SharedFoundations_Inquire_2017

SharedFoundations_Curate_2017

It would be impossible to talk about Information Lteracy without the infamous “fake news” popping up.  So let’s just confront that head on.  Information Literacy is the science of finding correct and reliable information that is relevant to the question at hand.  It is the anthesis of “fake news”.  It must be :

1. correct
2. reliable
3. relevant

But these are not easy to determine.  It takes practice and education.  And for young people who are repeatedly told to “do as they are told” rather than question their world, it can be a difficult thing to embrace.

Information literacy is first a lesson in source selection.  Because, all other criteria aside – if you get IT from a reliable source, then you have won at least half the battle.

I ask the students to consider the acronym SPIT.  I will be honest that I could have made this into PITS or TIPS but chose SPIT for its memorability.  All information they evaluate must be measured against the SPIT criteria.

I like to bring the lesson home with a “Fact or Fiction” quiz of some sort.  I made my own using various websites but if you would like to check your own knowledge, look at Checkology (registration required) and see how you do!

Other Fact Checking resources :

Snopes

FactCheck.org

Politifact