, presentation etc..).
Other recorders for Chromebook have some or even a lot of editing features and might ask you to create an account. Some have time limits. Among them, SoundCloud, Vocaroo and Twisted Wave have good reviews. I recorded over 11 minutes with SAR without any issue.
If you need a format other than .wav, use an online converter such as media.io.
"Oh, and one more thing". As recording is done online, plan 2-3 minutes after the recording to download your file.
This blog provides information about Library Media (Lib) and Information Technology (Tech) for teachers, and everything that belongs to both categories (CD). Lists of links and post labels are organized accordingly. Enjoy!
