In recent years, also favoured by the widespread use of the network, we have witnessed the proliferation of fake news on many different topics, even very serious ones: from the false myths about health to those related to immigration or economy.
Fake news are often expressly created to generate confusion, or foster hate and tension. It is therefore urgent to educate all students, who use the web extensively, to exercise critical thinking when reading or researching news, and to show them useful tricks to recognize them, to fight disinformation and misinformation, to differentiate between credible media sources and those that are not.
Students will investigate the web and find examples of fake news in different languages,will contribute to debunking false news, propaganda narratives, commercial and political interests masked as journalistc reporting, with the aim to foster critical approach to media content and strengthen media literacy.
The goal of the project is to develop students’ knowledge of the means and dynamics of contemporary digital communication, to learn to use them with awareness and full understanding of the consequences of their actions and to develop critical thinking about a very powerful tool that can be potentially harmful if used in a non-conscious way. The project starts from the definition of the concept of fake news, it addresses the issue of investigation and selection of news on social media and it will end with a series of reflections and good practices to observe when surfing the Internet.
Here below you can find our project planning:
November: Phase 1)
introduction of school, students and towns.
December: Phase 2)
Brainstorming: what do you know about fake news? what’s the meaning of these words?
online habits: what do you usually do on the Internet? What news do you usually read or research on the Internet?
Tools: Padlet, Answergarden and similar
January: Phase 3)
Students will work in international teams and each team will find a fake news on the Internet.
They will explain why it is false and how they have detected it.
Tools: Realtime board, MeetingWords
February: Phase 4)
Students in international teams will create a fake profile using the tool Fakebook. The other teams will find clues to understand why it is a fake profile
March: Phase 5)
Students in international teams will create a fake news like a newspaper article using the tool Breaking news generator. The other teams will find clues to understand why it is a fake news
April: Phase 6)
International teams will collect on a Padlet a set of rules to differentiate fake news from real ones.
May: Phase 7)
Final product: a decalogue of rules to individuate and fight fake news
Tools: Canva or similar
During the project students will stay in touch using the Forum or through some videoconferences.