Developing critical learners in the digital age – Bett 2019 talk resources
Here is a summary pdf of the talk and a link to watch the full talk on our Vimeo channel. Find all the links and other resources below (with some extra links to recently published reports).
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Resources and links to accompany our talk
- Opening section
- Collins Word of the Year 2017
- IPSOS MORI Fake News Filter Bubbles etc
- What’s the problem?
- LSE T3 Commission Report: Tackling the Information Crisis: A Policy Framework for Media System Resilience
- National Literacy Trust Fake News and critical literacy: final report
- LSE Children’s data and privacy online: growing up in a digital age December 2018
- Ofcom – Children and parents: Media use and attitudes report 2018 – section on concerns about the accuracy and trustworthiness of news on social media
- Ofcom/Revealing Reality – Life on the small screen: what children are watching and why January 2019
- Offering an answer
- National Literacy Trust Fake News and critical literacy: final report
- National Curriculum in England
- What makes digital different?
- UK Safer Internet Centre report Power of Image 2017
- NESTA blog post prediction about malicious ‘deepfake’ video
- PEW Research Center
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff 2019
- We need to teach!
- Museum of hoaxes
- W3 schools HTML tutor and editor
- Mozilla X-Ray Goggles
- Apps such as Chatterpix
- LGfL/Childnet Trust Me resources
- Childnet International resources
- Guardian news navigator
- BBC iReporter news story simulator
- Education for a connected world
- A Data-Day in London poster Tactical Tech
- Who knows what about me? Report from the Children’s Commissioner for England 2019
- Mars Spacecraft Selfie NASA
- Ancient Greek mechanical computer (Antikythera mechanism) BBC
- Zookeeper takes bear for ice-cream (The Guardian coverage)
- You are not alone!
Video clips shown in the talk
Further resources and links:
Education for a connected world
Guardian news literacy ideas for secondary schools
Guardian news literacy ideas for primary schools
Times and Sunday Times media literacy programme
BBC iReporter news story simulator
National Literacy Trust fake news and critical literacy resources
Association for Citizenship Teaching topical debating guidance and resources
TRAILER – Fact or Fake: developing critical learner in the digital age (Bett Show 2019 talk) from LondonCLC on Vimeo.
Fact or fake: developing critical learners in the digital age
How do children make sense of their digital life both in school and out? And how do we as adults navigate our own pathway through the forest of fact, fiction, fanaticism and fantasy and guide our pupils by appealing to fun rather than fear
Drawing on our teaching experience and work with a wide range of partners, we will explore some practical ways to engage children in critical evaluation of digital information in a range of contexts, supporting their learning and development both as consumers and creators of content of all kinds, fact and fiction included.
More on digital criticality below…
What is digital criticality?
Digital criticality is having the skills to make a critical evaluation of digital information in a range of contexts, whether that’s a story from a news organisation, a tweet, an image or a YouTube video.
Why is it important now?
Having the skills to be critical about information that’s encountered online has never been more important. The digital world is increasingly complex with more channels and more sophisticated technology that can make it harder to distinguish between fact and opinion – or even outright fake. You’re also more likely to come across ‘fake news’ – and spread it – with research showing that fake news reaches users up to 20 times faster than factual content.
Recent key findings from the recent National literacy Trust Fake News Commission are worrying:
- Only 2% of children have the critical literacy skills they need to tell if a news story is real or fake.
- Half of children (49.9%) are worried about not being able to spot fake news.
- Two-thirds of children (60.6%) now trust the news less as a result of fake news.
- Two-thirds of teachers (60.9%) believe fake news is harming children’s well-being, increasing their anxiety levels.
- Half of teachers (53.5%) believe that the national curriculum does not equip children with the literacy skills they need to identify fake news.
We believe that enabling and empowering critical and discerning learners is an essential activity for the classroom, not a bolt-on option.
Resources
Sessions for teachers and in school support and workshops: please contact us on [email protected]
Podcasts
In the fourth episode of our podcast series, presenter Julia Lawrence and expert guests tackle this very topical issue and suggest a wide range of useful resources for teachers and parents.
Look out for our upcoming podcasts this year where we will explore other aspects of this topic.
Blog posts
What is digital literacy and what’s it got to do with fake news?
As London CLC announces a new digital literacy collaboration with First News and the Guardian Foundation, Peter Lillington explores what exactly literacy means in a digital world.
What is news literacy and how do you teach it?
Peter Lillington explores this hot topic and recommends some new resources to help you teach it in the classroom.
Fake news: helping children to untangle the web
London CLC director Sarah Horrocks examines the rise in concern around fake news and critical literacy and considers whether primary schoolchildren are equipped to spot the spoofs.
Explore further
We’ve left some of our favourites here but please make sure you have checked out the links that accompany our January BETT talk (see elsewhere on this page)
Funded by Google, in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, Guardian Foundation and the PSHE Association, NewsWise is a free, cross-curricular news literacy project for 9 to 11-year-olds across the UK. It helps teachers empower pupils to access, understand, analyse and participate in the news.
National Literacy Trust Fake News group
Fake news and critical literacy: final report – including the findings of the Commission’s primary, secondary and teachers surveys about fake news
Education for a Connected World Framework – a tool focusing on eight different areas of online education
Digital Literacy scheme of work from SWGfL – free materials designed to empower pupils and students to think critically, behave safely, and participate responsibly in our digital world
