Librarians Fighting Fake News.
When reading Ryan Holmes post in Forbes about how libraries are reinventing themselves in order to fight fake news, I instantly made a connection to Mark Ray’s TED Talk and a previous blog post in which I came to the realisation of the importance of finding the niche needs of your school context and promoting how teacher librarians (TL) can solve those needs.
Holmes unpacks the difficulties in spotting fake news, noting that many people are accessing news via social media in “largely uncurated spaces” which are already algorithmically aligned to “confirm our preexisting biases” (2018). In turn, I thought of my own school setting and the need for someone to create accessible, reliable means to evaluate the quality of information, as it is likely that social media news feeds or the first hit in Google, are the “trusted sources”. Although my current school recognises media and information literacy as important skills in the curriculum, I doubt staff and students would use evaluative techniques in deciding if something is “fake news” and are more likely to rely on thier instincts. I feel that by engaging with classes during the research process, using accessible tools, (Like IFLA’s infographic), I can improve our community’s ability to access and evaluate information. This is my opportunity: help staff and students become better at evaluating information as it is a need that aligns with our curricular goals.
The concept of fake news, and its prevalence in pop culture, is likely not going away anytime soon. Although attempts by robust social media platforms and government legislation are aimed towards curbing the spread of fake news, individual information literacy is the best tool against the bots, algorithms and paid ads that are targeted to our cognitive online patterns (Holmes, 2018). Educating both teachers and students is paramount to a sustained effort in teaching information literacy. As professionals, we should be modelling how to use academic search domains and evaluating information that we share with students. Likewise, ensuring that information literacy is not only part of the curriculum but is strategically aligned with classroom assessments will encourage the instruction and evaluation of using quality information. The TLs opportunity to help future proof the leaders and entrepreneurs fo tomorrow.
References
Holmes, R. (2018, April 10). How libraries are reinventing themselves to fight fake news. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholmes/2018/04/10/how-libraries-are-reinventing-themselves-to-fight-fake-news/#751cbde8fd16