1. Fake News: Teaching Students How to evaluate information
Inspired by Heather Lister and susan Brooks-young’s presentations at the ncce 2018 conference
Presenter: Peter g. mohn
March 9, 2018

2. Fake news spreads farther, faster & deeper
Published in Science – study by MIT Researchers
Falsehoods & Truths from 2006 – 2017
Fact checking organizations had to agreement 95-98% of the time
Truth spread up to 1,000 times; top 1% of falsehoods 1,000 – 100,000
Politics represented 45,000 of the 126,000 cascades
1 account started 4,700 false rumors
False rumors start with young, unverified accounts with a small following
Falsehoods contain more novelty than truth
Bots accelerate true & false news at the same rate; designed to increase anarchy in online social systems
Early studies have shown labeling news as false might increase its spread
Guarino, Ben. Fake news spreads ‘farther, faster, deeper’ than truth, new study finds. Washington Post picked up by The Seattle Times, March 8, 2018.
Accessed March 9, 2018.

3. Fake news? That’s a very old story
Opinion piece by Robert G. Parkinson in The Washington Post, November 25, 2016
An 1762 painting of Benjamin Franklin. (Associated Press)

4. Fake news = lies or mistruths
We should probably stop using the phrase “fake news” and tell students fake news are lies:
Out right lies (falsehoods)
Half-Truths
Misleading articles meant to muddy the waters or to create outrage

5. Stanford study results
Only 25% of high school and college students could judge the credibility of information online
trouble-judging-credibility-information-online

6. Petting zoo Hero, part 2
Nathan for You released a video showing a pig rescuing a goat
This is what happened once this video was posted online 2

7. Petting zoo hero, part 1
However, the Nathan for You video was a complete hoax
It was an ad the was made as advertisement for a Petting Zoo

8. In fake fact era, schools teach the abc’s of news literacy
Article by Issie Lapowsky in Wired.com. June 7, 2017
Getty Image

9. Is this story share-worthy? Lesson from Newseum
Is This Story Share-Worthy? Flowchart
Lesson at
Students use an infographic to gauge the value of a news story and weigh what they should do with it.
GRADE LEVEL: Middle and high school
TIME: 30-60 minutes
MATERIALS: Is This Story Share-Worthy? flowchart, either printed on large paper or available to view on a screen(s) (download); Is This Story Share-Worthy? worksheet, one per group (download); news stories for students to evaluate (at least one per group); internet access
PREPARE
Review the Is This Story Share-Worthy? flowchart, including the supporting information for each question (located on the right hand side).
Select a variety of news stories for students to evaluate using the flowchart. Ideally, the stories should include a mix of fake news, poor quality news, opinion journalism, biased news and high quality stories.
Make copies of the Is This Story Share-Worthy? worksheet (one per group, or more if they will evaluate more than one story).
Newseum ED Flowchart

10. Website evaluation tools under exploring information
California State University's CRAAP Web Site Evaluation Tool
Kathy Schrock's Guide to The 5Ws of Web Site Evaluation
Kathy Schrock's Guide ABCs of Web Site Evaluation
ICYouSee: T is for Thinking
University of California at Berleley's Evaluating Resources
RADCAB - Your Vehicle for Information Evaluation
Acadia University's Credible Sources Count!
Warren Township School District's Web Site Evaluation Links & Hoaxes

11. Channel one’s blog lesson: how to spot fake news

12. 10 ways to spot a fake news article (Easybib blog post)
Is the article missing citations, references and links?
Is the author’s name missing?
If the author’s name is listed, are they a trustworthy individual?
What can you find in the “About Us” section of the website?
Are there spelling or grammatical errors found in the text?
Are there any direct quotes that are incorrectly used or taken out of context?
Can you find a similar article on the Internet?
Does the article only showcase one side of an argument?
Does the headline not match the content of the article?
Is the story completely outrageous?

13. Checkology: Ten questions for fake news detection check list
TenQuestionsForFakeNewsFINAL.pdf

14. Evaluating web authors
The Internet is full of web sites that contain biased points of views
Use these two web sites to discuss author bias
Junk Science.
SourceWatch: Junk Science.

15. Fake news teaching resources
William Patterson University’s David & Lorraine Cheng Library

16. Evaluating numbers and words
Spurious Correlations 
Misleading Graphs: Real Life Examples 
Evaluating Words
The New Yorker's article, How Headlines Change the Way We Think
Fight Fake News
YouTube video on How to Choose Your News
Newseum to view front pages of daily newspapers
GPHS LMC’s Online Resources and click on Newspapers

17. Fact checking websites
Politifact
Snopes
Fact Checker
AllSides: Balanced News
ProPublica
OpenSecrets (data on Campaign Finance)
The Sunlight Foundation
The Washington Post Fact Checker
Truth or Fiction
Urban Legends

18. Fact checking sources using conservative and liberal sources
Media Matters (liberal group following conservative news)
News Busters (conservative group following liberal news)

19. resources
Brooks-Young, Susan. Recognizing Lies: Literacy in the Post-Truth Era. NCCE
Lester, Heather. Fake News – Hack Research. Slide show presented at NCCE
Mohn, Peter. Mr. Mohn’s Literacy Corner. Glacier Peak High School Library Media Center. .