The infodemic is upon us. The World Health Organisation (WHO) describes an “infodemic” as “too much information including false or misleading information in the digital and physical environment (World Health Organisation, n.d.). This has meant that students are constantly bombarded with new and often misleading information, with many young people obtaining their news frequently from less reliable species such as social media sites (Common Sense Media, 2019). Therefore, there has been a massive increase in the volume of false information due to this factor (Mencszer & Hills, 2020). WHO has cited this as “one of the greatest threats to society in 2019” ( World Health Organisation, n.d.).
Currently employed as a Teacher Librarian (TL) in a public secondary high school, I have seen first-hand the impact that the spread of misinformation can have on students. The NSW Department of Education has identified the importance of digital and information fluency skills in the development of the Information Fluency Framework (2021) however, we still see a lack of information fluency amongst the student body. Our student’s lack of ability to decipher what is real and what is “fake news” ( OECD, 2021) is why I have decided to focus on the “infodemic that was catalyzed by the Covid 19 pandemic (World Health Organisation, n.d.) using the mode of a “choose your own adventure” to help students to build critical thinking skills about the information they find online.
As a TL, I often see students across all KLA’s struggle to use appropriate fact-checking skills. I believe it is important for TLs in schools to be digital mentors in fostering healthy digital literacy skills (Samuel, 2017) I also believe that successful implementation of information literacy is the responsibility of the entire school community (NEALS, 2015) This resource is intended to be used across the curriculum, focusing on the general capabilities that all curriculums should have embedded. (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2015). Creating this with the general capabilities in mind means that any KLA will be able to build it into their teaching program and be taught as part of an information literacy project. As stated in my previous digital literature proposal I described the importance of allowing students to be able to personalise their reading experience (Furenes et al., 2021). This is why I have chosen a “choose your own adventure” design for my final project. Gamification is a powerful tool for creating engaged students (Brian, 2014), by creating a game-based mode of literacy, I can engage students more effectively and effective engagement means a greater understanding of literacy – in turn, increasing the information skills of illiterate students (Bechoff, 2019).
The tools I have selected to use to create my digital story are the Google suite – specifically Google sites- and other media-based sites such as Canva for Education and Biteable in order to make multimodal presentations of information. The Google suite is already heavily implemented in our school’s online teaching environment and works well with other suite programs such as google classroom. Students are already very familiar with the interface, which is important as familiarity with a piece of technology reduces confusion to the user ( Kucirkova, 2018) and therefore helps to create engaging and meaningful interactions with the content. Using technology that both staff and students already use means that software does not need to be explicitly taught making a teacher more inclined to use it within the classroom (Yokota & Teale, 2014).
Because I have used multimodal features available throughout my digital story, they help to solidify understanding by allowing students to use visual literacy skills to understand the information within the story (Victoria State Government: Literacy Teaching Toolkit, 2018) and I have aimed to use several types of media in the production of my zombie apocalypse narrative.
Another reason for selecting google sites as my platform is the greater ability to be able to control the copyright and licensing of media used in the narrative. Each of the technologies I have used has been vetted for use by the NSW Dept of Education in schools (NSW Dept of Education, n.d.) meaning that not only is student information protected under Australian educational policies but also ease of access in the classroom through single sign-on. Being digitally literate means providing good examples to students about their information use (Samuel, 2017). Google suite and Canva also provide access to their free-to-use libraries, governed by educational use listening (Canva For Education, n.d.). Google, in particular, has filtered content available through its image search that only shows media with permissions for educational use – making it easier to model correct copyright and image attribution (Samuel, 2017).
Target Audience
The target audience for this story is intended to be stages four and five. The main reason for selecting these groups is that as a TL, I have greater access to these groups through my digital literacy teaching program and classes. The school itself has identified that information skills in students are lacking in all stages, this is backed by the NSW Dept of education which has identified that students need to be well prepared for the 21st-century economy ( NSW Dept of Education, 2021). The school itself is 98% NESB so the ability for students to use accessibility features of online literature means they will have greater access to content (Kucirkova, 2018).
In the ongoing covid 19 pandemic, we saw a massive increase in the sharing of false information through social media platforms ( World Health Organisation, n.d.) considering that most students have identified that they obtain a majority of their information from social media (Common Sense Media, 2019) it is important to acknowledge that “infowhelm” has contributed to students being unable to tell truth from lies. This is particularly relevant to those in stages four and five as they have been identified as most likely to become victims of misleading information (Metzgar et al., 2015).
My project aims to educate these students on the ability to critically think about the information they are presented with online. By providing a working scaffold and choices, students can take ownership of their information literacy skills and be overall better informed (Metzgar et al., 2015) My choice of the theme around a “zombie apocalypse” stems from the use of pop culture to make the topic more engaging to students, as first suggested in my original proposal.
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2015). Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Capability (Version 8.4) | The Australian Curriculum (Version 8.4). Australian Curriculum. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/information-and-communication-technology-ict-capability/
Bechoff, J. (2019, spring). Gamification Using a Choose-Your-OwnAdventure Type Platform to Augment Learning and Facilitate Student Engagement in Marketing Education. Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education, 27(1), 13-30. http://www.mmaglobal.org/publications/JAME/JAME-Issues/JAME-2019-Vol27-Issue1/JAME-2019-Vol27-Issue1-Bechkoff-pp13-30.pdf
Brian, A. J. (2014). Gamification in Education. ASBBS Annual Conference: Las Vegas, 21(1), 32-39.
Canva For Education. (n.d.). About Canva for Education. Canva. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.canva.com/en_au/help/about-canva-for-education/
Common Sense Media. (2019, August 13). New Survey Reveals Teens Get Their News from Social Media and YouTube. Common Sense Media. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/press-releases/new-survey-reveals-teens-get-their-news-from-social-media-and-youtube
Furenes, M. I., Kucirkova, N., & Bus, A. G. (2021). A Comparison of Children’s Reading on Paper Versus Screen: A Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 91(4), 483-517. SAGE. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654321998074
Kucirkova, N. (2018). How and Why to Read and Create Children’s Digital Books – UCL Press. UCL Press. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/109473
Mencszer, F., & Hills, T. (2020). Information Overload Helps Fake News Spread, and Social Media Knows It. Scientific American. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/information-overload-helps-fake-news-spread-and-social-media-knows-it/
Metzgar, M. J., Flanagin, A. J., Markov, A., Grossman, R., & Bulgar, M. (2015). Believing the Unbelievable: Understanding Young People’s Information Literacy Beliefs and Practices in the United States. Journal of Children and Media, 9(3), 325 -348. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2015.1056817
NEALS. (2015). Information skills in the school: engaging learners in constructing knowledge. NSW Department of Education. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/media/documents/infoskills.pdf
NSW Dept of Education. (n.d.). Digital Learning Selector: Learning tools. Digital learning selector. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://app.education.nsw.gov.au/digital-learning-selector/
NSW Dept of Education. (2021). Information Fluency Framework. NSW Department of Education. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/media/documents/Information_fluency_framework.pdf
NSW Dept of Education. (2022, May 30). The information process. NSW Department of Education. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/school-libraries/teaching-and-learning#Information0
OECD. (2021). 21st-Century Readers: Developing Literacy Skills in a Digital World. PISA OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/a83d84cb-en.
Rowlands, I., Nicholas, D., Williams, P., Huntington, P., Fieldhouse, M., & Gunter, B. (2008). The Google generation: the information behaviour of the researcher of the future. Aslib Proceedings New Information, 60(4), 290-310. Emerald. 10.1108/00012530810887953
Samuel, A. (2017, November 14). How Librarians Can Be Digital Mentors for Teens. JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/how-librarians-can-be-digital-mentors-for-teens/
Scientific American. (2019, May 11). Zombie Apocalypse’ Campaign Crashes CDC Website”. “Zombie Apocalypse’ Campaign Crashes CDC Website”. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=zombie-apocalypse-campaign-crash
Victoria State Government: Literacy Teaching Toolkit. (2018, August 29). Multimodal literacy. Department of Education and Training Victoria. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/english/literacy/readingviewing/Pages/litfocusmultimodal.aspx
Wall, J. (2020, February 6). Information + competency + literacy = fluency. NSW Department of Education. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan/media/documents/vol-37/Scan_2018_37-6.pdf
World Health Organisation. (n.d.). Infodemic. World Health Organization (WHO). Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://www.who.int/health-topics/infodemic#tab=tab_1
Yokota, J., & Teale, W. H. (2014). Picture Books and the Digital World. The Reading Teacher, 67(8), 577-585. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1262
