Back in January, Heather Turner and I began moderating educator chats for Teacher Librarians (and those who love them!) over on Bluesky. It's been so much fun and it reminds me a lot of the "golden age" of social media - before the billionaires took over. In those days, social media felt brimming with possibility and for a lot of us, the ability to connect with and learn from other educators, for free, was transformative. It's been a joy to see the library community grow and flourish again on this new platform and I love our weekly chats with my whole heart.
🎵 You and me got a whole lot of history: Taylor Swift Effect
Last week our chat focused on changing the way we teach Media Literacy: a topic that both feels more urgent than ever and that carries a certain amount of irony when discussed on social media. Of course, I was excited to help lead this conversation, because so much of my work over the last decade has been focused on this very goal. That said, I also realize that this work can feel heavy and overwhelming, so we decided to add as much joy as possible by wrapping the whole conversation in a Taylor Swift theme. After all, who better to channel when asking people to help us usher in a new era in how we teach kids to be smarter, savvier and safer online?
It's also not lost on me that Taylor Swift is, herself, the subject of massive amounts of mis, dis and mal information. Like all celebrities, Taylor's life is the subject of much curiosity and with that much attention and speculation, people are bound to get stuff wrong. However, Taylor Swift's unique level of popularity and power has made her a valuable commodity for people who seek to capitalize on her caché. Her likeness has been used to create everything from explicit/pornographic deepfakes to fictional political endorsements - all of which offer us a glimpse into this fundamental truth: the quest for influence is about power. Those who seek to influence our behavior online (whether it be through the monetizing or our attention or the manipulation of our values) are on a quest for power. I'm hopeful that someday, in addition to the numerous courses being offered that study Swift as an artist and songwriter, perhaps, they'll also be scholarship devoted to the countless disinformation campaigns that have attempted to weaponize her popularity.
🎶 Are You Ready For It? Bring On The Resources!
In the meantime, because there currently isn't an easy way to archive chats on Bluesky, I want to use this post as a way to curate all of the resources I shared during our conversation. That said, I would be remiss if I didn't say that every single resource I shared during our chat this week was inspired by, or the direct result of, my work with Darren Hudgins and our book Developing Digital Detectives. While many of the tools I'll share in this post can be used independently from the book, I believe you'll get more out of them if you read our work. With that in mind, while this post will be sparse in terms of instructional support for each of the resources I share, I'm in the process of adding many of these to The Evidence Locker (the website companion to Developing Digital Detectives) where they will be accompanied by more detailed instructions for use.
Engagement: Resources for Helping Kids Understand What Engagement Is And How Algorithms Work
This presentation was created to help educators explain how algorithms work. It features places for teachers or librarians to pause and have conversations with kids. It also contains information about how engagement can be weighted by the algorithm.
Darren and I created this infographic to help kids understand how some social media features are designed to increase engagement and may lead us to engaging w/o scrutiny. I recently created this student activity based on our original work.
I've stopped asking learners to consider whether or not content is real, "fake" or even trustworthy. Instead, I begin all info evaluation w/ the question, "Should I engage with this?" In my experience this leads to deeper, more meaningful. convos. I created this resource to help.
This activity is was designed to help educators have meaningful conversations with kids about their behavior online - including engagement.
Information Mindfulness: Resources for Helping Learners Understand How Emotion Drives Our Behavior Online
This game was created as a way to help younger kids think about how our emotions drive (get it?) our behavior online.
I created this poster to help learners (of all ages) understand how social media can trigger unhealthy emotions. This activity was designed to be a companion to the poster.
I recently created this game to help learners understand how dopmanine cravings are related to the emotions we feel online AND to our desire to feel those emotions again (even negative ones!)
I created this chatterbox activity, as part of my review of Same Page by Elly Swartz as a tool for helping kids a) think about what it's like to be triggered by BIG feelings and b) develop some strategies for navigating those powerful emotions.
Influencer Culture + Disinformation: Resources For Helping Learners Understand How Influencer Culture Is Related to Mental Health
Influencer culture can trigger many unhealthy emotions in young people, who may not realize that what they're seeing online often isn't real. This resource, was designed to help educators start these important conversations w/kids.
One of the most effective ways to get learners thinking about how content creators make choices that are designed to influence us is to have them examine and reflect on their own content creation choices. This resource was designed to spark those conversations.
I did not create this resource, but have found it useful for helping adults better understand how/why kids jump on harmful trends/challenges.
Memes! Memes! Memes! Resources For Helping Learners Understand The Potency of Memes as Information Sources
One thing I feel strongly about is making sure that we validate the REAL sources of info our kids use most. When we tell kids that memes, influencers, TikTok, etc., are not valid sources of info, we're also unintentionally telling them that those sources are not worthy of scrutiny.
Darren and I created this game to help HS (and older) learners think about the varied and potent ways that memes influence us. TW: Some of the memes in this game are upsetting. (That's the point!)
Scholastic asked me to contribute to this resource for helping kids evaluate memes for credibility.
I love memes, y'all! Here's a reflection activity I created that asks kids to create memes + think about them as powerful information tools. Note: this will require you to make your own copy.
I often included a more in depth version of this activity in workshops for teachers and librarians.
#TLSkyChat: Join us. Won't you?
I hope you will consider joining us for a future #TLSkyChat! We post topics and questions in advance, so checkout what's coming up and make plans to be a part of these fun and informative conversations. I hope to see you there!
