The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But?

Since the results of the US election were released, my news feed has been awash with, initially, analysis of how the results could have been so badly misjudged. In short, we have social media algorithms to blame- we only get to see what we our previous tastes and preferences let us see.

Then, my newsfeed turned to the stickier question of how we stop the spread of 'fake news.' That is, news that either has an element of truth to it, that is then blown out of proportion and exaggerated to the nth degree or news that has no basis in truth whatsoever. Essentially, the media reports rumor. Much has been said about the fact we live in a 'post truth' society, but I think Stephen Colbert got there first with 'Truthiness.'​






In recent weeks, Denzel Washington summed it up well, at the premiere of his new movie 'Fences':

“In our society, now it’s just first — who cares, get it out there. We don’t care who it hurts. We don’t care who we destroy. We don’t care if it’s true. Just say it, sell it. Anything you practice you’ll get good at — including B.S.”

You can see exactly what he said here:

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Of course, it's all well and good for us teachers to extol the importance of fact checking, but in the last week of 2016, this popped up on my Facebook wall:

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​My reaction had 3 phases:
1) What on earth? That's terrible, those poor families
2) Huh. My BBC feed says that Putin has told ministers he has no intention of expelling American Diplomats from Russia (the evening before, President Obama had decided to expel a number of Russian Diplomats) so why would he close a school?
3) Nevermind. It's from the Daily Mail. Basically, a UK tabloid with delusions of grandeur

At that point, I decided to have a root around a number of other sources to see if I could find anything else to substantiate the rumor. In the meantime, the original post was reshared by a number of other Facebook contacts. The denial posted by the school director that came a few hours later was also shared, though not nearly as much. 

This is a great example of what Denzel was talking about- the need to be first, beats the need to right or accurate- and it highlights the challenges we face in teaching our students. We have to be role models for this, we have to talk about our own errors with social media, fake news and anything else that helps us connect to our students and their experience.

My PLN has been a great source of guidance and advice on how to address this subject in school but the truth is, it's already part of a standard digital citizenship curriculum.

Primary School:
It's hard to explore 'fake news' with elementary age students, particularly as we get so much of it via social media (remember, minimum age for many mainstream social media sites is 13 years of age or halfway through Grade 7/ Year 8).
However we should take advantage of the opportunity to teach students to begin evaluating information sources for validity, particularly web- based resources.
My favorite is the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

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I also appreciate the work that has gone in to 'All About Explorers,' intended to specifically teach Information Literacy. Elementary School is also a great opportunity to teach and practice finding corroborating sources, particularly when using the web for research.

For a full list of fake websites to teach information literacy, check out Tech Bytes
You can also connect with Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship Curriculum and its strand on Information Literacy *note: you need to sign up for a free account with CSM in order to access all resources.*

Secondary School
We used to have the students swear off Wikipedia but a few years ago I switched my advice to students. We talked extensively about how Wikipedia worked and why many felt it was unreliable as a source. We then looked at the features of each entry, looking specifically at the citations at the bottom of the page. Students were told that it was perfectly acceptable to start their research with Wikipedia but they were expected to use the bibliography and follow the link back to the original source, using that for the basis of their research.

Of course, that doesn't help with the 'fake news' education. However, if we start the students checking their information sources while still in elementary, they are already learning to question what they read- engage in critical thinking. I think the next step is to teach them how web and social media works (back to those pesky algorithms- this is where Computer Science students benefit!). In fact, we begin teaching the students about algorithms within the context of google search results when they are in Grade 4 or Grade 5- it wouldn't take much to extend it to social media. Furthermore, we need to extend the 'Think Before You Post' ideal beyond naked selfies and expound on the importance of reading and checking something before your repost it, tag others in it or share it IRL (In Real Life.)

Asking students to identify examples of fake news and asking them to connect their judgement of that example (let's face it, they're going to judge the poor souls who made the mistake of reposting something that isn't true) to times when they have made similar errors is another entry point for working with students.

​As an IBMYP school, there are obvious connections here to our Approaches to Learning (ATL's), specifically those related to Research and Information and Media Literacy. For that reason, we need to ensure that we work with our Librarians and curriculum coordinator to ensure coverage across all areas of learning. We also need to engage faculty in understanding our shared responsibility in the field of research, ensuring they are equipped with the knowledge and skills to address this with classes and with individual students,  regardless of the age of the child- a potential topic for our next unconference perhaps? 

Here's some further reading/ resources to integrate into PD/ Classroom sessions:

• Edutopia: Battling Fake News in the Classroom
• Wall Street Journal: How to Beat the Scourge of Fake News
• Future Journalism Project: How to Read the News When You're in High School
• Wall Street Journal: Most Students Don't Know When News is Fake (and the original report from Stamford)
• ​NPR: We Tracked Down a Fake News Creator in the Suburbs, Here's What We Found
• Blog post by my colleague @joyceclp on using Data Visualizations to analyze the election results (#CS for the win!)
• The Guardian: Facebook's failure: did fake news and polarized politics get Trump elected? *Note: The Guardian is a British newspaper, known for being more liberal than conservative.*
• The Slate: How to Teach High School Students to Spot Fake News
• John Mikton (International Schools Ed Tech Guru) also wrote about this topic recently. He is a much more eloquent blogger than I am:  'If We Forget to Look Out the Window.'
• Easybib: 10 Ways to Spot a Fake News Article (very specific suggestions, a great entry point to share with colleagues and students)

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