Misinformation and disinformation are readily found in your social media feeds. In this game, you will play the part of a producer of fake news trying to earn badges to become the “Master of Disinformation”. As you learn how to deceive your followers, this game will teach you the techniques used by influencers to deceived and misinform. The goal is to learn to identify these techniques so that in the future, you don’t repost misleading, incomplete, or just plain fake news. The Bad News Game.
Are you looking to up your game in the evaluation of online information? Bestselling author John Green wants to help!
Misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and conspiracies have become so common that we stumble across these all the time in our web searches and in our news feeds. And it’s getting harder and harder to evaluate the information that we find. Really bad information is often presented in a professional looking manner with a great looking list of references. Those old checklists just don’t work anymore.
What we really need to do is find out who is behind the information and why they want us to see it. A great way to do this is to leave the webpage we’re on, open a new tab, and google the person or organization presenting the information. Instead of reading vertically, up and down the page we found, we need to read laterally, across the web, to find out what other people have to say about the presenter.
Here’s where John Green comes into the picture. His Crash Course YouTube series has produced a collection in collaboration with researchers at Stanford University to help us learn more about how misinformation is spread and to demonstrate how to use lateral reading skills to evaluate online information. The videos are really engaging and really helpful.
Check out the first Navigating Digital Information video below. As always, the MVCC Library has lots of helpful information as well. Click here for a sample.
Have you ever found an interesting article in your social media, but you couldn’t read it without unblocking ads or subscribing to the publication? I had this happen to me recently when I found an interesting article entitled Can Books Compete With Netflix? Yes, and Here’s Why. It was published in the Wall Street Journal so when I tried to open it, I hit a paywall. Instead of paying for a subscription, I remembered that I can check to see if it’s in our Wall Street Journal database. Did you know that we have access to 100’s of magazine and and academic journals through our databases? You just need to go to our Research Tools page and either go to “All Databases” or choose a subject category underneath.
The Wall Street Journal database is under “News”. I did a search in the database for the article title, and I found it! Some publications don’t allow access to ALL of their articles so sometimes you may not be able to find what you are looking for. If that ever happens, the library can order the article from other libraries through our Interlibrary loan form, but sometimes, we may be able to find it in one of our other databases. The librarians are always happy to help, so please Ask a Librarian for help. If the article I was looking for interests you, here is a link to it in the WSJ database. Can Books Compete with Netflix? To read it, you will need to log in with your MV user name and password.
Last week we talked about how to find e-books and streaming videos about your favorite sports to fill the gap left by the live sports hiatus in the world. If you missed that post you can find it here.
But maybe you don’t just miss watching sports. Maybe it’s the playing sports with your friends and teammates that you crave. It’s hard to do that when stuck in your house. Well, people are finding ways. Check out this article from Com!cSands, Now That All Sports Are Canceled, People Are Coming Up With Their Own Hilarious Competitions To Satisfy Their Competitive Spirits. My favorites are Turtle Tic-Tac-Toe and Roomba Curling. You might be inspired to come up with a competition of your own. Though be aware–it seems like pets aren’t very good at games.
Games entertain us. They make us think. They help us stay connected. To learn more about games and the important role they play in our lives you can find ebooks here and articles here. Be ready to login with your MVCC username and password.
Who’s the most important person in your life? Is it not a person at all? In honor of Valentine’s Day, a panel of faculty members will discuss our relationships with technology. This event is part of our One Book, One College program on Isaac Asimov’s, I, Robot.
Yesterday, news outlets were reporting on the worldwide disruption of Facebook, Instagram and other Facebook properties. The fact that this was newsworthy speaks to how enmeshed in our lives social media has become. Are you interested in learning more about social media and its impact? The MVCC Library has a variety of materials on the topic here.
The New York Times has a great interactive piece online today that details ways that your apps are tracking you and then selling your location data to advertisers. The level of detail is frightening. You can find the story here: Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret
You can learn more about the background to this story on the podcast “The Daily” here:
The Business of Selling Your Location Smartphone apps track a staggering amount of data about our whereabouts every day. That data has become a hot commodity.
“A New York Times investigation has found that the information being collected about us through apps on our smartphones is far more extensive than most of us imagine — or are aware we have consented to.”
More and more educators and administrators are learning to use social media tools effectively for students in today’s professional learning communities. Using social networking technologies as educational tools in classroom can boost student engagement and interaction. Young generation learners will feel more comfortable and flexible expressing themselves on Twitter, Wikispaces, YouTube, and blogs. In addition, social media tools can enhance communication among students and teachers and help them establish an online body of work. Educators can post assignments or announcements via social media, answer students’ questions, share interesting Web sites and help students to create multimedia content information centers. However, our educators and administrators also need to carefully craft and evaluate social media policies before applying these technologies. How to choose the right tool for your classes and students is a critical issue, and here are 6 Alternative Social Media Tools for Teaching and Learning that serve as a good start. My favorites tools are Diigo, Pinterest, and Feedly, and what is yours?
You are being watched!!