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March 15, 2003
WEB LITERACY and Critical Thinking (cont'd)
Fact or Fabrication?
HOW TO
Fact or Opinion?
There are a number of things that can be done to strengthen students' ability to resist such manipulation. For starters, it is important to help students of all ages learn to distinguish between fact and opinion. You can do this with Web sites, books, even materials they themselves have created. Marsh suggests, for example, having students generate ideas for a Web site on a topic relevant to your curriculum. Encourage them to be creative and varied in their approach. Perhaps they will include a "Top 10" list, charts and graphs, illustrations, or advice for other students. As they share their content ideas with classmates, ask them to identify which information is factual, and which opinion. A lively conversation will undoubtedly ensue.
When they are ready, you can begin to take on more controversial issues. You might, for example, have students check out the following sites, which offer radically different perspectives on smoking: smokingsection.com and Health Hazards of Tobacco.
Other examples can be found online in the article, "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, or Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources" by Susan E. Beck of New Mexico State University Library. Or you could challenge students to do their own research to find point-counterpoint sites on such topics as the effects of television viewing on children or the advantages and disadvantages of a diet high in carbohydrates-or any other controversy that ties in with a current curriculum topic. As each site is located, students can summarize the key points being made and identify which ones directly contradict what they have learned elsewhere.
Then it's time to debate what is the "truth." Which point of view is more popular? Does that make it more believable? Who created each site, and what reasons might that individual or organization have for espousing a particular point of view? Are they simply stating their opinion, or is there evidence that they are distorting or hiding information to make their case?
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As your students become increasingly aware that the information they find online was created by real people, the next step is to focus on the question of "Why?" Every site and online article was created for a reason. While these reasons are rarely sinister, information found online-and in other media, as well-is almost inevitably biased in some way.
Find the Hoax
It is important to offer students plenty of practice sleuthing not just for site authorship but for different forms of misinformation. In an online slide presentation at her Web site, Kathy Schrock lists the following as common causes of misinformation:
- Data changes
- Out-of-date information
- Removing information from context
- Pranks
The last item on her list-the prank or hoax-provides an entertaining and effective tool for helping students hone their "truth detective" skills.
According to Handler, the important thing is to create teachable moments in which the students "accidentally" discover a hoax site. One example is described by Canadian educator Keith Mack at the Media Awareness Network's Web site.
Mack asks his students to help him do background research for a promotional site for their community. In order to see how other communities promote themselves, he directs them to the following sites: New Hartford, Minn. and Whitemouth, Manitoba.
Only after the students have perused the two sites, taking notes for their own community project, does Mack announce that one of the two sites they have been visiting is a fraud. Not surprisingly, many of his students respond with disbelief and comments such as, "I saw it, Mr. Mack. It was on the Internet-it has to be true!"
Here are some other hoax sites that can be used to create such moments of cognitive dissonance. You will want to pair them with similar, non-hoax sites--and a believable scenario--in order to avoid giving away the hoax. The idea is not only to ask students to guess which one is the fake, but to challenge them to prove it. Try it yourself; it's not easy!
Pushing a Point
While hoax sites are mostly there for entertainment or educational purposes, many other Web sites that purport to tell the truth are questionable because of the biases of their creators. Most disturbing are a small but virulent group of hate sites disguised as scholarship-examples of which Alan November and Scott Granneman point to in their online article on security issues for schools. These are not the sorts of Web pages you want to take students to without careful thought and planning-if at all-but they are sites you should know about in order to anticipate what can happen when students stumble upon misinformation of the malicious type.
What Are They Selling?
The CyberSmart Web site features an excellent series of activities related to advertising and critical thinking. First-graders start off with activities that have them identifying ads online. Second- and third-graders visit popular commercial sites from Crayola, Mattel, and other toy creators, identifying the star of the product and how the site's creators entertain them and make them want to return. In the older grades, the lessons move on to other commercial sites (Nickelodeon, Discovery Kids, Cartoon Network, and so on), introducing terminology such as "sticky" (users want to "stick" to good sites), and having students compare and contrast different sites. Eventually students are challenged to design their own sticky sites.
Whether you choose to follow the CyberSmart lessons or spin off your own versions, helping students critique and compare commercial sites is an important way of bringing about an understanding of the goals behind them.
Taking the Stage
Sometimes the best way to learn to be a discerning viewer of others' work is to try to do some authoring-and manipulating-yourself. You can find some great suggestions at Yahooligans. After sharing information about Stalin and the ways in which he airbrushed photos to remove key people from the scene, the lesson challenges students to try their own photo manipulation. From there, students build to manipulating graphs and creating entirely bogus sites on a fictional topic of their own choosing.
If students end up creating and posting their own hoax sites online, you will want to talk to them about possible repercussions. Remind them that there's a good likelihood that their sites will show up as a search result for some unsuspecting Web surfer at some point in the future. Suggest that they check out the following Web page. It is written by teacher John Goldsmith, who-to make a point about Web accuracy to students and fellow educators-created a hoax site on the wonders of the Oklahoma wine industry.
As you can deduce from his retraction page, he found himself in some hot water with a group of people he originally did not believe existed-the real Oklahoma vineyard owners.
Next: Putting It All Together
Read other articles from the March Issue
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