Teaching Digital Literacy in the Classroom

There are many ways to teach digital literacy in the classroom. During this semester, I was in my pre-internship with a grade7/8 class. I had to teach a lesson in literacy on how to find credible resources online. I first started by sharing some key things to identify about a website that is credible or not credible. The thing I discussed are the type of websites whether it is .com, .gov, .edu, .ca, and more. We also talked about how things like ads on a website can make it seem not professional which means it may not be credible. In addition, we also discussed the author’s credentials, publications, citations and references, date of publication, and bias. These ideas can help students try to identify what is fake news. We also discussed that it is important to cross-reference resources to confirm the evidence and facts it is saying. 

Although this wasn’t necessarily explicitly stated in an outcome in the Saskatchewan curriculum, it is connected to many different topics because students have to use technology to do research and make presentations. As a result, my cooperating teacher connected this lesson to literacy because she was doing a future research project with her students. There are many different areas where students have to research online which can connect digital literacy to many different subject areas. Some subjects incorporating digital literacy are literacy, science, social, health, and more! Since we live in a digital age where most of our information is digitalized, teaching digital literacy in the classroom is very important. 

I think that fake news has become more popular online which is very concerning. There are so many fake articles and bots which have real-world consequences. I believe this website is a great resource for fake news. This website shares:

“In the most general form, fake news has three characteristics: 

• factually inaccurate
• optimized for sharing
• meant to obscure or distort with emotions; preying on prejudice or bias”

(Retrieved from HERE)

This resource as well also shares a lot of information about Bias in online resources as well as an activity that can be used. I think this would have been great to use as a resource and activity. 

 I also really enjoyed this Youtube video. 

 

This video is a quick way to visually show students how false news can spread. This is short and sweet and be very easily shared during a lesson with students of many different age groups. 

Thank you for reading!