Understand Bias, Fact Check & Read Laterally

Disinformation, propaganda, misinformation are new but with advancement of technologies, they are certainly harder to identify, especially with artificial intelligence and the ability to combine media to create deepfakes. See "How the Wall Street Journal is Preparing its Journalists to Detect Deep Fakes" by Francesco Marconi & Till Daldrup, Nieman Lab 11/15/18.

The CRAAP test has been the tried and true method used to teach students how to identify whether a web site contains good information. Thank you to my School Librarian Workshop Facebook tribe for reminding me that CRAAP criteria is still important. However, it is based on vertical reading, as most of the items the currency, relevance, accuracy, authority, and purpose.

I recently read Alex Couros and Katia Hildebrandt's article Hildebrandt. “Developing Critical Literacies: What We Need to Know in a “Fake News” World.” Canadian School Libraries Journal, Spring 2018, which made me think of how I could improve how I teach students how to evaluate the media and information they are viewing in our digital world.

I want my high school students to go beyond the check list, I want them to be able to understand implicit bias and be able to identify their own and the bias in any media they are viewing. I want my students to understand the importance of reading laterally. I want them to have the fact checking tools they need at the click of a button. The following was not created to replace CRAAP but to enhance it in our increasing complicated world of fake news and deepfakes.  

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