Fake news has becoming increasingly common within todays digital world. This is very problematic because many people myself included are taught the the internet has all the answers. This false informative allows us to easily accept new things we read on the internet as facts without even checking how credible it is. Fake news has becoming increasingly persistence in the last few years. As a future educator it is important that we give future generations the tools they need to dismantle fake news and give them the confidence to practice digital literacy.
It is clear that digital literacy is an important skill to teach to students however it might seem a bit unclear how to teach it or when to teach it. Its important to understand that variations of digital literacy can be taught at all different ages levels. I plan to teach K-5 when I finish my degree so for me teaching digital literacy might be a lot different then you would expect. As an earlier years teachers you often work with students to developed a foundation in variety of topics . That being said, teaching about digital literacy can easily be worked into the foundational aspects of a variety of subjects areas. In the early years I believe it is most important to allow students to develop an understanding pertaining to the subject matter. Like what is news, why do people try to trick us, who do you believe and also give them plenty of opportunities to explore fake news. This could simply be creating a dramatic and obviously fake article and reading it as a class in English then asking them if they believe the story which would start a conversation on fake news. As students become older and begin to enter middle years its a good idea to start introducing students to misleading and fake news. In the middle years area it is important for students to understand and recognize the different types and ways of mis informing. The video Helping Students Identify Fake News With The Five C’s of Critical Consuming is a great tool that can be used as a basic introduction to fake news. Once going on to teach about fake news more in depth two helpful resources for this area of learning are The 7 Types of Mis- and Dis-information and 10 Types of Misleading News. These resources would be great for middle school students because they don’t provide an overwhelming amount of information but they are still very informative. This area of learning can easily be tied into the Saskatchewan curriculum under one of the main health education program goals which is inquiry for health decision making. Within this section students are encouraged to practice making informed decisions. Expanding digital literacy into the high school levels is also a great idea that would provide basic follow up on the middle years learning. Once students reach the high school they will have a detailed understanding of fake news and be able to recognize it. From here we can begin to build on skills like understanding the meanings behind fake news and incorporating some projects that are similar to the projects done in the NTCE Pilot Project.
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