{"id":578,"date":"2017-01-17T01:30:50","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T07:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teachersfirst.com\/blog\/?p=578"},"modified":"2019-04-05T15:48:55","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T19:48:55","slug":"being-resource-full-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachersfirst.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/being-resource-full-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Resourceful Part Two: Reliable Sources and C.R.A.A.P."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"resourceful-part-2\"<\/a><\/span>Evaluating resources, in any medium, is a critical thinking skill for information literacy, media literacy, or digital citizenship. \u00a0Of course, it is also part of educational state standards patterned after the Common Core. \u00a0They emphasize reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from texts. In a discussion of the key shifts in the standards, the introduction states:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Common Core emphasizes using evidence from texts to present careful analyses, well-defended claims, and clear information. . . The standards\u2019 focus on evidence-based writing along with the ability to inform and persuade is a significant shift from current practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

This past year, did you and your students feel inundated by election information, – so much so that you no longer could tell what was accurate or truthful, especially online? A lot of post-election discussions have revolved around fake news sites. Curiously, several posts listing fake news sites included <\/span>The Onion<\/span><\/a>, which many of us remember in its hilarious print version as a biting satire publication right up there with Mad Magazine. <\/span><\/p>\n

Since it is unnerving to think people cannot tell the difference between political satire and news, this is an important discussion to have with students, especially when many young people get their news and information primarily online. A\u00a0Pew Research Center <\/span>survey<\/span><\/a> cited that many viewers watch Comedy Central\u2019s The Daily Show for news and opinions, not just entertainment. A <\/span>study<\/span><\/a> of Millennials by the Media Insight Project found that \u201cFully 88 percent of those surveyed get news from Facebook at least occasionally, 83 percent from YouTube, and 50 percent from Instagram.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As our students begin to conduct research, will they have the skills to select credible and useful sources of information? We all acknowledge that students must be both critical consumers of information and critical users of that information when conducting research, writing, and creating meaningful products of their learning. <\/span><\/p>\n

So how do we teach students to evaluate the information they find in their academic and personal lives?<\/span><\/p>\n

Media literacy guru Frank W. Baker has some excellent suggestions in a recent post in MiddleWeb, <\/span>\u201cStudents Need Our Help Detecting Fake News,<\/span><\/a>\u201d He offers these questions that teachers and school librarians should be asking students about the sources of information they find:<\/span><\/p>\n