fake-the-news
A web literacy project funded by Mozilla Foundation
Partnering Organizations
- Mozilla Hive Austin
- Austin Monitor (Capital of Texas Media Foundation)
- Nucleus Learning Network
- Open Austin
- Civic Party Software
Project Purpose
Help educators and teens evaluate online news for credibility and trust to strengthen their communities’ resilience to Fake News.
A grant from Mozilla supports the development of three interactive web literacy lessons and web apps to facilitate learning.
Roadmap
Our Work
Our team has created curriculum for three units and has developed a web app version of Legit-o-Meter.
We participated in Misinfo Con hosted at the MIT Media Lab. Here are a couple blog posts from Michael & Sarah about our take-aways.
Sarah also participated in a webinar hosted by EducatorInnovator.org with other media literacy and education advocates on “Media Literacy Tools to Comprehend & Critique Fake News”
One of our technical contributors, Rally Jinx, demo’d an early prototype of our Legit-o-Meter Learning App.
Milestones
- 8/7 - 8/8/17: AISD Social Studies + Language Arts
- 7/1/17: Identify summer beta testing opportunities
- 6/1/17: Finalized curriculum for Units 2 & 3
- 5/15/17: Legit-o-Meter v0 target launch for beta testing & Curriculum Due
- 4/17/17: Legit-o-Meter v0 target for soft launch for teacher feedback
- 4/4/17: Team Check-in
- March 29, 2017: Unit 2 Curriculum Deadline
- March 15, 2017: Curriculum (Units 2 & 3) Review draft due
- March 17, 2017: Team IRL Meeting/Brainstorm
- March 6, 2017: Team catch up post-misinfocon
- Feb 24-26, 2017: Misinfo Con
- Saturday Discussion Notes
- Sunday Wireframes for Legit-o-Meter
- Sunday Presentation Slides
- List of other MisinfoCon presentations
- Feb 23, 2017: Drafts notes for Lessons 2 & 3
- Feb 17, 2017: Draft product spec and curriculum for Lesson 1 (Legit-o-Meter) complete
- Feb 9, 2017: Fake the News team met for brainstorming on the three lesson. Sarah (Nucleus Learning Network) is tasked with creating a Curriculum Outline Draft and Mateo (Open Austin) is tasked with creating a Design Brief for the Legit-o-Meter web app.
The Lessons
These lessons empower students with valuable news literacy skills that they can use to recognize, evaluate, and combat fake news and misinformation.
Lesson #1: Legit-o-Meter
The goal of Lesson 1 is to give students the tools to examine a web article’s credibility. The Mission:FakeNews team will develop a web app version of the Kraken the Code Web Literacy Exercise.
Lesson #2: Rewriting History
The goal of Lesson 2 is to help students better understand how fake new is produced and how it is spread. Students will have the opportunity to deconstruct fake news and to explore the techniques people use to create fake news, and the consequences of those techniques.
Lesson #3: Run the Presses
The goal of the Lesson 3 is to put students in the editor’s chair and give them a chance to make decisions common in news organizations, and to experience the consequences of those decisions. With this lesson, students will gain a deeper understanding of how fake news fits in a broader news and information ecosystem.
Contact
- Ashley Fisher, Austin Monitor
- Sarah Morris, Nucleus Learning Network
- Mateo Clarke, Open Austin & Civic Party Software