Group items tagged

"The debate about mis- and dis-information has intensified, but, as our report argues, we're still failing to appreciate the complexity of the phenomenon at hand. The report refrains from using the term 'fake news' and urges journalists, academics and policy-makers to do the same. This is for two reasons. First, the term is woefully inadequate to describe the complexities of information disorder. Second, it has been appropriated by politicians worldwide to describe news organizations whose coverage they find disagreeable, and, in this way, has become a mechanism by which the powerful clamp down upon, restrict, undermine and circumvent the free press. Our new definitional framework introduces three types, elements and phases of information disorder. We describe the differences between the three types of information using dimensions of harm and falseness: Mis-information is when false information is shared, but no harm is meant. Dis-information is when false information is knowingly shared to cause harm. Mal-information is when genuine information is shared to cause harm, often by moving private information into the public sphere."

Credibility of info posted on social media. Role of reposrteers: fact checking sources.

"To help kids separate fact from fiction, Newsela partnered with the American Press Institute in October of 2016. Now whenever kids read an article on their electronic device, in addition to their normal comprehension questions, they're prompted to ask questions about the article itself: Where do the facts come from? Is there a bias? What's missing from this piece? "That'll be like a mini-research project for the student," Coogan says. Teachers can ask kids probing questions about the outlet, including where it's headquartered, where it receives funding, and what affiliations its members might have. No one would go to such great lengths reading the morning paper, Coogan says, but it's meant to be overkill in order to instill healthy levels of skepticism. "It's a good exercise to always question the source of the information," she says."

"Without a repertoire of reading strategies that can be applied to any text, students are being shortchanged in their education. In order to teach students to read effectively, teachers must be sure that they are not simply suppliers of information on a particular text but also instructors of techniques to build reading skills. Here are some ideas on how to incorporate reading skills lessons into a curriculum."

""Instead of measuring difficulty in terms of information retrieval, or amount of homework, the new standard of personal rigor puts thinking and intelligent behaviors at the forefront. How a student expresses those personal qualities become the standard for capability and performance. In effect, we're starting to redefine what is 'hard' in school." So what happens when a school takes the shifting digital landscape seriously, acknowledging how the brain works, the essential need for intrinsic motivation, the reality of the declining value of fixed knowledge, the importance of social and emotional learning, and the critical need to focus on learning how to learn in new and dynamic ways?"

"To read a text closely one must only rely on the words in the text and their relationships to each other. They don't turn to other sources. Close readers learn to notice metaphors or symbols, interesting juxtapositions of information, ambiguities, and the like (clues authors might have left behind to reveal the text meaning to those who read closely).             The Common Core State Standards require that we teach students to be close readers-to not only grasp the literal and inferential meanings of a text, but to understand how an author's word choices and structures convey higher-level meanings; how to figure out the subtler aspects of a text.             As such, close reading only makes sense is if texts have deeper meanings. If there aren't deeper meanings requiring such text analysis, then close reading would have no value. That means close reading requires certain kinds of text complexity."

"Many of my first-year college students have been battle-trained in writing thesis statements by the time I get them. But rather than opening doors to thought, the thesis quickly closes them. Instead of offering a guiding hand, the thesis carries a baseball bat, muscling its way into writers' thoughts and beating information into submission. What I'm talking about is the thug thesis, the bully who hangs with the five-paragraph theme and similar forms of deductive writing. Unfortunately, this thesis-an anathema to academic inquiry-is the one most students know best. I'm not arguing against teaching students how to write a thesis statement. What bothers me is how thoroughly this convention dominates our discussions about what is meant by strong academic writing. The thesis has been hogging the bed, and it's time to make more room for its tossing-and-turning partner in academic inquiry: the question."

"Language merely reflects our way of trying to make sense of the world. - Frank Smith Frank Smith (1982) says 'writing touches every part of our lives'. One of the first reasons we write is because it is a tool for communication in culture. It gives us the ability the share information over time and space with multiple individuals (explaining, recounting & opinion). It can also be used as a permanent record or as a statement e.g. in history, geography  & science genres. The third cultural aspect for writing is artistry (narrative and poetry). Finally, there is also the personal aspect to writing. Writing allows us all to reflect, express our perceptions of self, to socially dream or to be critical (memoir). By writing, we find out what we know; what we think. Ultimately though, writing is a means for us to express ourselves in the world, make sense of the world or impose ourselves upon it. The question now is why do children write at school? For these purposes? - Not often. There is a massive discrepancy between the writing done in the real-world and that of the classroom. Donald Graves says 'all children want to write'. It is just a case of allowing them to write about the things they are interested in. As Frank Smith says, 'all children can write if they can speak it.' If they can talk about it, they can write it down. The transmission of narrow decontextualized writing skills; that English is just a formal system to be learnt. The insistence on task-orientated writing. The insistence on teacher-chosen writing tasks. The insistence on the use of external stimulus (literature units, film-clips, topic-writing) at the expense of children's knowledge, interests, loves, talents and idiosyncrasies. The formal rather than functional teaching of grammar. These examples embody the 'commonsense' assumptions which claim an authority which is supposedly natural and unshakable. Writing in classrooms at present isn't seen by children as important

"Out of Eden Learn is a unique online learning community designed to accompany Paul Salopek's Out of Eden Walk. Through Out of Eden Learn, students from around the world can engage in Paul's journey and all that it represents. They explore their own neighborhoods, investigate contemporary global issues, and reflect on how they as individuals fit into a broader geographical and historical context. In addition, they share their perspectives and interact with one another on an exciting digital platform that uses social media as a springboard for deep, meaningful learning. The goal is to ignite students' interest in the wider world and support them to become more informed, thoughtful, and engaged "global citizens.""

"Students who write for their teacher write for a grade. Students who write for an audience write to connect, to argue, to entertain, to inform. And when they have other purposes for their writing other than a grade, they begin to care about the craft, choose carefully their words, shape thoughtfully their sentences. Isn't this the goal of writing standards? So the question is: Does your school provide or cheat your students out of an audience? Or, to cut to the chase: Does your school actively support a newspaper or broadcast program? If it doesn't, please stop going on about how you're meeting the Common Core standards. Because in spirit you're not."

"What we do know is that a plethora of assessment-related research has shed light not just on the importance of students' mindsets, but also on the importance of continual feedback and how active retrieval of information, in carefully spaced intervals, can produce long-lasting learning. Research also shows that providing students with choice enhances attention and engagement -- and confirms that the arts can help deepen long-term memory consolidation (Hardiman). Specifically, the following research is helping to change our understanding of the correlation between teaching and learning -- and altering our approaches to student assessment."

"Using the information in the article and the video, write a paragraph arguing whether colleges should continue to spend money on humanities majors when STEM careers are taking precedence after graduation. If so, how should these areas be updated for 21st-century learners?"

It is a disconnect that is growing in the Internet age as concepts of intellectual property, copyright and originality are under assault in the unbridled exchange of online information, say educators who study plagiarism. Digital technology makes copying and pasting easy, of course. But that is the least of it. The Internet may also be redefining how students - who came of age with music file-sharing, Wikipedia and Web-linking - understand the concept of authorship and the singularity of any text or image.

Wordnik's goal is to show you as much information as possible, as fast as we can find it, for every word in English, and to give you a place where you can make your own opinions about words known.

Interesting information about the testing culture our politicians and education corpratists use to critique our "failing" system.

Besides being an interesting resource for information (depending on article and author), this might be a way for students to get some work published on the web.

Other than a mention of the need to "evaluate information from multiple oral, visual, or multimodal sources," there is no specific reference in the common standards to critical analysis and production of film, television, advertising, radio, news, music, popular culture, video games, media remixes, and so on. Nor is there explicit attention on fostering critical analysis of media messages and representations. A 1999 national survey of state standards found elements of media literacy in almost every state's teaching standards. As states adopt the common-core standards, the result may actually be a reduced focus on media and literacy instruction formally contained in state standards. We therefore recommend four ways to address the common standards' limited focus on media/digital literacies:

"Scroll through the 301 prompts below that touch on every aspect of contemporary life - from politics to sports, culture, education and technology - and see which ones most inspire you to take a stand. Each question comes from our daily Student Opinion feature, and each provides links to free Times resources for finding more information."

"When mistakes become learning opportunities, everything changes. Students take more risks, think in new ways, cheat less, and solve mysteries that had previously eluded them. Here are some things that we can do in the classroom to change this defeating way of thinking, including both formal and informal evaluation processes:"