Key Concept 4: Information Literacy

In ET 630 with Dr. McGinn, we focused on ways to help students become better consumers of digital content by learning to evaluate content that they interact with on the internet. We created a website with a focus on helping students identify the veracity of claims made by different fad diet websites. This lesson focus allowed the lesson to be easily integrated into a standard Health, P.E., or Media Literacy curriculum. By focusing on fad diets, we also hoped that students might have come across many of the terms used through their interaction with social media and have a higher level of student interest than other topics. The website provided four different evaluation tools to use with 4 different fad diet in addition to a detailed lesson plan for teachers to use.

While the original lesson was designed as a single class period activity, it could easily be extended by having students use the website evaluation tools in a more self-directed manner in a follow up lesson. The original lesson provides students with the topics to research as well as introductory websites to evaluate. While this is a good introduction to digital literacy and media consumption, the longterm desire is to have students be able to discern the validity of digital content on their own. With that goal in mind, students can be assigned a new topic to research on their own about an additional health topic. Topics that would be relevant to a health curriculum might include the health benefits of alkaline water, using St. John's wort to treat depression, athletes use of copper sleeves to aid in injury healing, old wives tale remedies like chicken soup or hot toddies for a cold, the effects of drinking cold water on weight gain, and the effectiveness of non-traditional medicines such as acupuncture. By having the students use the evaluation tools in a more autonomous way in subsequent lessons, teachers can work with students in more one on one environments to help ensure that students are able to find and use credible sources from the internet.