Source: Education Week

Article makes clear teachers have high hurdles and not enough support to meet challenge

‘Fake News,’ Bogus Tweets Raise Stakes for Media Literacy
From Education Week, Dec. 9, 2016, By Benjamin Herold:

“Media literacy is suddenly a front-burner issue for schools, thanks to the recent presidential election, a spate of reports on “fake news,” and new research demonstrating just how ill-equipped young people are to critically evaluate information they encounter online and via social media.

As a result, educators find themselves behind the eight ball, expected to help students negotiate everything from internet hoaxes, to partisan policy advocacy disguised as unbiased news, to a President-elect who has used Twitter to spread baseless claims originating in unfounded conspiracy theories…”

Extensive piece on media literacy in schools quotes Claire Beach, a member of the MLN Board of directors:

NCSS also believes that students learn to become critical consumers of information by researching, planning, and making their own media messages.

That kind of “constructivist” approach is also embraced by Claire Beach, a veteran teacher, filmmaker, and media-literacy advocate who was a driving force behind a recently enacted law in Washington state requiring the office of the state superintendent of public instruction to lead an effort to devise and share with schools best practices around media literacy and digital citizenship.

“Once you start giving students the tools to understand when they’re being manipulated, you’re blown away with the changes you see,” Beach said.

The same principles can be applied to magazine ads, reality television shows, and viral social media posts. But trying to keep up with the sheer volume of media, information, technology, and platforms now available can leave even the most committed teachers exhausted, she said.

“It’s like going from sitting down to running marathons,” Beach said.