Wait, did that really happen? Fake news, clickbait, misinformation, disinformation, and even deep-fake technology are everywhere and their spread can have devastating effects. In a country where almost half of its citizens get their news from social media, individuals regularly diagnose themselves using google, but only 9% of Americans trust the media “a great deal,” we need to arm our students with the tools they need to navigate the media they encounter on a day-to-day basis. Students share stories within 15 seconds, often before reading it completely, so they need a simple, effective way to check whether something is legitimate or not before passing it on. Come and learn some quick and easy ways to teach this important skill to your students, and maybe even yourself.

Students explore new topics and people to develop a compelling news story.
This lesson will help students understand how journalists decide what kinds of stories to pursue and help them sharpen the focus of their own story ideas.

Becky Wandel explores what to look for when reading the news via social media using her original stop light method. This resource includes a video and teaching resources.

In the aftermath of the divisive 2020 presidential election, PBS NewsHour and Student Reporting Labs (SRL) aired "We the Young People", a half-hour virtual special highlighting the impact of young voters. The show featured teen voices and conversations with experts focusing on issues that affect young people.

In the first video, Jevin West, an Associate Professor at the University of Washington who studies the spread of misinformation, talks to student reporter Bridgette Adu-Wadier about the ongoing problem of misinformation online and in our society and how it has impacted democratic processes. In the second video, multimedia reporter Heather Taylor-Wynn talks to two teen fact-checkers from Poynter’s MediaWise program about solutions to slow down the spread of misinformation.

SRL's Becky Wandel spoke with science producer Nsikan Akpan about he how he debunked that cellphone-horns story. This resource includes a video and teaching resources to help students dig more deeply into the facts behind science stories we see in the news.

The Importance of Digital Citizenship HyperDoc will help students learn about, understand, and use their gained knowledge of digital citizenship wisely.  Students will visit five links about different aspects of digital citizenship and communicate, through writing notes, what they learn and experience in each section.  

To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information. By the end of this unit you will be able to Define Information Literacy, Define the four domains that fall under Metaliterate Learners, Identify a lack of knowledge in a subject area, Identify a search topic/question and define it using simple terminology, Articulate current knowledge on a topic, Recognize a need for information and data to achieve a specific end and define limits to the information need, and Manage time effectively to complete a search.

In this lesson, students examine and create holiday/event cards, analyze holiday elements, and create their own. The activities help students focus on the reasons for composing messages as they do.

Students will explore, engage and develop a thorough understanding of the components and ethics related to journalism. Click on the Activities Tab to complete the lesson.

In this minilesson, students practice identifying and purposefully using vocabulary in persuasive writing that is intended to have an emotional impact on the reader.

Paper and pixels get compared in this lesson in which students compare both printed and online versions of a magazine.

Pop culture and the classroom collide in this lesson when students go behind the scenes to analyze a television series for characterization to use in an original television show proposal.

Today’s complex information landscape requires learners of all ages to take a second look at the news and media we consume. In this session, we will talk about how consuming information on a mobile device is different from a laptop (or television or newspaper) and everyday strategies to help students (and teachers) analyze and evaluate information.

Students explore naming conventions in digital and non-digital settings then choose and explain specific names and profiles to represent themselves online.

This week, we talk to Candace Buckner of The Washington Post about her role as a sports columnist. Buckner sheds light on the differences between straight news beat reporting and opinion writing — and underscores how certain journalism practices and standards remain the same. Using her recent piece on Kyrie Irving as an example, Buckner explains her approach to column writing. We also discuss how sports intersect with culture and society and what sports reporting can teach us about the wider world. Grab your news goggles!

This week, we talk to data reporter Emilie Munson of the Times Union, a local news organization based in Albany, New York, with a coverage area that includes the state’s Capital Region and Hudson Valley. Munson sheds light on the Times Union’s decision to publish a guide explaining how the news organization covers elections and politics — and the role of journalism standards in its news decisions. We also discuss the Times Union’s strict policies on the use of anonymous or unnamed sources. Grab your news goggles!

In this unit, students will learn about major standards of quality journalism and why news matters. Through a series of five main lessons, they will distinguish fact from fiction, zone different types of information into their primary purposes, recognize elements of quality journalism, gauge the newsworthiness of topics and stories and identify key journalism terminology. It’s meant to be a starting point for conversations about and interest in journalism.

PBS NewsHour and the Utah Education Network team up for this presentation about the PBS Student Reporting Labs project and StoryMaker platform. Together PBS and UEN provide free projects, lesson plans, storytelling resources, tutorials, support, and mentoring just for you to help you build the next generation of media creators.

On this episode of UEN PDTV, Katie Blunt discusses with Utah State Board of Education curriculum specialists Robert Austin and Naomi Watkins about information literacy in the classroom. We learn from Utah teachers Charlotte Ducos and Williams Shields on how they are preparing students to navigate the vast wealth of information they are presented with every day and how to lead challenging, yet historically accurate, discussions in the classroom.

Students will learn to turn their story ideas into fully developed pitches. A pitch enables students to explain their story succinctly and also keep their story focused during the production process. Click on the Activities Tab to complete the lesson.