ResearchEd Presentation - Daniel Willingham - Helping Students to think critically about internet sources.
Watch the presentation and I will post questions at the beginning of July
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Unknown member
Jul 09, 2020
I think it was the reading laterally and click restraint, probably because I've been hearing a lot about it recently too. That fact checkers leave the website they are evaluating on the basis that if it is designed to deceive us, why stay on it? It is so blindingly obvious, but I feel I haven't demonstrated this to students, forcefully enough. They do look at the "About Us" and justify it's a credible site.
The use of teaching with Wikipedia has also come up previously, but it's good to have the same thinking reinforced and the fact that we are still unlikely to be able to penetrate and impact deeply held beliefs. (People are not motivated solely by belief to represent the world accurately.)
8. What was your biggest takeaway from this webinar?
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Unknown member
Jul 03, 2020
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It's entirely understandable that the more you know about something, the easier it is to just the accuracy of what you're reading. But if you're looking at something new: read around, check other sources, don't just click on the first thing you see.
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Unknown member
Jul 08, 2020
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The idea that fact checkers stop and google rather than look on the website - it's an easy thing to do, saves time and I reckon will be a lot more popular than CRAAP checking a website with the pupils.
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Unknown member
Jul 01, 2020
7. Daniel mentioned ‘North West tree octopus’ as a good spoof website. We all know this is now a very old website. Do you have any better suggestions you could share?
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Unknown member
Jul 08, 2020
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https://www.allaboutexplorers.com/ is one written by teachers filled with errors and some fabrications. They have teaching materials as well which might be useful plus it's web address doesn't give the game away. I found it really hard to find stuff that didn't look unattractive/dated. It might be that fake news stories are the way ahead rather than spoof websites.
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Unknown member
Jul 01, 2020
6. At the end of this webinar a teacher asked what tasks would you do to teach 11year olds this. It made me smile because this is what school librarians teach. How would you of answered that question?
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Unknown member
Jul 08, 2020
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I'd have suggested the basics - CRAAP plus making them aware of the problem using fake websites to highlight. Though I also liked the ID task of real or paid for news articles from a website - I reckon that would be a good basic lesson to add in. So many 'reliable' sources have a butt load of clickbait at the bottom or mixed in, I feel this would be a really useful first skill to develop.
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Unknown member
Jul 01, 2020
5. Professional fact checkers read laterally, demonstrate click restraint and use Wikipedia wisely. Can you see yourself using these techniques to support student research?
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Unknown member
Jul 03, 2020
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I think these are useful things to know because they're quite straightforward concepts to get across. As @Kimberley Lawson mentioned, they're also catchy. They could easily be on a powerpoint slide or a poster near the computers to act as a reminder.
Absolutely! This idea of reading laterally & click restraint is also supported by John Royce (2018) and mentioned by Daryl Toerien (of FOSIL fame!) in the practical suggestions for schools to incorporate critical literacy in the curriculum, in the SLA publication of Identifying Fake News by Cathal Coyle. (last month's discussion.)
I love these new catchphrases @Kimberley Lawson - think we can definitely cash in these!
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Unknown member
Jul 01, 2020
4.. ‘Students understand that there is a problem but do not get better at evaluating online content’. How can school librarians and teachers help students to do something about this?
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Unknown member
Jul 08, 2020
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I agree @Elizabeth that there is potential to support but I think it also comes from higher up. If it's not a curriculum priority across the board then it's down to individual teachers to decide if it's valuable or not to spend time on. As a school librarian I have been saying for 14 years this should be a priority but it's not because there are many competing priorities and this one never makes it to the top of the pile as it doesn't come from higher in the system. I have worked with individual teachers or even departments over the years but if it's a message not repeated in other classes/departments pupils forget about it.
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Unknown member
Jul 09, 2020
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This is the age-old problem isn't it? School librarians can help teach critical literacy, but it needs to be embedded in the curriculum from an early age. I think everyone understands this, but how often do schools/curriculum put this into practice?
I think we are making headway, but perhaps more notably with older students (Vi Form EPQ etc). It would be so much easier if we could could start students on their critical literacy journey much younger, so by the time they reach VI Form, it would be second nature to them. I can see how FOSIL is trying to address this, but it is still up to SLT to allow it into everyday teaching. I also think, right now, leadership have so many pressing demands on their time.
It's up to us, as school librarians, to keep pushing this. The rewards are obvious, but it does feel like a continuous slog.
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Unknown member
Jul 09, 2020
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I agree @Kateri Wilson-Whalley@micwag without SLT it is a continuous slog as you say... We need this embedded at national level coming from the education department including school libraries being compulsory and the school librarian playing a much greater role in teaching and learning.
FOSIL being embedded is the perfect way to do this in my oppinion 😀
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Unknown member
Jul 01, 2020
3. Were you aware of the ‘peripheral’ clues? Attractiveness and Authority are commonly known but were you already aware of the ‘social proof” element and will that make a difference to the way you teach this?
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Unknown member
Jul 01, 2020
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I had not thought about Authority only being a peripheral cue for offline content but when Daniel mentioned it, it's kind of obvious. Social proof I was aware of - I find myself not wanting to trust a website that's on the second page of results! I don't know if there just are more ads than there used to be or if Google has got better at signposting them but for some searches you *have* to go to the second page to get a hit that isn't an ad. I will definitely bring this into lessons.
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Unknown member
Jul 01, 2020
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@Kimberley Lawson I thought it was interesting that he highlighted that Authority is very difficult to assess online. Unless you 'know' someone is reliable it is very difficult to find out without doing a lateral search. I think this makes complete sense and is an easy one to teach...
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Unknown member
Jul 09, 2020
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Yes, I think I was aware, but as @Kimberley Lawson says, may not have linked to peripheral clues. The attractiveness one made me smile - it's that unconscious bias creeping in again, but definitely need to remind students!
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Unknown member
Jul 01, 2020
2. Many school librarians know about and teach central clues through tools like the CRAAP test. Do you think that this is still important?
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Unknown member
Jul 09, 2020
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I'm quite interested in the different forms of CRAAP you all use. We currently use CRAVEN, which doesn't have a numerical score value. (Credibility / Reliability / Authority / Vested Interest/ Expertise / Neutrality)
I'm also looking at FOSIl and how this works with both central and peripheral clues.
It IS still important to teach central clues, but also to be mindful of what a student may also know about something beforehand. There was a discussion also on SLN sometime ago, about whether a student would necessarily know that no Pope had ever endorsed a US president, to use that example.
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Unknown member
Jul 09, 2020
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@micwag That is a good point and that knowledge is going to vary by culture as much as by age etc. By which I mean, to continue your example, that more students in the US might know that no pope had ever endorsed a US president, but I would expected fewer UK students to have that awareness. In addition, a lot of schools these days in the UK have significant proportions of students who were not born in the UK. They will have different cultural knowledge based on where they were born and raised prior to their arrival in the UK. So there's a need to perhaps tailor things based on that.
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Unknown member
Jul 09, 2020
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I am delighted to hear that you are looking at FOSIL! @micwag I don't believe that this can all be taught in one lesson and a tickbox is not the right answer either although it can be a starting point. I think reading laterally is probably one of the most important skills in all of this because it does not rely on you having background knowledge first.
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Unknown member
Jul 01, 2020
1. “60% of teachers think that technology makes it harder to find information” Was this statistic a surprise to you and does knowing this help you in any way?
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Unknown member
Jul 09, 2020
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It is rare for our NF books that support the curriculum to issue. They tend to be used more if depts bring classes to the library. I think our students rely on their text books for homework and go online if they need supplementary information. They're not in a place where they think ahead to possibly needing a library book to help them. I think we would be better off getting a subscription database which we could link to the homework platform, website etc.
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Unknown member
Jul 10, 2020
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I think both are important @Kimberley Lawson online subscriptions certainly are needed but if you have your library catalogue clearly available too it would help students see what you have. Your online catalogue needs your up to date books and also websites that link to curriculum topics that either you or your teachers recommend. Students need to know that this is where they can find quality information and it is all about raising awareness as much as anything else.
If they never look at the catalogue they will never find what they didn't know was there... It is a real challenge I know, but important too.
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Unknown member
Jul 10, 2020
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I don't disagree in principle, but I think that an online resource would get more use just because of the disorganised nature of teenagers! We aren't in a position to share our LMS with students yet anyway, but we have a plan to resolve that.
I think it was the reading laterally and click restraint, probably because I've been hearing a lot about it recently too. That fact checkers leave the website they are evaluating on the basis that if it is designed to deceive us, why stay on it? It is so blindingly obvious, but I feel I haven't demonstrated this to students, forcefully enough. They do look at the "About Us" and justify it's a credible site.
The use of teaching with Wikipedia has also come up previously, but it's good to have the same thinking reinforced and the fact that we are still unlikely to be able to penetrate and impact deeply held beliefs. (People are not motivated solely by belief to represent the world accurately.)
8. What was your biggest takeaway from this webinar?
7. Daniel mentioned ‘North West tree octopus’ as a good spoof website. We all know this is now a very old website. Do you have any better suggestions you could share?
6. At the end of this webinar a teacher asked what tasks would you do to teach 11year olds this. It made me smile because this is what school librarians teach. How would you of answered that question?
5. Professional fact checkers read laterally, demonstrate click restraint and use Wikipedia wisely. Can you see yourself using these techniques to support student research?
4.. ‘Students understand that there is a problem but do not get better at evaluating online content’. How can school librarians and teachers help students to do something about this?
3. Were you aware of the ‘peripheral’ clues? Attractiveness and Authority are commonly known but were you already aware of the ‘social proof” element and will that make a difference to the way you teach this?
2. Many school librarians know about and teach central clues through tools like the CRAAP test. Do you think that this is still important?
1. “60% of teachers think that technology makes it harder to find information” Was this statistic a surprise to you and does knowing this help you in any way?