Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Efforts Grow To Help Students Evaluate What They See Online (apnews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the for-a-better-future dept.

Alarmed by the proliferation of false content online, state lawmakers around the country are pushing schools to put more emphasis on teaching students how to tell fact from fiction. From a report: Lawmakers in several states have introduced or passed bills calling on public school systems to do more to teach media literacy skills that they say are critical to democracy. The effort has been bipartisan but has received little attention despite successful legislation in Washington state, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Mexico. Several more states are expected to consider such bills in the coming year, including Arizona, New York and Hawaii.

Advocates say the K-12 curriculum has not kept pace with rapid changes in technology. Studies show many children spend hours every day online but struggle to comprehend the content that comes at them. For years, they have pushed schools to incorporate media literacy -- including the ability to evaluate and analyze sources of information -- into lesson plans in civics, language arts, science and other subjects.

7 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Parents need to as well by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't count on the schools to do this. Parents need to spend a lot of time teaching these skills. An important concept is that just because many people/reporters say the same thing, it doesn't mean its true. I find examples of stuff that gets repeated in multiple news articles that is wrong, then show them how to figure out its wrong. My one kid is a natural skeptic, the other tends to believe everything. Personal traits are a big factor

    1. Re:Parents need to as well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most parents do not have those skills themselves.

    2. Re:Parents need to as well by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's even more fundamental than that. People just need to recognise simple things like only using anonymous sources for a story or separating the opinions from the facts.

      Stories in mainstream media are rarely outright fabrications, even rags like the Daily Mail usually have some small amount of truth to them. The bigger problem is that many people can't separate opinion and speculation from factual reporting, leading to them being mislead and screaming "fake news" in equal measure.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Parents need to as well by StormReaver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This has been a problem since the beginning of human civilization. Christians, Muslims, and everyone else who can't distinguish fact from fiction need to be enrolled in the first classes.

    4. Re:Parents need to as well by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And grandparents. Especially grandparents. My mother-in-law is a wonderful 75 year old lady who believes everything she reads on facebook. She comes from a generation where broadcasting was expensive so if you saw it on TV it had a better chance of being true. This is an almost daily thing.

      She was eating garlic a couple of weeks ago because someone said it would help with blood pressure. When I say "eating garlic" I mean she was peeling the paint in the house when she breathed. Yesterday I couldn't find my brown sugar. Turns out white sugar has all kinds of dangerous chemicals in it and brown sugar is healthy, so she's going to try using that in her coffee. I tried to explain that brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added back in and what she was really seeking is something like turbinado sugar, which is only processed in a centrifuge. Whoever made the facebook video apparently doesn't know the difference, neither does she.

      It's difficult to take someone who doesn't have a working bullshit detector and try to install one in them.

      --
      Do you have ESP?
  2. Re:Big problem.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No it doesn't. When it comes to evidence based things like global warming, evolution and other things that have scientific data and facts behind them, conservatives ignore or just deny those facts and keep their beliefs.

    And because their people are making policy, in the long run America will be weak and behind the rest of the World.

    Belief == opinion with no evidence.

  3. Re:Big problem.... by Shogun37 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I hereby christen a New law...Gore's Law. It states that any discussion about facts will ALWAYS involve Global Warming, because all you Cowards go there first. So, to save time, just use Gore's law.