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Free educational resources for PreK–12 educators and students. It's media-rich and covers a wide range of grade levels and subject areas, including info lit like identifying and addressing fake news.

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PBS LearningMedia | Teaching Resources For Students And Teachers

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Inspire your students with thousands of free teaching resources including videos, lesson plans, and games aligned to state and national standards.

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From SFUSD: The Digital Agency (formerly Digital Citizenship) team has curated learning materials for teachers and students to promote healthy, positive online interactions and behaviors to participate respectfully within their newly formed online communities.

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[DA] 9-12 Getting Started with Digital Agency

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Fun internet safety games for grades 4-7, courtesy of Common Sense Media

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Digital Compass can only be used on desktop or laptop web browsers.

Digital Compass by Common Sense Education teaches students the fundamentals of digital citizenship through a choose-your-own-path interactive game, designed for grades 6-8.

Teachers, this way to the Educator Guide to Digital Compass!

Get resources

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Common Sense Digital Compass™ | Educational games for kids to help teach digital citizenship and digital literacy skills.

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Fun internet safety games for grades 2-4, courtesy of Common Sense Media

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Digital Passport by Common Sense Education is an award-winning suite of engaging games that address key issues facing kids in today's digital world.

Teachers, this way to the Educator Guide to Digital Passport!

Get resources

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Digital Passport™ by Common Sense Education

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Digital Passport™ is an award-winning suite of engaging interactive games that address critical issues for students in today's digital world. Teach your students the ins and outs of digital learning, online communication, and online safety, and help them build lifelong digital skills.

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From Jenna  Simpson at All Saints’ Episcopal School in Fort WorthTX. via Debbie Abilock.

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Resources for Building a Digital Citizenship Program

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Are you wanting to incorporate more digital citizenship into your curriculum? You’ll find a multitude of resources in this article!

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Is this video real -- relevant and fun example

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Is this video real -- relevant and fun example

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Yes, it is Buzzfeed, but author Jane Lytvynenko is a much-revered fact-checker. Validating this video is fun and quite informative. Write me at tbergsonmichelson@castilleja.org if you want my notes on teaching the process.

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Yes, This PE Teacher Really Danced Through The Coup In Myanmar

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The viral video looked too absurd to be real, but online sleuths were able to quickly verify its location.

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Use critical thinking and also listen to your gut to test what you see online:
Liquid Mountaineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe3St1GgoHQ
Making of Liquid Mountaineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bjT0ypsNIo
Real or Fake: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-TvZvLdGKyPvzX4Ys-yduFRxbL_aoOE_/view?usp=sharing
Pacific Northwest tree Octopus: https://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/faq.html

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Mike Caulfield is awesome. This is what I teach the kids to do now. Middle School and up. I recall that some examples are not appropriate for middle school - you must adapt.

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Great examples and strategies for spotting and verifying misinformation. For higher level students, but can be modified.

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Partnership on AI

First Draft is a member of the Partnership on AI's Steering Committee on AI and Media Integrity. The steering committee, made up of organizations spanning civil society, technology companies, media organizations, and academic institutions, will be focused on a specific set of activities and projects directed at strengthening the research landscape related to new technical capabilities in media production and detection, and increasing coordination across organizations implicated by these developments. Initial members of the steering committee will include the BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, Facebook, First Draft, Microsoft, the New York Times, WITNESS, and XPRIZE, among other PAI Partner organizations to be later announced.

Funding
First Draft has received funding from the following organizations for 2020:
Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust
Craig Newmark Philanthropies
Democracy Fund
Facebook Journalism Project
Ford Foundation
Google News Initiative
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The Klarman Family Foundation
Media Democracy Fund
The Newton and Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust
Rita Allen Foundation
Swiss Democracy Fund
Open Society Foundations
Wellcome Trust
In 2019, First Draft received funding from the following organizations:
Children's Investment Fund FoundationCraig Newmark PhilanthropiesFacebook Journalism ProjectFord FoundationGoogle News InitiativeSchool of Journalism at CUNYOpen Society Foundations

News Integrity Initiative at the Craig Newmark Graduate

Twitter

Organizations interested in partnerships, sponsorships and other opportunities can reach out to .

Statement of Independence

First Draft is a non-partisan organization. It has no political affiliation, and does not accept funding from governments or political parties.

First Draft does accept funding from private-sector and non-profit organizations. Our donors are listed above in the Funding section of this page. While certain projects and initiatives may be guided in part by the specific requirements of our funding partnerships (for example, when we receive sponsorship for the translation of training materials into a particular language), our donors understand that First Draft retains operational and editorial independence. Our decisions are driven by the organization's mission and values.

Government Policy

As First Draft is recognized internationally for its expertise and thought leadership around the challenges posed by information disorder, our work is in high demand by a variety of groups and institutions, including governments and regulatory bodies.

We recognize the value in sharing our knowledge with policymakers. First Draft works to inform all who have a stake in the dissemination of accurate information, including governments.

At the same time, First Draft is steadfastly committed to our independence and our impartiality. Our primary target audience is journalists and academics. We do not accept offers of funding or requests for work that might compromise our ability to work effectively with these groups.

This is First Draft's policy regarding when, where and how we share our work with governments:

We invite government officials to sign up for First Draft's daily and weekly briefings on disinformation and the online information landscape.

We may accept invitations to provide expert testimony at government inquiries and before select committees. Please contact us at with a description of your request.

We may accept invitations to speak at conferences that are sponsored or co-sponsored by governmental bodies, if such conferences are open to reporting from the media. We do not accept payment for such appearances. Please contact us at with a description of your request.

If asked to produce documents on behalf of governments (for example, reports or summaries on disinformation), these documents must be made public. We do not produce private reports for governments.

We do not accept offers of funding from or perform paid work (for example, commissioned research or building bespoke training materials) for governments.

We do not provide expertise to governments at sessions or meetings which are closed to the public or to reporting from the media.

Impact reports

Acknowledgements

First Draft has achieved extraordinary impact and growth since its inception in 2015. This is due to the invaluable efforts and contributions from a long list of respected friends and colleagues, to whom we extend sincere thanks and credit. In particular, we thank the individuals who formed or worked for our original coalition:

Advisory Board

Daniel Bramatti is the president of Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI). He also serves as the editor of Estadão Data and Estadão Verifica. Daniel previously worked as a sub editor at POLITICO and as a correspondent in Buenos Aires.

Liz Carolan is the executive director of Digital Action, which works to counter digital threats to democracy. In 2018 she set up and ran the Transparent Referendum Initiative, a project to enable scrutiny of online activity during the Irish referendum on the 8th Amendment. She has spent the last 10 years working on governance, transparency and data issues at the Institute for Government, the Africa Governance Initiative and Open Data Institute.

Phil Chetwynd is the global news director of Agence France-Presse. Prior to that, he served as the editor-in-chief of AFP and as the organization's special correspondent in over 20 countries.

Sam Dubberley manages the Digital Verification Corps at Amnesty International. He has over ten years' experience in broadcast news and was head of the Eurovision News Exchange from 2010 to 2013, managing the world's largest exchange of TV news content.

Sam Gregory is the program director at WITNESS and an award-winning technologist, media-maker and advocate. For 20 years, Sam has enabled people to use the power of the moving image and participatory technologies to create human rights change. Currently co-chair of the Partnership on AI's Expert Group on AI and the Media, he focuses on emerging threats linked to AI and mis/disinformation including deepfakes and synthetic media.

Sameer Padania runs Macroscope, an independent consultancy supporting experimentation, innovation and learning in journalism, human rights and philanthropy. He has worked and consulted for organizations such as Open Society, Ariadne, Transparency and Accountability Initiative, WAN-IFRA, the European Cultural Foundation, The Philanthropy Workshop and Google DNI Innovation Fund, on a wide range of journalism, digital media, activism and policy initiatives.

Chris Perry is the chief innovation officer at Weber Shandwick, a leading global communications and marketing solutions firm. With over 20 years of digital and media experience, Chris specializes in helping clients decode the rapidly changing media environment. His writing and work have been featured in Forbes, Fortune, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Chris authors the Media/Genius newsletter, which focuses on media at the intersection of content and intelligence.

Adam Rendle is a partner at Taylor Wessing in the IP/IT group, specialising in copyright, media and brands. Adam provides a wide range of support for clients including complex, strategic advisory work, litigation and disputes, content, advertising deals and corporate transactions. His work focuses on media and tech industries, with major clients across music, publishing, broadcasting, advertising and digital service.

Vivian Schiller is the executive director for The Aspen Institute's programs on technology, media, innovation and cybersecurity. Previously, she was head of the Civil Foundation, global chair of news at Twitter, senior vice president and chief digital officer at NBC News, and president and chief executive of NPR.

Dan Shefet is the founder of Cabinet Shefet, a law firm that focuses on international IP, IT and competition law. He also founded the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy, which aims to introduce a general principle of accountability on the internet to secure the protection of human integrity. Dan was elected to the American Law Institute in 2019.

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Today, we need access to accurate, reliable information more than ever before. But it's never been harder to know what and who to trust, and never easier to be misled. Misinformation is damaging our communities, all around the world.

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Breaking News Consumers' Handbooks from On the Media

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Breaking News Consumers' Handbooks from On the Media

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tips on how to analyze breaking news of several specific types -- e.g. active shooter, pandemic, etc
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/breaking-news-consumers-handbook-pdf

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MAN: Someone dressed in a black top, black jeans, what does that say, if anything, about a possible motive or, or whatever? Can we begin to draw any initial conclusions? And I want to alert our viewers, sometimes these initial conclusions can, obviously, be very, very wrong.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The initial coverage of the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard Monday by contractor Aaron Alexis bore all the earmarks of classic reportage in the midst of these all too frequent horrors. It stunk.

CORRESPONDENT: We're looking at a situation possibly involving multiple shooters here at the Washington Navy Yard.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Wrong!

CORRESPONDENT: It's believed that whoever this gunman is, a man in his fifties who - is carrying three weapons, a handgun, a shotgun and an assault rifle.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Wrong about his age, wrong about the assault rifle.

CORRESPONDENT: Earlier today, some media outlets were tweeting out that the shooter was a named Raleigh Chance.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now, that is dangerously wrong. Breaking news, whether of a violent storm or a vicious gunman, creates chaos and confusion. That's a given. But what the news media do in the face of it, that's a choice. And they pretty much make the same choice in every medium, on every platform, in every era.
CORRESPONDENT: Rumors ran rampant. At first step it was thought that Vice President Johnson had also been shot in the attack.

REBECCA GREENFIELD: During the JFK assassination, if you listened to the radio broadcasts, they sound as uncertain as Twitter reporters sound, when they're reporting if he's alive, if he's dead.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Rebecca Greenfield writes for The Atlantic Wire.

REBECCA GREENFIELD: A reporter in Dallas goes back and forth on it. At one point, they report that there were three shooters there. It goes all the way back to the reporting of the Titanic, even. There were false telegraphs saying that the Titanic hadn't sunk and that it was on its way to Halifax safe.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The new media environment means everyone gets to report or disseminate news of disaster. Some report well, some badly, but all are retweeted. So listen up, some of this is on you.

ANDY CARVIN: When a breaking news situation is happening, you really should pay attention to certain keywords that members of the media may use, because they mean very distinct things.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Andy Carvin is the senior strategist on NPR's digital desk.

ANDY CARVIN: So, for example, if they say, we're receiving reports that XYZ has happened, that should suggest to you that some of their sources are claiming something but it's not necessarily confirmed, whereas if they then say, we can confirm that such and such has happened, that means that they feel that their sourcing is strong enough that they can go out on a limb and claim that this is an actual fact. And there are all sorts of words that they may use in between, such as, "It appears that such and such has happened," so they're feeling somewhat confident but they still haven't necessarily confirmed it either.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What about, "CNN has learned"?

ANDY CARVIN: One of the things that you will sometimes hear during breaking news is the phrase, "CNN has learned" or ""NPR has learned." While it may not seem like a big deal, it's their way of saying we have some sort of scoop. So, on the one hand, it could mean that they do have a scoop and they're the first ones to confirm something, or they're going out on a limb and reporting something that no one else has felt comfortable reporting yet.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: A shooting where NPR got it initially wrong was reporting that Congressperson Gabby Giffords had died.

[CLIP]:

NPR SPOKESWOMAN: In a fast-changing news situation, with conflicting reports, we should have been more cautious. NPR news apologizes to the family of Representative Giffords and to you, our listeners.

[END CLIP]

ANDY CARVIN: Which is why it's also important to listen to whether or not they're claiming what the source is. So, for example, if they say, "We're receiving information from law enforcement sources or law enforcement officials," if they're not going on record with that law enforcement official's name, then it's still essentially speculation, whereas if they say, "Officer such and such, at a press conference five minutes ago, said XYZ," that means the officials have gone on the record with their names and the information that they have.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Unnamed sources led CNN up the path to

perdition, by wrongly claiming a suspect had been apprehended in the Boston Marathon bombing. And unnamed officials wrongly fingered Ryan Lanza, the actual shooter's brother as the gunman at Sandy Hook. But named officials maligned the citizens of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. In the first hours of mayhem coverage, trust no one. News consumers longing for certainty should just learn to live with the pain. As Carvin says, mark our words, meaning the media's words, and learn from experience, even if we don't.

IAN FISHER: First off, they should be wary about names that come out because often shooters are using different IDs or often the law enforcement officials are wrong.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ian Fisher is Assistant Managing Editor for Digital Operations at the New York Times.

IAN FISHER: Be wary of organizations that blindly quote other organizations, without solid sourcing. They aren't taking a very big chance in doing that. They can always say, oh, that was them, not us. Another thing is there's almost never a second gunman.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: It's like House on the TV show, saying, "It's never lupus."

IAN FISHER: Right. It's - [LAUGHS] it's never lupus; there's almost never another gunman.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Craig Silverman, author of the Poynter Institute's Regret the Error blog, has just written a piece which he plans to run every time there's a crisis. It's called, "This is My Story About the Breaking News Errors That Just Happened."

CRAIG SILVERMAN: And it just basically will fit pretty much any breaking news error situation in the future.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Okay, so what happens every single time?

CRAIG SILVERMAN: So, misidentification of people, usually of victims, of perpetrators - very consistent. We'll often see mistaken numbers, in terms of the number of victims, in terms of the number of perpetrators and that kind of thing, as well. Sometimes location is incorrect, where something originated, where something is happening now, mistakes also related to images, so fake images that are portrayed as real or images that were taken previously and sort of find their way to be presented as if they're new. So that's very consistent, as well.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: As you know, big news brings out the fakers.

CRAIG SILVERMAN: Absolutely. And this is a really important thing for both journalists and for people consuming media in these moments to realize, is that there are lots of hoaxers who know that in this moment people are just grabbing onto whatever image they can find. So they might Photoshop something and send it out. What we commonly see in, [LAUGHS] in weather situations is now what I call the street shark -

[BROOKE LAUGHS]

- where people - people will claim to see, in a flooded street or highway, a shark swimming.

[BROOKE LAUGHS]

So beware of street sharks.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So who should we trust?

CRAIG SILVERMAN: Well, [LAUGHS] a little bit of no one and a little bit of everyone. People on the ground, that's always your preferred source. Can - have they actually seen it with their own eyes, are they actually there and do they know the area - really, really important.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But not guaranteed. I'm tempted now to play another montage here, of bad reporting of the Boston Marathon bombing, the Sandy Hook shooting, the Oregon mall shooting, the Aurora, Colorado shooting, the Virginia Tech shooting and Columbine.

[MUSIC UP AND UNDER]

But I won't, because the exercise would be more depressing than illustrative. Instead, we'll put a chart on our website to post by your TV or radio or computer, to consult, when next confronted with a blood-saturated lead, because innocent people are shattered by guns but also by the buckshot of frenzied media, social media, included. Take note of the words: "We're receiving reports, an unnamed official says, another news outlet reports, experts speculate," and, of course, "second gunman." Mostly, they're just buckets of blather deployed to fill that aching void. So print out our little chart. And may you never need it. But you will.

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The Breaking News Consumer's Handbook | On the Media | WNYC Studios

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MAN: Someone dressed in a black top, black jeans, what does that say, if anything, about a possible motive or, or whatever? Can we begin to draw any initial conclusions? And I want to alert our viewers, sometimes these initial conclusions can, obviously, be very, very wrong.

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So much in here! About First Amendment, viral rumors, journalism, with activities!

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Subscribe to the free weekly educator newsletter The Sift.

Teach news literacy this week
Atlanta coverage fallout | Biden press illusion | Russia's 2020 strategy

NOTE: The Sift is going on spring break next week. We'll be back in your inbox on Monday, April 5.

Shooting coverage debates

News coverage of the March 16 fatal shootings at Atlanta-area spas that occurred amid a recent spate of anti-Asian violence across the country spurred important debates over journalism ethics and news decisions - especially as the story first unfolded. Questions and criticisms of coverage highlighted several notable issues, including the bias and credibility of law enforcement sources; the need for more diverse news organizations, journalists and sources; and hesitation by newsrooms to call the shootings a "hate crime."

As the story developed, the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) published guidance for newsrooms covering the shootings. Its recommendations include providing context on the recent increasing violence, and understanding the history of anti-Asian racism. It also underscored the need to consult Asian American and Pacific Islander expert sources and to be careful with language that could contribute to "the hypersexualization of Asian women."

AAJA reported that some newsrooms have questioned whether Asian American and Pacific Islander journalists will show bias or are "too emotionally invested" to cover the shootings. Calling such reports "deeply concerning," it urged news organizations to empower these journalists "by recognizing both the unique value they bring to the coverage of the Atlanta shootings and the invisible labor they regularly take on, especially in newsrooms where they are severely underrepresented."

Note: AAJA also released a pronunciation guide for Asian victims of the shootings.

Related:

Discuss: How could having more Asian American and Pacific Islander journalists - and others from diverse backgrounds - in newsrooms improve coverage of this story? Why is it important for newsrooms to reflect the diversity of communities they cover?

Idea: Ask students to read AAJA's guidance for covering the shootings. Then, select a news source on the shootings and see how its coverage compares to AAJA's recommendations. Have students take notes on language choices, context and sources. Discuss their findings and consider contacting the newsroom to share any feedback.

Resources: "Understanding Bias" and "Practicing Quality Journalism" (NLP's Checkology® virtual classroom).

Viral rumor rundown

NO: Video of President Joe Biden speaking to reporters at the White House on March 16 was not staged or manipulated using a green screen or computer-generated imagery. YES: Biden had an actual exchange with reporters, and the video of him with microphones in the foreground is authentic. YES: An illusion of depth caused Biden's hands to appear to move through the microphones when they actually were moving over and in front of mics extended on boom poles to maintain social distancing.

Note: This is a fragment of the QAnon conspiracy belief system in which followers believe that Biden - or an actor, hologram or other illusory device - is only pretending to be president until former President Donald Trump returns to power to reveal a vast satanic cabal of child traffickers. This claim circulated beyond QAnon communities online.

Idea: Show students an example of this rumor (for example here or here) and get their initial reaction. What is going on in this video? Why would people claim it was staged? Then show this video debunking the rumor from conspiracy theory investigator Mick West. Conclude by discussing why so many people saw this video as strong evidence that the clip was manipulated and, if appropriate, remind students that false claims about staged political events are often connected to dangerous and baseless QAnon beliefs.

NO: The alleged shooter in the deadly Atlanta-area spa shootings on March 16 did not claim that COVID-19 is part of China's "plan to secure global domination" and did not call for Americans to "fight back." NO: The Facebook post shared as an image at the bottom of this tweet is not authentic. YES: Fact-checkers at Lead Stories noted irregularities in the image, including outdated blue lettering no longer in use on the platform, that prove it is a manufactured hoax. NO: The suspect in the killings did not live in Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene's district.

NO: The gas prices in this photo are not representative of the current gas prices across the United States. YES: These are recent prices at just one gas station in downtown Los Angeles that is notorious for prices that are substantially higher than other stations nearby and around the country. YES: The average price of gas nationwide - $2.86 per gallon as of March 15 - has increased significantly in recent weeks due to increased demand, rising crude prices and limited supply due to the February power outages in Texas. YES: Gas prices collapsed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and have recently returned to pre-pandemic levels.

NO: Professional boxer Marvelous Marvin Hagler did not die as a result of a COVID-19 vaccine. YES: Hagler's official website states he died of natural causes and and his widow in a Facebook post refuted the rumors that he died as a result of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Note: This false claim stemmed from an Instagram post by the boxer Tommy Hearns, whose fight against Hagler in 1985 is considered one of the greatest in boxing history. It was also repeated by the far-right conspiracy website The Gateway Pundit.

Also note: Some of the misleading posts about Hagler's death repeated false vaccine claims about baseball great Hank Aaron, who in January died of natural causes 17 days after receiving his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Related: "Headlines lacking context exploited by anti-vaccine activists to wrongly suggest danger, study finds" (Oliver Darcy, CNN Business).

Discuss: Can repeating or re-sharing these kinds of rumors cause harm? Can we ever know the effects of the information we choose to amplify online?

Idea: Use rumors connecting unrelated deaths to COVID-19 vaccines as an opportunity to teach students to recognize the " post hoc, ergo propter hoc " ("after this, therefore, because of this") logical fallacy.

You can find a copy of this week's examples here.

★ Sift Picks

Featured

The National Intelligence Council on March 16 released a report outlining actions taken by foreign actors to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election. It concluded that while no foreign actors "attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process" in 2020, Russia and Iran did engage in significant information influence operations to manipulate the outcome of the election. Those operations aimed to erode Americans' confidence in U.S. institutions and the integrity of the electoral process and to intensify social divisions. Both countries worked to push false narratives and misleading "evidence" of alleged voting irregularities and voting fraud.

While Iran worked to undercut former President Donald Trump, Russia used U.S. media outlets, public officials, influential figures close to Trump along with its own state-run media to "launder" and legitimize false and misleading narratives to try to damage then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Related:

Discuss: Why would some foreign countries seek to damage Americans' trust in U.S. institutions, including its election systems? Do you think these kinds of information influence operations - which often use information shared and amplified anonymously online - can be stopped from spreading on social media?

Quick Picks

Discuss: Does Amazon have as much responsibility to moderate the products and recommendations on its website as social media companies do for the posts on their sites? What kinds of products should Amazon be unwilling to sell? Should it sell books promoting conspiracy theories? What about books that push medical misinformation, or promote racism and extremism? Should its recommendation algorithm promote these kinds of materials to some users?

Idea: Remind students that Amazon profits from all the products it sells on its site. Then have them search Amazon for problematic products and make notes about any that they would argue are unethical to sell. Also have students distinguish between products they find through a search and those that Amazon's suggestion algorithm recommends to them. Then consider what additional steps students could take with their findings.

Discuss: What are "peer-reviewed journals" and why are the academic papers they publish more credible than publications that are not peer-reviewed? What is "availability bias" and how can it affect our judgment about what science-based claims to believe? What does the phrase "correlation is not causation" mean?

Idea: Individually or in groups, challenge students to create an engaging infographic based on Zimmer's six tips, then share it on social media with a link to this story.

Discuss: To what extent do you think the problem of misinformation is a product of "excessive belief" (believing too readily) and to what extent is it a product of "excessive doubt" (dismissing credible sources of information)? How do our preexisting beliefs and biases influence the information we accept and dismiss? How can doubt be used as a weapon to misinform people? What is the difference between being skeptical and being cynical about news and information?

Related: "The danger of the new skepticism" (Eleanor Cummins, Vox).

Thanks for reading!

Your weekly issue of The Sift is created by Peter Adams (@PeterD_Adams), Suzannah Gonzales and Hannah Covington (@HannahCov) of the News Literacy Project. It is edited by NLP's Mary Kane (@marykkane).

You'll find teachable moments from our previous issues in the archives. Send your suggestions and success stories to thesift@newslit.org.

Sign up to receive NLP Connections (news about our work) or switch your subscription to the non-educator version of The Sift called Get Smart About News here.

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The Sift: Atlanta coverage fallout | Biden press illusion | Russia's 2020 strategy

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Subscribe to the free weekly educator newsletter The Sift. Teach news literacy this week Atlanta coverage fallout | Biden press illusion | Russia's 2020 strategy NOTE: The Sift is going on spring break next week. We'll be back in your inbox on Monday, April 5.

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The Sift is a newsletter from the News Literacy Project with loads of useful and interesting up to date info, including analyzing news stories, mythbusting, etc.

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Love this! Takes you through fake scenarios!

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Like a driving simulator for young people learning to drive a car for the first time, Social Media TestDrive provides a simulated experience of realistic digital dilemmas and scenarios, along with key concepts and strategies for navigating them.

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Welcome to the Social Media TestDrive official website!

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Electronic Frontier Foundation is based in SF!

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Electronic Frontier Foundation is based in SF!

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We had a visitor from them some years ago. Their work is pretty amazing...
https://www.eff.org/

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Surveillance Self-Defense is EFF's online guide to defending yourself and your friends from surveillance by using secure technology and developing careful practices.

Privacy Badger is an install-and-forget browser add-on that stops advertisers and trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web.

SAN FRANCISCO-A new Arizona law that bans people from recording videos within eight feet of police violates the constitutional rights of legal observers, grassroots activists, and other Arizonans, says a brief filed Friday in federal court by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), two Arizona chapters of the National Lawyers...

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Surveillance Self-Defense is EFF's online guide to defending yourself and your friends from surveillance by using secure technology and developing careful practices. Privacy Badger is an install-and-forget browser add-on that stops advertisers and trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web.

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Great courses for teachers. Here is one example.

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How Misinformation, Disinformation & Propaganda Are Made

Why do people create hoaxes? How can deepfake videos and images look so real?
Explore the history and evolution of disinformation and propaganda, and how to detect them by analyzing media production methods. Gain insights into "deepfakes," a new method to create faked videos.

6 Hours

Free

Learn what deepfakes are and how they are created

Understand how deepfakes fit into the larger history of hoaxes and fakes

Learn about how deepfakes are created and shared.

Learn about the history of deepfakes and internet hoaxes.

Examine production choices to better understand and evaluate media like deepfakes

Create an activity plan to help your students evaluate media

Deconstruct production choices as a means of better understanding and evaluating media such as deepfakes.

Help your students understand how to examine media production choices to better prepare them for the future of misinformation.

A Brief History of Hoaxes and Fakes

The Good, The Bad, and the Deep (Fake)

Deepfake Debrief

Production Choices

Teaching Connections with Production Choices

Making Audio

Practice: Examining Audio Production Choices

Making Images

Practice: Examining Image Production Choices

Making Video

Practice: Examining Video Production Choices

This course can help you develop the skills needed to earn the Critically Analyzing Media micro-credential. Earning eight micro-credentials qualifies you to become a PBS Certified Media Literacy Educator. Learn more.

Related Courses

Finding & Evaluating Information

Learn the techniques to critically evaluate reliable information.

Bias in Big Data & Algorithms

Learn all about data: what it is, how you interact with it online, and how to analyze it.

Making Media in the Age of Misinformation

Learn about the ethics of media making and the role it can play for you and your students.

What is KQED Teach?

We offer a collection of free, hands-on professional learning opportunities focused on digital media. Educators can build skills in video and audio production, data visualization and media analysis to support all curriculum areas. These skills allow educators to facilitate learning environments where their students can create digital content, develop their communication and technology skills and engage in deeper learning that encourages critical thinking.

Have a question? Email us at teach@kqed.org or check out our FAQ.

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How Misinformation, Disinformation & Propaganda Are Made

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How Misinformation, Disinformation & Propaganda Are Made Why do people create hoaxes? How can deepfake videos and images look so real? Explore the history and evolution of disinformation and propaganda, and how to detect them by analyzing media production methods. Gain insights into "deepfakes," a new method to create faked videos.

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Knight Foundation launched its Tech for Engagement Initiative two years ago because we believe technology has the power to transform our democracy.

In big and small ways, we see the potential for reinventing citizens' relationships with their neighbors, leaders and governments, as a way to build the informed and engaged communities where we all want to live.

Since then, Knight has invested $10 million in two dozen projects, with some early successes. I think most readily of Community PlanIt, which helped the Boston Public Schools involve more people, more deeply in planning efforts.

Two years ago, the district's town hall meetings drew 100 people. Earlier this summer, some 500 people participated through Community PlanIt, navigating challenges and responding to questions like: "If you were a headmaster of a turnaround school, what would you change?" Their 5,000 comments helped inform the way school quality is measured.

These and other platforms offer a glimpse of what is coming. However, we are nowhere close to realizing the full potential of technology for engagement. Many projects have a limited impact and uncertain duration. Others make government more efficient, yet not more effective at building community and drawing in residents as part of the solution.

In fact, we will only begin to realize technology's potential when we use this kind of engagement to not just fix potholes, as useful as that is, but to bring people together to tackle the major social problems and issues of our times.

So in June, Knight, the MIT Media Lab and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society convened 70 leading thinkers on technology and community life to draw a map of the field, build a network and seek a way to push the field forward. We stuck to an "unconference" format, where participants in small breakout sessions debated business models and metrics, the importance of hackathons and data sets, and much more.

In those and other conversations, we've determined where Knight's funding can have the most impact going forward:

* Deepening Engagement: Theorists often talk about moving people up the rungs of the engagement ladder. How do we move people from say, donating money to actually organizing the building of a playground? Or, from attending a zoning meeting to organizing with neighbors to advocate for a well-reasoned position? We're looking for ways technology can bring people together to make a difference in communities, through developing deeper neighbor-to-neighbor connections, fostering collective dialogue or making it easier for residents and leaders to co-create solutions. These shifts are fundamental to the more meaningful involvement that leads to consensus building and the types of solutions that can transform communities.

* Opening up government: Tim O'Reilly and Code for America founder Jennifer Pahlka say it best when they talk about government as a platform that uses the principles of the Web and technology to reframe the function of government, to make it less of a service provider and more of a "platform for citizens to help themselves and help others," as Pahlka said. Code for America has made it part of its mission, and we are interested in other ideas to help make it happen.

* Infrastructure for the field: The field right now is creative and skilled but small. Many of the people we gathered in Boston knew of each other's work but had not met. What kind of gatherings, on or offline, could move the field forward? Knight will help in part by hosting another summit in 2013. At the heart of the problem is the fact that we need more technologists with a passion for civic life, and ways to bring them together with social change leaders so that people and communities are at the center of projects from the beginning. We're looking for more ways to do that.

The report that follows, written by author Charles Tsai, is an exploration of these and other key topics that emerged at the Technology for Engagement Summit. It is meant as a starting point for conversations that are taking place in the early days of an emerging field. Many of the answers rest with people like you, the creatives, scholars, community leaders and developers who believe technology can help reinvent citizenship. We look forward to working with you to unlock the creativity and passion of people to come together around the causes they care so much about.

- Damian Thorman, J.D., Knight Foundation

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Knight Foundation launched its Tech for Engagement Initiative two years ago because we believe technology has the power to transform our democracy. In big and small ways, we see the potential for reinventing citizens' relationships with their neighbors, leaders and governments, as a way to build the informed and engaged communities where we all want to live.

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It's entertaining!

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Learn the signs of online disinformation and internet trolls. The Spot the Troll quiz asks you to examine real social media profiles and posts and decide whether they are legitimate.

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Finding a good collection of videos to appeal to middle and high school patrons can be challenging, but also engaging for the kids.

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Across Three Continents: A Tale of Tumblr, Copyright, and Excellent Posters

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All Contents Copyright © 1996-2021 Practising Law Institute. Continuing Legal Education since 1933. Copyright © 2021 PLI Practising Law Institute. All rights reserved. The PLI logo is a service mark of PLI.

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Weekly newsletters with current events examples for news literacy.  Quizzes online. Good for middle to high school.

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Palo Alto partner Carrie LeRoy was inspired by tragedies in her community involving cyber bullying and other forms of harassment via social media. Recognizing the disconnect between the practice of victim-blaming - which appeared to be rampant on social media - and the reality that the law strives to protect survivors and punish perpetrators, she developed a program now known as Cyber Dignity. The program trains pro bono attorneys to educate thousands of young people in the Bay Area and beyond, with a focus on teaching teenagers their rights and responsibilities in the areas of social media, cell phone use, and other technology. Its primary goals are deterrence of sexual assault and cyber bullying, empowerment of survivors, and engagement of bystanders. The curriculum addresses First Amendment rights in the social media space, accomplice liability via texting in the case of a suicide, documenting sexual assault online, and other timely and important issues.

The Practising Law Institute (PLI) recently digitized the program as part of its pro bono curriculum, and in June 2020, Carrie was featured on Pro Bono Net's Connecting Justice Communities blog.

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Cyber Dignity: Digital Age Law for Teens and Young Adults

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Palo Alto partner Carrie LeRoy was inspired by tragedies in her community involving cyber bullying and other forms of harassment via social media. Recognizing the disconnect between the practice of victim-blaming - which appeared to be rampant on social media - and the reality that the law strives to protect survivors and punish perpetrators, she developed a program now known as Cyber Dignity .

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Search for "Digital Citizenship" lessons in English and Spanish.

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Educational videos! Including some excellent videos on digital citizenship specifically. While this is a paid resource, they do make some videos free.

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BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts & Music, Health, and Technology

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Common Sense Education has SO MUCH CONTENT! Use the toolkits to access News/Media Literacy, SEL, and more. Use this link for tips and tools for educators.

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Lifelong Learning: A Social & Emotional Learning Toolkit for Educators

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There are lesson plans and slides, but what the kids LOVE about this is the Interland, where they learn digital citizenship lessons while playing a video game.

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The Internet Keep Safe Coalition is dedicated to protecting children, families, and schools by assessing, advising, and certifying organizations that collect, use, and share personal information and data that is protected by law.

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Be Internet Awesome is a multifaceted program that includes a fun and free web-based game called Interland and an educational curriculum to teach kids how to be safe and responsible explorers of the online world.

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I like these self-paced lessons on news literacy actually featuring real reporters. This is a great tool for grades 8 and up! -Kim Stuart

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Checkology is a free e-learning platform with engaging, authoritative lessons on subjects like news media bias, misinformation, conspiratorial thinking and more. Learners develop the ability to identify credible information, seek out reliable sources and apply critical thinking skills to separate fact-based content from falsehoods.