Discussion for April 2020

Thanks for joining in this time @Elle Codling I am glad you found it useful and hope you will join in again when you have time! Take a look at what is on offer over the next couple of months https://www.elizabethahutchinson.com/schoollibrariescpd

Thanks for joining in @Alison Edwards and I am glad it was a positive experience. Please check out the reading for May and June found here https://www.elizabethahutchinson.com/schoollibrariescpd

During Y7 Internet Search Skills lessons, we have touched on misinformation and how we can link this back to the truth. I have used really simple illustrations they are already familiar with, such as things that might have happened at school. They seem to understand these examples.

Most students, in my experience, have no wish to spread hate. We need to warn them against passive sharing, perhaps by illustrating who may be getting hurt by this, and making it more personal to them.

@Alison Edwards I agree that when we talk to students they are adamant that they would not intentionally share or spread hate. However, you hit the nail on the head, passive sharing is a large part of the problem and I am sure that many of us as adults have been duped into sharing something without reading it properly. Sharing is so quick but reading and digesting takes time. It is about helping them understand that taking time can not only help them share good content but will reflect better on them in the long term. The positive impact this could have would be immense.

@Alison Edwards I like the idea of illustrating who may get hurt by something - it's sometimes hard to show why sharing things can be hard, so as you say, making it personal can really get the point across more than a generic discussion would.

@bathgatew I think that is a really important point to make. We all have our own biases. The more aware we are of them, the more we can bear that in mind when we're considering sources. If we are to encourage critical thinking, we need to encourage students to think about their own biases and the biases of others: why was the statement they are reading made? Could there be some unwritten reasoning that is influencing that opinion? Are there alternative opinions?

I think it is good to consider alternative points of view before coming to a conclusion, but I think it is also necessary to realise that not all points of view online carry the same weight. This may be something for students to consider.

@Stephanie Vann Some great questions here that we could all benefit from. It sounds like a great way to start an evaluating online resources lesson to me :)

@Stephanie Some of those questions would be good prompts to ask students

Not at all. The presenter asked what do we tell students regarding what is good and what is bad?

No - I think a lot of people might have at least some of the technical skills necessary, but it's also about how you approach fake news etc. I think it requires engaging critically with the material, and working out when to apply those technical skills, which means actively thinking about them more than a lot of us perhaps do normally. How do we approach teaching that?

@Elle Codling Great question Elle! I feel that teaching this is more about context than just the skills itself. We have to engage with our students in a way that makes them want to apply these skills. How often do we, as adults, talk about these skills being so boring to teach? If we think this way we are on a hiding to nothing as no student is going to want to apply them. If however we choose to be excited about what these skills can bring for our students then attitudes can change. The best way I have found so far is through Inquiry and especially FOSIL. If you are interested and want to know more check out The Fosil Group website.

@Elle Codling @Alison Edwards I would agree with the points you make. Technical skills permit you to access the information, but there is a lot of information out there on the net and the quality is variable. One digital skill that is increasingly necessary is to be able to analyse that information and decide on the quality of it.

@Stephanie Vann Thanks for joining in Stephanie! I agree critical evaluation is a huge skill these days and one that is very difficult to teach. Especially as students of today do not want to spend time on finding quality information. They generally just want the answer and are not always worried about the quality. I also feel that teachers do not often pull them up on where they are finding their information so if the teachers don't push this then why would the students?

This is such a tricky one - students sometimes see it as too much effort to be critical. Even trying to teach these navigational or evaluative skills is sometimes boiled down to something formulaic or technical. EG: while many would use the CRAP test or something similar, there is research to show that even such tests can 'fail' to elicit the right kind of critical response. We need to be careful not to try to turn these bigger evaluative skills into technical formulae, as it is not that simple.