Community request, virtual training, and new resources!

Monthly Update | March 2020

Curating Resources

We hope you that you are coping with this stressful and uncertain moment in history. Over the last week or so, we have seen a lot of our partners share great resources for talking about coronavirus with students as well as combatting the mounting misinformation about the pandemic. We’d like to take on curating these resources and materials for our community. How are you using media literacy to teach about the outbreak and answer students' questions? Can you share your lesson plans, resources, media content, and discussion topics with us? Send us materials at namle@namle.net . We will collect them and share out once we get them organized.

In the meantime, check out this amazing spreadsheet with details from education companies offering free subscriptions due to school closings.

Media Literacy in the News

Media Literacy And Reasoning Podcast

NAMLE’s Executive Director, Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, spoke with Mark Bordine, Director of the Arizona Chapter of Media Literacy Now, on his podcast Persuasion and the Public Mind , a series about persuasion and social influence in communication, psychology, and media studies. They discussed the importance of having media literacy skills in today’s digital world. [ listen ]

With An Election On The Horizon, Older Adults Get Help Spotting Fake News

NPR reports about the recent influx of classes that teach older adults how to evaluate information online. Experts say this demographic may struggle with identifying misinformation and classes designed to teach these skills to seniors may help them understand propaganda, deep fakes, and sponsored content. [ read more ]

Teachers Don't Always Agree On Credibility Of Sources, Study Suggests

In this article from Education Week , a new study suggests that social studies teachers may have differences in the news sources they find credible. The findings suggest that teaching programs should help teachers understand that they may have particular ideological perspectives that could influence creating lessons and teaching students media literacy skills. [ read more ]

Can Media Literacy Save Us?

In this episode of the Global Futures podcast, a series about global politics and how the world is changing, Allister Fa Chang, a fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, discusses his research on media literacy and disinformation, the importance of critically analyzing online materials, and the different approaches to teaching these skills. [ listen ]

M-Passioned: Meet Our Members

Lara Burton

Teaching Assistant

University of Louvain

Belgium

“The media environment and practices are changing very quickly, making it sometimes stressful to study, but also captivating! Media literacy asks us — researchers and teachers — to be curious, adapting our methods and contents to these never stopping evolutions. I am particularly interested in practices serving the common good and the proper functioning of democracy, integrating the actors’ perspective in the definition of the competencies.” [ read more ]

Job Postings

Media Literacy Educator

Pickford Film Center

Bellingham, WA

[ learn more ]

Editor

News Literacy Project

Washington, D.C.

[ learn more ]

Partnerships and Distribution Specialist, Education

KQED

San Francisco, CA

[ learn more ]

Faculty in Media Studies

Fresno State University

Fresno, CA

[ learn more ]

Design & Illustration Instructor

YR Media

Oakland, CA

[ learn more ]

Adjunct Faculty, Communication

Monroe Community College

Rochester, NY

[ learn more ]

Lecturer in Communication

University of Memphis

Jackson, TN

[ learn more ]

Youth Media Producer

PBS Wisconsin Education

Madison, WI

[ learn more ]

Events & Opportunities

Distance Learning Training

March 18 @ 7 pm. ET

This one-hour virtual learning event for K-12 educators, hosted by PBS LearningMedia, will highlight a variety of tips, from student activities to digital tools, to prepare for a successful distance learning experience, whether educators are working with students in person or sharing lessons online. People can share their ideas and questions on Twitter with the hashtag #PBSTeachersChat. [ register ]

Adobe Creative Cloud Free Access

With many schools moving to online learning, Adobe is giving more access to its Creative Cloud desktop apps to facilitate distance learning. Adobe is providing K-12 and higher education institutional customers globally — who currently make Creative Cloud apps available to students who login through on-campus labs — the ability to request temporary “at-home” access for their students and educators. This will be granted through May 31, 2020 at no additional cost. [ learn more ]

Media Literacy Newsletter Challenge

Students ages 13-19 years old can participate in Civic Spirit’s Media Literacy Challenge, where they will create a newsletter to reflect the multiple perspectives of a civics issue. Newsletter topics range from the Electoral College, the cost of higher education, and the production of renewable energy. The winning submission will be sent to subscribers of The Flip Side newsletter, a daily digest of op-eds and analyses across the political spectrum. Submission deadline: April 3 [ learn more ]

Do you have event or other organizational information you would like included in our Monthly Update? Email us with the subject "Update."

Next submission deadline:

April 3, 2020

Resources

3 Ways To Help Children Think Critically About The News

Australian researchers provide three tips in an article with The Conversation to encourage parents and teachers to use the news to engage children with what’s happening in the world, including helping them identify reliable news sources, how some media may exploit their emotions, and how news media talk about different people. [ read more ]

Teaching About Coronavirus: 3 Lesson Plans For Science, Math, And Media Literacy

As the coronavirus continues to spread globally, teachers are trying to figure out how best to explain the facts and debunk misconceptions about the outbreak. This article in Education Week provides three different ways that a science, math, and media literacy teacher are incorporating current events into the classroom. [ read more ]

A Deep Dive Into Deep Fakes

This article about deep fakes from the School Library Journal shows how media literacy can be used to help identify manipulated videos and recognize the potential motives of the video creators. [ read more ]

Smithsonian Open Access

The Smithsonian announced an initiative that removes Smithsonian copyright restrictions from about 2.8 million of its digital collection images. This means that images can now be downloaded, transformed, and shared for any purpose, for free, without further permission from the Smithsonian. Content includes images and data from the arts, sciences, history, technology, and design. [ read more ]

8 Tips For Identifying Fake News

In this blog post, Fresno State University’s Institute for Media and Public Trust encourages media consumers to look past personal biases, be skeptical, and take extra time to confirm the facts on sites they may not recognize. [ read more ]

Lessons From Media Literacy Interventions Around The World

In a new, downloadable report, “Strengthening the public’s defences: How media literacy can help fight misinformation,” researchers from the Africa Centre for Evidence and Full Fact trace the history of media and information literacy in Africa, South America, and the United Kingdom, and showcase the range of interventions fact checkers can support to build a culture for accuracy. [ read more ]

For The Record Media Literacy Lessons

For the Record , a downloadable monthly media literacy resource from the Toronto Star Classroom Connection, provides teachers and parents with tools to encourage youth to engage with, reflect on, and think critically about the media they encounter on a daily basis. Recent lessons include how to think critically about advertising and spotting “fake news.” [ read more ]