Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

In a “post-truth” era where people are increasingly influenced by their emotions and beliefs over factual information, fact and fiction can be difficult to distinguish, and fake news can spread rapidly through mainstream media sources and social networks. Moreover, fake news is often meant to do harm, by tricking us into believing a lie or unfairly discrediting a person or political movement.

One of the things I’ve been trying to convince people for the past year and a half is that the only viable literacy solution to web misinformation involves always checking any information in your stream that you find interesting, emotion-producing, or shareable. It’s not enough to check the stuff that is suspicious: if you apply your investigations selectively, you’ve already lost the battle.

In many parts of the UK, students who are attending pre-sessional courses are now in the midst of assessments and essay writing. 

Regardless whether learners are post-graduate, graduate or K12 students, it is always worth revising how to evaluate web sources with them. 

Below is a Padlet with suggestions to use with students.