Misinformation is everywhere. This “infodemic” (World Health Organisation, n.d.) has been especially apparent in the past few years with the advent of COvid19 and the impact of social media (World Health Organisation, n.d.) We have seen massive growth in “fake news” as popular culture and we already know that students are subjected daily to phenomenal amounts of information, however, we also see that many students’ ability to critique real from fake – especially on the internet is less than ideal (Coombs).
In 2011, The American centre for disease control and prevention prepared a document in response to the lack of society’s preparedness for emergencies. “ Preparedness 101; zombie pandemic” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.), Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response., 2011) drew on the metaphor for conceptualising real-world disasters and how to prepare for them ( Collier, 2022). This campaign was inspired by the lack of people effectively prepared for disaster response and drew on the pop culture of “zombies” to make the topic more” Sexy” (Scientific American, 2011).
“ The whole idea was if you were prepared for a zombie apocalypse, you were prepared for anything” (Scientific American, 2011)
We are currently fighting our pandemic – and no, its not anything to do with infectious diseases – The Misinformation “infodemic” has been cited as one of the greatest threats to mankind (Nuccitelli, 2017) and librarians, as information fluency experts are at the forefront. (Wall, 2018) In my digital literature creation, I want to follow the same successful narrative at the CDC – using zombies as a pop culture metaphor to fight the “infodemic”
“ How to survive the zombie apocalypse”
Imagine you are watching the evening news and a story about a possible zombie outbreak comes to air… however, your social media feed is filled with posts about the “fake zombie apocalypse” – how will you navigate the world of misinformation to survive zombification?
In my design, students will travel through a “choose your own adventure” style in which they will be presented with choices that will ultimately decide whether or not they survive the impending zombie outbreak. The process will be simple, students will read a narrative under the zombie apocalypse context. They will then learn, through the story how to spot “fake news” and then, via reading embedded articles and media, critically analyse what is false and what is true. Students who choose the truth pathway will ultimately end up surviving the zombie apocalypse – students who choose to believe the misinformation, however, will end up as zombies.
My rationale behind this is that we are currently in an infodemic. The NSW Information Fluency Framework (2021) describes information fluency as “ Information fluency is the ability to critically think while engaging with, creating and utilising information and technology, regardless of the information platform or medium.” (NSW Dept of Education, 2021) and is an integral part of 21st-century learning. With the growing use of digital products for knowledge, the increased use of social media for information gathering and the “google generation” (Rowlands et al., 2008) Students are exposed to more information than ever (McGrew 2016) and the role of the teacher librarian in mitigating this has become more and more important – especially since part of the role of TL’s is to be a mentor and leader in information literacy. (Foster, n.d.) The choose your adventure narrative will prove to be an engaging way for students to personalise their reading experience – an essential factor in creating successful digital literature (Furenes et al).
The medium I will be using to create the content is google sites as it is something my students are very familiar with. I will also incorporate interactive elements such as hyperlinks, videos, and other digital products and embed them into my digital literature narrative. I have already completed something similar for a project for book week 2021 when students were learning from home.
References
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.), Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response. (2011). Preparedness 101; zombie pandemic. CDC stacks. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/6023
Centres for Zombie Control and Prevention”. (2011, October 25). Skepticality Podcast. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from htthttps://www.skepticality.com/centers-zombie-control-prevention/p://www.skepticality.com/centers-zombie-control-prevention/
Collier, K. (2022, June 6). The CDC is no longer preparing for the zombie apocalypse…should we? Dalhousie’s blog platform. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://blogs.dal.ca/openthink/the-cdc-is-no-longer-preparing-for-the-zombie-apocalypse-should-we/
Foster, K. (n.d.). What is a Teacher Librarian? Australian School Library Association. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://asla.org.au/what-is-a-teacher-librarian
Furenes, M. I., Kucirkova, N., & Bus, A. G. (2021, March 8). A Comparison of Children’s Reading on Paper Versus Screen: A Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 91(4), 483-517. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654321998074
Good, C. (2011, May 20). Why Did the CDC Develop a Plan for a Zombie Apocalypse? The Atlantic. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/why-did-the-cdc-develop-a-plan-for-a-zombie-apocalypse/239246/
McGrew, S. (2016). Why Students Can’t Google Their Way to the Truth. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/11/02/why-students-cant-google-their-way-to.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2-R
NSW Dept of Education. (2021). Information Fluency Framework. NSW Department of Education. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/media/documents/Information_fluency_framework.pdf
Nuccitelli, D. (2017, December 27). Fake news is a threat to humanity, but scientists may have a solution | Dana Nuccitelli. The Guardian. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/dec/27/fake-news-is-a-threat-to-humanity-but-scientists-may-have-a-solution
Rowlands, Ian & Nicholas, David & Williams, Peter & Huntington, Paul & Fieldhouse, Maggie & Gunter, Barrie & Withey, Richard & Jamali, Hamid R. & Dobrowolski, Tom & Tenopir, Carol. (2008). The Google generation: The information behaviour of the researcher of the future. Aslib Proceedings. 60. 290-310. 10.1108/00012530810887953.
Scientific American. (2011, May 19). “Zombie Apocalypse’ Campaign Crashes CDC Website”. Scientific American. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=zombie-apocalypse-campaign-crash
Wall, J. (2018). Information + competency + literacy = fluency. A thought piece. Scan, 37(6). https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan/past-issues/vol-37-2018/information-competency-literacy-fluency–a-thought-piece
World Health Organisation. (n.d.). Infodemic. WHO | World Health Organization. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://www.who.int/health-topics/infodemic#tab=tab_1
Allissia, I am here for this! You had me at zombie apocalypse and an interactive fiction story no less… I am on the edge of my seat.
What a great way to tie information fluency and a pandemic together. Misinformation, zombies and fake news. Such a great idea. Very creative.
I am curious how the story will look; you’ve mentioned Google sites, as this is something your students are familiar with. Will Docs or Slides be used as the base platform or a web page?
Will it be web pages linking to fake news stories like a Facebook feed? Very cool.
No need to reply of course! I’m just thinking out loud. Can’t wait to see your creation, I’m looking forward to it.
Hi Emma!
I have used google sites before to create a choose your own adventure for book week and the ids really enjoy it. I find its great for a one stop shop for all of the items and I feel that powerpoint is quite clunky when it comes to creating interactive environments – its very similar to web design set up where all of your file paths have to be the same otherwise your links get broken. Google makes things like this easy to share and create and since we are very much a google based school, it will be easy to incorporate into my program.
Im not going to lie, the fake news stories are the ones I’m a little worried about as I think I may have to generate them myself lol I have looked at a few generators online already but will have to do a bit more searching… I have a tendency to make things bigger then ben hur!
The topic of a zombie apocalypse can be very engaging and generate a lot of interest amongst the students. I am curious about what age range this will be targeted at. The skills that your digital text will teach are very important and wide ranging so it will be interesting to see what skills you choose to focus on depending on the target audience.
Bechkoff (2019) discusses the use of the ‘choose your own adventure’ style to engage students and encourage them to be active learners. The use of this in your digital text will really allow students to delve into the concept of misinformation and provide them with first-hand experience in analysing and evaluating information.
It is a great idea for the Teacher Librarian to use this text. I wonder if the staff at your school are confident using digital texts, if so, it may be advantageous to think about making this user-friendly for teachers, as students may benefit from this in classrooms too. The fact that you are choosing to use a platform that students are familiar will be extremely beneficial to students as they will be able to focus on their learning rather than trying to decipher the platform.
Good luck!
Reference
Bechkoff, J. (2019). Gamification using a choose-your-own-adventure type platform to augment learning and facilitate student engagement in marketing education. Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education, 27(1), 13-30.
Hi
Thanks for the article reference. I will take a look as Iam really into the gamification of learning for kids. We already heavily use Minecraft and other games to teach concepts in the classroom – its far more engaging for the kids
I love this and definitely want to read this once you have developed it!
However, my one concern is as I was reading I thought cool I want to be a zombie! and I know my son would too. But otherwise awesome concept!!
Allissia, I am here for this! You had me at zombie apocalypse and an interactive fiction story no less… I am on the edge of my seat.
What a great way to tie information fluency and a pandemic together. Misinformation, zombies and fake news. Such a great idea. Very creative.
I am curious how the story will look; you’ve mentioned Google sites, as this is something your students are familiar with. Will Docs or Slides be used as the base platform or a web page? Google Sites allows you to make a website without needing to know coding (Nations, 2008).
Will it be web pages linking to fake news stories like a Facebook feed? Very cool.
No need to reply of course! I’m just thinking out loud. Can’t wait to see your creation, I’m looking forward to it.
Nations, D. (2008). What Is Google Sites and Why Use It? Lifewire.
https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-google-sites-and-why-use-it-3486337
Hi Allissia,
As a newly appointed secondary TL, words cannot describe how excited this digital story makes me feel! I absolutely love the idea of using an interactive story to gamify learning of the Digital Literacy (formerly ICT) capability, particularly that of Investigating – Evaluate Information element (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2021). Including the link to your past BHS 2021 Book Week interactive story project really helped me to envision the final product. Using zombies is a novel concept and especially relatable considering the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I love that you are planning on enriching your new digital story with additional multi-modal features such as audio and videos. Furthermore, your digital proposal is grounded in your high school’s context as seen by your choice in software, Google Sites. A quick Google search tells me that 90% of Bonnyrigg High School’s students are non-English speaking background and supplies ESL classes (NSW Department of Education International, n.d.). As such, it may be worthwhile to include audio narration of the text to assist ESL students with interacting with the text.
You can use a source evaluation framework such as the TRAAP Test to frame your digital story. Examples of critical evaluation frameworks of information sources can be found on university library websites such as University of Oregon (2022) and Australian National University (n.d.) (no need to remake the wheel!).
Overall, I am so excited to see the final product and am sure it will be a valuable teaching tool for students.
Best of luck,
Sally
P.S. You are currently my TL idol now with this awesome concept.
References:
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2021). Understand this general capability – Digital literacy. https://v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au/teacher-resources/understand-this-general-capability/digital-literacy
Australian National University. (n.d.). Evaluating sources. https://libguides.anu.edu.au/c.php?g=906019&p=6594267
NSW Department of Education International. (n.d.). School profile – Bonnyrigg High School. https://www.deinternational.nsw.edu.au/schools/bonnyrigg-high-school
University of Oregon. (2022). Fake news and information literacy. https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/fakenews/evaluating
Lol thanks Sally,
Don’t be too excited lol!, its proving to be quite a effort to make this, I literally have to make all of the texts, sms, facebook post article etc using generators and canva so its literally taking me forever (I dont even know how i am going to do the videos yet!)! Trust me to make this bigger than ben hur!
The beauty about using an online web interface is that google has a lot of those accessibility features built into it. I am however, including subtitles on my videos for students and on the how to play page there will be a section for accessibility features. Thanks for your awesome feedback!
Hi Allissia,
I really like the concept of working with misinformation, it’s a definite area of need in the current landscape, and works really well with a teacher librarian’s brief to develop students skills at evaluating information effectively (Australian Capital Territory Government, 2019, p. 4).
I did a similar unit with my year 9s a few years ago that was focused on “fake news”, and students found it incredibly engaging. Misinformation is a unit that really supports students with skills they can see the real world application of, a great example of relevance being used to build engagement (Knoster & Goodboy, 2021).
There has also been a review of the literature around choose your own adventure, specifically linking it to information literacy that had favourable results, (Korber & Shepherd, 2019) which suggest you are definitely on the right track.
I was wondering if you had thought about including side characters, and how the narrative would be supported by side kicks for the player’s character to support emotional engagement in the narrative?
Australian Capital Territory Government. (2019). School libraries: The heart of 21st century learning. Australian Capital Territory. https://www.education.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1435435/School-Libraries-The-Heart-of-21st-Century-Learning.pdf
Knoster, K. C., & Goodboy, A. K. (2021). Making content relevant: A teaching and learning experiment with replication. Communication Education, 70(1), 4–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2020.1788106
Korber, I., & Shepherd, J. (2019). Teaching the information literacy Framework: Creating choose-your-own-adventure flip-books. Reference Services Review, 47(4), 461–475. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-05-2019-0033