Collections

Become Information and Media Literate

Many people love the thrill of a magic show. With a little smoke, some crafty sleight of hand, and the skilled misdirection of an audience’s eye, the magician can make the impossible seem real. It’s entertaining and amazing to watch.

However, when the tools of misdirection and illusion are used for the sake of disinformation or persuasion, the stakes are much higher. In fact, our democracy relies on an informed electorate to make choices that will impact the makeup of our governing bodies and, in turn, the direction of our nation.

In this collection, we will explore the essential skills of information and media literacy. We’ll look at how we can empower our students with the skills necessary to discern the credibility of a website, digital resource, or message, while separating digital fact from fiction.

“Cheap Fakes”

Learn about the dangers of “cheap fakes,” which involve the manipulation of media to make something look real when it really isn’t, but unlike deepfakes, they take very little skill to create and can be made with simple and accessible tools.

Best Practices 10 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

The News Literacy Project

Discover free resources from the News Literacy Project that can help you and your students become media literate consumers of information in the digital age.

Best Practices 8 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Strategies to Protect Yourself From Misinformation

Review six action steps that can be taken to help identify misinformation and avoid being misled.

Best Practices 13 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Identifying Disinformation Strategies

Review seven general persuasion strategies used in disinformation campaigns and five strategies that are more specific to social media platforms.

Best Practices 10 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Understanding the Basics of Misinformation and Disinformation

Explore the motivations and psychology that contribute to the sharing of misinformation and disinformation in online spaces.

Best Practices 10 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Strategies for Identifying Deepfakes

Review seven strategies that you and your students can use to identify deepfakes.

Best Practices 10 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Deepfakes: Understanding the Basics

Review the basics of deepfakes, including the four most common types of media manipulation.

Best Practices 10 min Resource by:

Fine-Tune Your Communication With Online Reference Materials

Develop a collection of online reference materials for convenient and immediate access and use.

Best Practices 3 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Avoid Misleading Messages

To sift through the vast quantities of misleading information presented to us each day, we need to develop the skills that will inform us how to avoid being misled.

Best Practices 20 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Pop the Filter Bubble

To create well-informed citizens, we need to recognize filter bubbles and the impact they have on our information universe.

Best Practices 10 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Acknowledge and Identify Bias

To be effective consumers of digital information, students need to be able to acknowledge and identify bias in all forms of media.

Best Practices 10 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Teach Information and Media Literacy: The Foundation of Democracy

For our students to be informed and productive participants in the American democracy, they need to be able to effectively evaluate the credibility of online resources.

Best Practices 10 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

Create Credibility Detectives in Your Classroom

Explore the ABCs of evaluating online resources as a way to turn your students into credibility detectives who can effectively evaluate the trustworthiness of online resources.

Best Practices 10 min Grades K-12 Resource by:

These collections change often as we add new curriculum and resources to AVID Open Access.

Find out more about how AVID Open Access is growing on our About page.