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What looks like (and reads like) the truth may be riddled with lies if you look more closely, says neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin.

We've created more human-made information in the last five years than in all previous human history. Unfortunately, often found next to things that are true are an enormous number of things that are not - in websites, videos, books and on social media. This is not a new problem; misinformation was documented in Biblical times and in classical Greece. The unique problem we face today is that misinformation has proliferated. It is devilishly entwined on the Internet with real information, making the two difficult to separate. And misinformation is promiscuous - it consorts with people of all social and educational classes and turns up in places you don't expect it to.

Here are four ways in which misinformation may hide in plain sight.

Lies are tucked in among truths
When it comes to snowing people, one effective technique is to get a whole bunch of verifiable facts right and then add one or two that are untrue. The ones you get correct will have the ring of truth to them, and any intrepid people who decide to check them will be successful. So you just fold in one or two untruths, and many people will haplessly go along with you.

Consider the following nine-step argument:
1. Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen.
2. The molecular symbol for water is H20.
3. Our bodies are made up of more than 60 percent water.
4. Human blood is 92 percent water.
5. The brain is 75 percent water.
6. Many locations in the world have contaminated water.
7. Less than 1 percent of the world's accessible water is drinkable.
8. You can only be sure that the quality of your drinking water is high if you buy bottled water.
9. Leading health researchers recommend drinking bottled water, and the majority drink bottled water themselves.

Assertions one through seven are true. Assertion eight doesn't follow logically, and assertion nine, well . . . who are the leading researchers? And what does it mean that they drink bottled water themselves? It could be when it is offered to them, they'll drink it. Or does it mean that they avoid all other forms of water? There is a wide chasm between these two possibilities.

The fact is, bottled water is at best no safer or healthier than most tap water in developed countries, and in some cases less safe because of lax regulations. This is based on reports by a variety of reputable sources, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Mayo Clinic and Consumer Reports. Of course, exceptions exist (e.g., Flint, Michigan). But in general the argument of pseudoscientific health advocates, as typified by the above string of statements, does not, er, hold water.

Websites masquerade under misleading names
In a 2014 congressional race in Florida, the local GOP offices created a website with the name of their Democratic opponent, Alex Sink, to fool people into thinking they were giving money to her; in reality, the money went to her rival, David Jolly. The site, contribute.sinkforcongress2014.com, used the color scheme of Sink's site and featured a smiling photo of her that was very similar to the one used on her site. The GOP site did say that the money will be used to defeat Sink, but many people might not have taken the time to read such things carefully. The most eye-catching parts of the GOP site are the large photo of Sink and the headline "Alex Sink Congress." Not to be outdone, Democrats responded by copying this tactic and creating the site http://www.JollyForCongress.com.

MartinLutherKing.org probably sounds like a site that would provide information about the civil rights leader. Because it is a .org site, you might assume that there is no ulterior motive of profit, and the site proclaims that it offers "a true historical examination" of Martin Luther King. Wait a minute. An old joke goes, "How do you know someone is lying to you? Because they begin with the phrase to be perfectly honest." Honest people (or websites) don't need to preface their content this way.

If you read more closely, you'll see that MartinLutherKing.org contains a large assortment of distortions, out-of-context quotes, and biased rants. Who runs the site? Stormfront, a white supremacist, neo-Nazi hate group. If a site looks fishy to you, click around until you see what entity owns it. Another quick way to check out a site: do a Google search to see who else links to that web page. Type "link:" followed by the website URL, and Google will return all the sites that link to it.

Numbers are given without context
Even counting the airplane fatalities of the 9/11 attacks in the US, air travel continues to remain the safest transportation mode, followed closely by rail transportation. The chances of dying on a commercial flight or train trip are next to zero. Yet some people avoid airplanes when they see statistics like this one: More people died in plane crashes in 2014 than in 1960.

The statistic is correct, but it's not the most relevant statistic to consider. It turns out that the number of airplane deaths was higher because there were so many more flights in 2014 than 1960. If you really want to figure out how safe air travel is, looking at the total number of deaths will not help. You need to look at the death rate - the deaths per miles flown, or deaths per flight, or something that equalizes the baseline.

Claims rest on false sources
Unscrupulous writers often count on the fact that most people don't bother reading footnotes or tracking down citations. Maybe a company wants its website to convince people that its skin cream has been shown to reverse the aging process by ten years. So an employee writes an article and peppers it with official-looking footnotes that lead to web pages that are completely irrelevant to the argument. Or they point to reputable articles on relevant sites, like a peer-reviewed journal on aging or on dermatology, even though the referenced article cited says nothing about the product. When a product sounds too good to be true, you should look at its evidence before going any further.

The promise of the Internet is that it is a great democratizing force, allowing everyone to express their opinions and have immediate access to all the world's information. Combine these two, and you have a virtual world of information and misinformation cohabiting side by side, staring back at you like identical twins - except one of them will help you and the other one will hurt you.

The task of figuring out which one to choose falls on all of us, and it requires careful thinking and something that most of us feel is in short supply: time. Critical thinking is not something you do once with an issue and then drop it. It requires that we update our knowledge as new information comes in. Time spent evaluating claims is not just time well spent. It should be considered part of an implicit bargain we've all made.

Adapted from the new book Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era, by Daniel Levitin. Reprinted by arrangement with Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, a Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © Daniel J. Levitin, 2016.

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Four tricky ways that fake news can fool you

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We've created more human-made information in the last five years than in all previous human history. Unfortunately, often found next to things that are true are an enormous number of things that are not - in websites, videos, books and on social media.

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Fake news stories can have real-life consequences. On Sunday, police said a man with a rifle who claimed to be "self-investigating" a baseless online conspiracy theory entered a Washington, D.C., pizzeria and fired the weapon inside the restaurant.

So, yes, fake news is a big problem.

These stories have gotten a lot of attention, with headlines claiming Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump in November's election and sites like American News sharing misleading stories or taking quotes out of context. And when sites like DC Gazette share stories about people who allegedly investigated the Clinton family being found dead, the stories go viral and some people believe them. Again, these stories are not true in any way.

Stopping the proliferation of fake news isn't just the responsibility of the platforms used to spread it. Those who consume news also need to find ways of determining if what they're reading is true. We offer several tips below.

The idea is that people should have a fundamental sense of media literacy. And based on a study recently released by Stanford University researchers, many people don't.

Sam Wineburg, a professor of education and history at Stanford and the lead author of the study, said a solution is for all readers to read like fact checkers. But how do fact checkers do their job?

Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, says fact checkers have a process for each claim they deal with.

"You'll isolate a claim that has something that can be objectively verified, you will seek the best primary sources in that topic. Find whether they match or refute or prove the claim being made, and then present with all limitations the data and what the data says about the claim being made," Mantzarlis says.

That's the framework for professionals, but there are ways for everyone to do a bit of fact checking themselves.

Melissa Zimdars is an assistant professor of communication and media at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass. When she saw her students referencing questionable sources, she created and shared a document with them of how to think about sources, as well as a list of misleading, satirical and fake sites.

Both Mantzarlis and Zimdars agreed there are a few best practices people can use when reading articles online.
Pay attention to the domain and URL
Established news organizations usually own their domains and they have a standard look that you are probably familiar with. Sites with such endings like .com.co should make you raise your eyebrows and tip you off that you need to dig around more to see if they can be trusted. This is true even when the site looks professional and has semi-recognizable logos. For example, abcnews.com is a legitimate news source, but abcnews.com.co is not, despite its similar appearance.
Read the "About Us" section
Most sites will have a lot of information about the news outlet, the company that runs it, members of leadership, and the mission and ethics statement behind an organization. The language used here is straightforward. If it's melodramatic and seems overblown, you should be skeptical. Also, you should be able to find out more information about the organization's leaders in places other than that site.
Look at the quotes in a story
Or rather, look at the lack of quotes. Most publications have multiple sources in each story who are professionals and have expertise in the fields they talk about. If it's a serious or controversial issue, there are more likely to be quotes - and lots of them. Look for professors or other academics who can speak to the research they've done. And if they are talking about research, look up those studies.
Look at who said them
Then, see who said the quotes, and what they said. Are they a reputable source with a title that you can verify through a quick Google search? Say you're looking at a story and it says President Obama said he wanted to take everyone's guns away. And then there's a quote. Obama is an official who has almost everything he says recorded and archived. There are transcripts for pretty much any address or speech he has given. Google those quotes. See what the speech was about, who he was addressing and when it happened. Even if he did an exclusive interview with a publication, that same quote will be referenced in other stories, saying he said it while talking to the original publication.
Check the comments
A lot of these fake and misleading stories are shared on social media platforms. Headlines are meant to get the reader's attention, but they're also supposed to accurately reflect what the story is about. Lately, that hasn't been the case. Headlines often will be written in exaggerated language with the intention of being misleading and then attached to stories that are about a completely different topic or just not true. These stories usually generate a lot of comments on Facebook or Twitter. If a lot of these comments call out the article for being fake or misleading, it probably is.
Reverse image search
A picture should be accurate in illustrating what the story is about. This often doesn't happen. If people who write these fake news stories don't even leave their homes or interview anyone for the stories, it's unlikely they take their own pictures. Do a little detective work and reverse search for the image on Google. You can do this by right-clicking on the image and choosing to search Google for it. If the image is appearing on a lot of stories about many different topics, there's a good chance it's not actually an image of what it says it was on the first story.

These tips are just a start at determining what type of news an article is. Zimdars outlined these and others in a guide for her students.

If you do these steps, you're helping yourself and you're helping others by not increasing the circulation of these stories.

And you won't be the only one trying to stop the spread of this false content. The company leaders behind the platforms these stories are shared on are trying to figure out how to fix the issue from their side, but they are also trying to make sure not to limit anyone's right to freedom of speech. It's a tricky position to be in, but they've said they'll try. In the end, it really does depend on taking responsibility and being an engaged consumer of news.

Here's one last thing. Satirical publications exist and serve a purpose, but are clearly labeled as exaggerated and humorous by the writers and owners. Some of the more well-known ones like The Onionand ClickHole use satire to talk about current events. If people don't understand that, they might share these articles after reading them in the literal sense.

If this happens or if you see your friends sharing blatantly fake news, be a friend and kindly tell them it's not real. Don't shy away from these conversations even if they might be uncomfortable. As said, everyone has to help fix the fake news problem.
Wynne Davis is a Digital News intern.

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Fake Or Real? How To Self-Check The News And Get The Facts

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Your friend shares a story on Facebook. You read the headline and you think it's too good to be true, but it looks like it's from a news site. Experts offer tips to help you sniff out fact from fake.

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Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning

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Over the last year and a half, the Stanford History Education Group has prototyped, field tested, and validated a bank of assessments that tap civic online reasoning-the ability to judge the credi...

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This afternoon at the CSLA 2017 conference I was asked about Google Keep. Specifically, I was asked why I preferred using Google Keep to the tasks list option Gmail. In short, Google Keep provides more utility for me compared to using the text-based options for tasks in Gmail. For example, Google Keep lets me add pictures to my reminders. I can also share my reminders and to-do lists with other people through Google Keep. And Google Keep allows me to sketch notes on my phone and on my tablet.

If you've been thinking about trying Google Keep, but you're not sure how to use it, take a look at my tutorial videos embedded below.

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5 Google Keep Tutorials for Teachers and Students

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This afternoon at the CSLA 2017 conference I was asked about Google Keep. Specifically, I was asked why I preferred using Google Keep to the tasks list option Gmail. In short, Google Keep provides more utility for me compared to using the text-based options for tasks in Gmail.

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College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools

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College Board is a non-profit organization that clears a path for all students to own their future through the AP Program, SAT Suite, BigFuture, and more.

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Plan for life after high school. Compare colleges. Explore career possibilities. Learn about financial aid and scholarships.

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Teach Empathy With Digital Immigration Stories

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Create empathic moments in the classroom with a safe, welcoming environment for students to tell their family’s immigration stories through the modalities of digital storytelling.

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Watch and Listen to stories of great scientists, doctors, artists, film makers and other notable people and learn something new today

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Note: If you do not have an email address associated with your Career Cruising account, please contact your teacher/site administrator.

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Rethink before you type | Trisha Prabhu | TEDxTeen

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68% of teens agree that cyberbullying is a serious problem.

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Organization/Collaboration of school counselors

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Website creator

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Build your website, build your success

From tech hurdles big and small to business growth tips, help from our Customer Success team is just an email, chat, or phone call away. Begin with Weebly's free website builder and lean on us for help along the way.

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Weebly is the easiest way to create a website, store or blog

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Weebly's free website builder makes it easy to build a website, blog, or online store. Find customizable designs, domains, and eCommerce tools for any type of business using our website builder.

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School counselors play a unique and vital role in the education system, and their work has significant impact on the students they work with. From elementary school all the way through college, school counselors can positively influence students and help them get the most benefit from their social and educational experiences.

The collected wisdom of current school counselors can be an incredible resource for the next wave. Many of the sites acknowledged here are relevant only to school counselors working with a particular age group, but there is something here for everyone. These sites are in no way being ranked, they are simply our favorites, and we wholeheartedly believe that anyone hoping to become a school counselor can gain valuable insight from every blog, organization and resource listed here.

Blogs

Blogs written by current school counselors can be simultaneously informative and incredibly entertaining. Not all of these blogs are by currently practicing school counselors, but all have excellent information on the topic.

Tools & Supplies

Books, online questionnaires and classroom activity toolkits can all become a part of a school counselor's repertoire, depending on the setting in which they choose to work. These are some interesting, fun, unique or just downright useful ones.

School Counseling Organizations

Local, national, and international organizations have been formed to provide school counselors with a professional community and a platform of support for continued improvement of individual counselors' skills, and of the field as a whole.

General Resources

So many incredible resources are available freely online for school counselors who will take the time to look. Any of these gems is a great place to start.

What should I look for in a master's program in counseling?

Whether you're considering enrolling at traditional brick-and-mortar institution or at an online university, you should look at every degree program with a critical eye. It is crucial to know if the program is accredited by a National Accreditation Agency, if it properly prepares students for licensure and certification exams, and if it offers a specialization/focus aligns with your career goals.

The following featured programs fulfill these criteria and might make excellent options:

You can also click here to search a database of 100+ accredited degree programs (both campus and online).

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Best in School Counseling: Our Favorite Websites - MastersInCounseling.org

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School counselors play a unique and vital role in the education system, and their work has significant impact on the students they work with. From elementary school all the way through college, school counselors can positively influence students and help them get the most benefit from their social and educational experiences.

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Home - American School Counselor Association (ASCA)

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Free technology, programs, and apps.

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As I usually do during this week, I'm taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016.

The Practical Ed Tech Handbook isn't just a list of my favorite resources. I've included ideas for using these resources and in many cases I've included links to video tutorials about my favorite resources. In The Practical Ed Tech Handbook you will find resources arranged in seven categories; communication with students & parents, web search strategies, digital citizenship, video creation, audio production, backchannels & informal assessment, and digital portfolios.

The Practical Ed Tech Handbook is embedded below. You can also grab a copy of it here.

The link and the embed above are both hosted by Box.com. If you cannot see the embedded document or you cannot access the link, check with your domain administrator to see if you're allowed to access Box.com at school.

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Practical Ed Tech Handbook - Best of 2016

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As I usually do during this week, I'm taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. The Practical Ed Tech Handbook isn't just a list of my favorite resources.

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The power of yet | Carol S Dweck | TEDxNorrköping

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Remind your students and parents about groups, meetings, assignments, anything!

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Adoption and usage

Simple, effective, and surprisingly easy to use

With nearly 30 million users in 80% of US schools, the numbers speak for themselves: students, families, and educators love using Remind.

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Remind | Communication Platform for Education

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Remind is a communication platform that reaches students and families where they are and supports learning wherever it happens. Millions of educators, students, and parents use Remind to connect with the people and resources that help them teach and learn.