Digital and Media Literacy

Digital and media literacy are more important than ever, but what are they and how can you get better at these critical skills? Look below for articles, videos, and activities to help you become a smart and savvy user of digital services and media.

Introduction to Media Literacy [7 min]


Creating Critical Thinkers Through Media Literacy [7 min]


Introduction to Navigating Digital Information [13 min]


Digital Privacy and Security

Password and account creation, what information to include in a profile or make public, user agreements, tracking/sharing data, identifying scams.

Passwords and Account Settings

Online Scams

Digital Tracking [cookies]

Social Media

Reputation, reality, and kindness [see also identifying ads and misinformation].

Basics

Kindness and Reputation

Reality

Research

Sources, strategies and skills

ProQuest Research Companion

Includes mini-module interactive lessons on finding information, evaluating information, and using information.

Inform Your Thinking Playlist

Research mini videos from the Oklahoma State University Library

Navigating Digital Information by Crash Course

Wikipedia - A Training Adventure Game

Play this game to learn how to be an editor, or just learn more about how editing Wikipedia works, and the policies they have in place to help ensure quality and accuracy.

Misinformation and Disinformation

Identifying misinformation, and understanding why it is created or shared

What are Misinformation and Disinformation?

Manipulated Content [photos/videos/graphs]

Sample Clickbait and Hoax Sites

Sample Imposter Content Sites

Sample Satire Sites

How and Why Misinformation and Disinformation Spread

Cognitive Dissonance (why people can keep believing false things despite evidence)

Conspiracy Theories

What Can You Do?

CTRL+F Find the Facts [activities and videos] by CIVIX Canada

Fact-Checking Sites

Real News and Journalism Standards

Checkology Virtual News Literacy Classroom

"Featuring real-world examples from social media and news sites, these e-learning experiences resonate with learners of all ages, helping them to identify credible information, seek out reliable sources and know what to trust, what to dismiss and what to debunk." Register for free with Google. Lessons and activities for students include self-paced short videos, questions, draggable content and more. Topics and activities include:

  • What is News? with activities "News Judge: National News" and "News Judge: International News"

  • The First Amendment with activity "Are you A-1 on 1A?"

  • Press Freedoms Around the World

  • Citizen Watchdogs with activity: Citizen Watchdog Profile

  • Democracy's Watchdog with activity "Watergate Investigation"

  • Be the Editor

  • Practicing Quality Journalism (also in Spanish) with activities "Harvard and ICE," "The Daily Northwestern," "How Newsrooms Work," and "How News Literate Are You?"

  • Arguments and Evidence with activities "Spot the Logical Fallacy" and "Evidence or Not?"

Advertising and Bias

Identifying advertising and bias in content

InfoZones lesson and activities (news, opinion, entertainment, advertising, propaganda, raw information) with sorting activities "School Lunch," "COVID-19," "Teachers," "Ferguson, Missouri," "Immigration," "Plastic Straw Ban," and "Technology" - by Checkology Virtual News Literacy Classroom

Advertising

Bias

The Hidden Algorithms

Understanding how various algorithms (and their biases), contribute to what you see in search results, suggested content, or feeds.

The Basics

In Depth

Playlists and Whole Curriculum Packs

Crash Course - Media Literacy and Navigating Digital Information

The short, fast-paced and entertaining Crash Course video series cover a variety of topics The Media Literacy series covers everything from the history of media literacy, to the media's current influence (and who is influencing media), to the future of media literacy. Navigating Digital Information includes fact-checking, manipulated photos, misleading data, wikipedia, evidence, and source evaluation.

Be Internet Awesome Curriculum by Pear Deck and Google

Short Pear-Deck enabled Google Slide presentations that focus on aspects of safety and security (strong passwords, avoiding scams, being kind, etc). Though aimed at younger students, they can be aged up for older students and used to start a deeper discussion.

Civic Online Reasoning Curriculum by Stanford History Education Project

The curriculum provides free lessons and assessments that help teach students to evaluate online information that affects them, their communities, and the world.

Digital Media Literacy by Goodwill Community Foundation

Short lessons, activities, and videos on Digital Media Literacy - topics include evaluating online information, persuasive language, identifying bias, sorting fact from opinion, filter bubbles, and echo chambers.

Checkology Virtual Classroom - News Literacy

"Featuring real-world examples from social media and news sites, these e-learning experiences resonate with learners of all ages, helping them to identify credible information, seek out reliable sources and know what to trust, what to dismiss and what to debunk." Register for free with Google. Lessons and activities for students include short videos, questions, and draggable activities.

  • What is News? with activities "News Judge: National News" and "News Judge: International News"

  • The First Amendment with activity "Are you A-1 on 1A?"

  • Press Freedoms Around the World

  • Citizen Watchdogs with activity: Citizen Watchdog Profile

  • Democracy's Watchdog with activity "Watergate Investigation"

  • Be the Editor

  • Practicing Quality Journalism (also in Spanish) with activities "Harvard and ICE," "The Daily Northwestern," "How Newsrooms Work," and "How News Literate Are You?"

  • Introduction to Algorithms

  • Branded Content with activities: "Ad or Not?" [levels 1,2, and 3], and "Technology: News or Ad?"

  • InfoZones (news, opinion, entertainment, advertising, propaganda, raw information) with activities "School Lunch," "COVID-19," "Teachers," "Ferguson, Missouri," "Immigration," "Plastic Straw Ban," and "Technology"

  • Arguments and Evidence with activities "Spot the Logical Fallacy" and "Evidence or Not?"

  • Misinformation with activity "MisinfoQuest - Weather", plus 6 "Check Center Missions" where students investigate specific photos/memes/stories for reliability and quality.

  • Understanding Bias

Hone Your Media Literacy Skills by TEDed playlist

Commonsense Media

Commonsense Media has built an entire free curriculum for high schoolers about digital citizenship and media literacy; share lessons and slides with your students to start a discussion. Lessons are meant to be about 50 minutes, and include slides and short videos. Sign in with your Google Account to unlock access. Topics include:

  • My Media Use: A Personal Challenge

  • Big, Big Data [how companies collect and use your data)

  • The Power of Digital Footprints

  • My Social Media Life [social media and relationships]

  • Upstanders and Allies: Taking Action Against Cyberbullying

  • The Four Factors of Fair Use

  • Digital Media and Your Brain

  • Being Aware of What You Share

  • Social Media and Digital Footprints

  • Sexting and Relationships

  • Responding to Online Hate Speech

  • This Just In! [how to respond to breaking news]

  • My Digital Life is Like...

  • The Big Data Dilemma [benefits and drawbacks of online tracking]

  • Chatting and Red Flags

  • What You Send in "That Moment When..."

  • Hoaxes and Fakes

  • Social Media and How You Feel

  • Risk Check for New Tech

  • Curated Lives [representing "the real you" on social media]

  • Rewarding Relationships

  • Countering Hate Speech Online

  • Challenge Confirmation Bias

  • Can Media be Addictive?

  • How Young is Too Young for Social Media?

  • Who's Looking at Your Digital Footprint?

  • Connecting with Digital Audiences

  • Online Disinhibition and Cyberbullying

  • Clicks for Cash [online advertising and misinformation]

  • The Health Effects of Screen Time

  • Debating the Privacy Line

  • The Change You Want to See [working on your digital footprint]

  • We Are Civil Communicators

  • The Consequences of Online Hate Speech

  • Filter Bubble Trouble [confirmation bias and echo chambers]

Massachusetts Digital Literacy Standards

Massachusetts Digital Literacy Standards from DESE

Summary of Standards and Indicators

Computing and Society

  • Safety and Security

  • Ethics and Laws

  • Interpersonal and Societal Impact

Digital Tools

  • Digital Tools

  • Collaboration and Communication

  • Research

Computing Systems

  • Computing Devices

  • Human and Computer Partnerships

  • Networks

  • Services

Computational Thinking

  • Abstraction

  • Algorithm

  • Data

  • Programming and Development

  • Modeling and Simulation

International Society for Technology in Education Standards

International Society for Technology in Education Standards

Summary of Standards and Indicators

Empowered Learner

Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

  • Students articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.

  • Students build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning process.

  • Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

  • Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.

Digital Citizen

Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.

  • Students cultivate and manage their digital identity and reputation and are aware of the permanence of their actions in the digital world.

  • Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices.

  • Students demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.

  • Students manage their personal data to maintain digital privacy and security and are aware of data-collection technology used to track their navigation online.

Knowledge Constructor

Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

  • Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.

  • Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data or other resources.

  • Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.

  • Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.

Innovative Designer

Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.

  • Students know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.

  • Students select and use digital tools to plan and manage a design process that considers design constraints and calculated risks.

  • Students develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.

  • Students exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.

Computational Thinker

Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.

  • Students formulate problem definitions suited for technology-assisted methods such as data analysis, abstract models and algorithmic thinking in exploring and finding solutions.

  • Students collect data or identify relevant data sets, use digital tools to analyze them, and represent data in various ways to facilitate problem-solving and decision-making.

  • Students break problems into component parts, extract key information, and develop descriptive models to understand complex systems or facilitate problem-solving.

  • Students understand how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to develop a sequence of steps to create and test automated solutions.

Creative Communicator

Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.

  • Students choose the appropriate platforms and tools for meeting the desired objectives of their creation or communication.

  • Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.

  • Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.

  • Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.

Global Collaborator

Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

  • Students use digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning.

  • Students use collaborative technologies to work with others, including peers, experts or community members, to examine issues and problems from multiple viewpoints.

  • Students contribute constructively to project teams, assuming various roles and responsibilities to work effectively toward a common goal.

  • Students explore local and global issues and use collaborative technologies to work with others to investigate solutions.