This BuzzFeed Quiz Tells You What Kind of Fake News You Are – Click Here!

“Obviously, every child should be given the best possible opportunity to acquire literacy skills.”

Hugh Mackay

Well, did it work? Did the title get you? Probably not, and that’s okay – I haven’t taken a BuzzFeed quiz a very long time, and even if there were such a quiz, I don’t think I’d take it!

So what is fake news? What does it have to do with the classroom, and how does digital literacy tie in? These are some of the topics we’ve discussed in our EDTC 300 course, and this blog post will be all about those!

Fake News

To better understand what fake news is, it is important to realize the different types of fake news, and why it is being created. This is a helpful infographic from FirstDraftNews.org:

The author, Claire Wardle, also explains that there are 8 ‘motivations’ that are behind the creation of fake news. These included partisanship, profit, political influence, propaganda, poor journalism, parody, and provocation or ‘punking’.

So what does this have to do with the classroom? Students spend more time than ever on their electronics, especially on social media. When we teach about facts and history in the classroom, they are also learning about the outside world too; what political groups are doing, what clothes are the most fashionable, why this celebrity is no longer dating that celebrity, and why the Earth’s shape is a debated issue.

With all of this information coming at our students from all directions all the time, it can be tough to navigate that stream of facts, especially when some of it looks so real and believable. This is especially true in the case of ‘confirmation bias’ – that is, when the fake news you here aligns with a personal belief or experience you have, however incorrect it may be. NPR reported that a study found it is easier to call a fact a fact when it’s one you like, particularly when motivated by political opinions.

So what does this mean for the classroom?

Digital Literacy

“If we talk about literacy, we have to talk about how to enhance our children’s mastery over the tools needed to live intelligent, creative, and involved lives.”

Danny Glover

Now, as a middle years teacher, if I were to just start class off by saying “Hey everyone, let’s learn about digital literacy”, I’m sure I would get a majority of the class either looking confused, rolling their eyes, or probably still on their phones. But there are other ways of approaching this within the classroom! For starters, did you know that digital literacy is actually something that aligns with the Saskatchewan Curriculum? In the Health Education page for Grade 7, outcome USC 7.7 (Understanding, Skills, and Confidences) talks about investigating discrepancies in morals that affect ourselves, families, communities, and the environment. Even more specifically, the outcome indicates that students should be able to locate sources and evaluate information.

What are some resources to do that? How might that look? Below is a list of game-centered digital literacy activities you could use as a set or hook:

• Spot The Troll: A quiz where you examine images of real social media content and decide whether it’s legitimate or not
• Can You Spot the Fake?: A quiz to see how many news headlines you can recognize as real or fake
• Break the Fake: Another quiz where you determine whether or not an entire news story is true or fake

I would also highly recommend showing the following TEd-Ed talk about how to choose your news:

NCTE Framework

The National Council of Teachers of English has developed a list of elements to help build digital literacy in the classroom, and a few are especially pertinent to the activities and curriculum outcomes above.

• “Participate effectively and critically in a networked world” – The whole purpose of explaining, identifying, and analyzing fake news is to better prepare students to critical evaluate what information they are receiving, rather than take anything at face value. With a never-ending stream of information, this is a skill everyone needs to develop, and is key to participating effectively in the digital world.
• “Consume, curate, and create actively across contexts” – This is the next step in digital literacy (in my mind anyways). Once students are adept at navigating media and information to determine its relevance and truthfulness, creating personal content that establishes true information and active engagement across various networks is a huge step into building a more moral, truthful digital world.

There are many voices vying for students’ attention, both in and out of the classroom. As just one voice out of them all, I think as an educator it is my responsibility to best prepare students for what they are dealing with on their phones, and outside of the classroom.