SHAWN ADLER
TEACHER, EDITOR, AVENGER
How do you help your students strengthen their Digital Literacy skills, to read carefully, think critically, and evaluate resources for reliability? Below are a few overviews and suggestions to increase your own digital literacy competencies.
LITERACY
DIGITAL
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who is behind the info?
what's the evidence?
Since information is always influenced by its author, analyzing who's behind the information should be a priority when evaluating online content. But too often, students attempt to evaluate information based on elements other than the source, such as the contents of a website, its appearance, or the evidence it supplies. In this lesson, students learn why the source of information is so important and practice analyzing information based on who's behind it.
To avoid falling prey to digital rogues, we must hone our ability to evaluate the relevance and reliability of evidence. Students should learn how to dig into locating key names and organizations sponsoring websites and posts, and learn how to research those names and organizations to assess for reliability.This lesson will help students develop skills for critically evaluating varied forms of evidence online.
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other sources
Claims and evidence flow rapidly and with relative freedom online. We aid in the spread of misinformation if we don’t ensure that a claim or evidence is accurate before we share it. Luckily, the Internet also allows us to check claims and evidence by consulting other sources. Although verifying claims and evidence takes time, it’s an important habit to develop to ensure that the information we read, use, and share is reliable and accurate.
THE SIFT MODEL FOR RELIABILITY
The SIFT method is an evaluation strategy developed by digital literacy expert, Mike Caulfield, to help determine whether online content can be trusted for credible or reliable sources of information, The SIFT Model Challenges us to STOP when we see a new source, INVESTIGATE what biases and credibility that source might have, FIND better coverage if needed, and TRACE the claims in the articles back to the original contexts.
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THE SAMR
MODEL
When considering integration of technology in your classroom, start first with an assessment to consider how you're currently using technology. The SAMR Model provides teachers with a tool for self-reflection and inspiration for further innovation. The goal is not for technology to always be redefining curricula; rather, there may be appropriate applications for technology as substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition depending on the class of students, the curriculum, and the assignment.
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