Fact vs. Fiction in a Digital World

One of my favorite websites in the world is dhmo.org, a website dedicated to bringing awareness to the dangers of a very common chemical -- dihydrogen monoxide. This chemical is a key component in acid rain and can cause erosion. It is commonly used by athletes to enhance physical performance. If inhaled in large quantities, it can cause death. In case you didn't realize it right away, dihydrogen monoxide is H20 -- water. The site dhmo.org is a "spoof" site, but many people have been duped by it! It is vitally important for everyone who acquires information to learn how to be critical of the information we read, and that goes for adults as well as kids!

This became evident recently when a study out of Stanford showed that an alarming number of students across many grade levels had difficulty distinguishing fake news from real news online. If you spend any time on social media, you've likely seen stories that make you say, "Come on, that doesn't sound right!" In order to help make sure our students are good digital citizens, we need to help them learn how to distinguish fact from fiction online. Sometimes it's not very easy to do as many websites that are designed for satire look incredibly legitimate, and a reader has to really dig around the site to discover the truth.

There are some simple things we can do to teach kids how to read online content with a critical eye:

• Teach students about bias so they understand that information may not be represented accurately.
• Teach students to look for information on a website about the author or about the site itself.
• Teach students how to break down the parts of a URL to learn more about a website.
• Teach students how to corroborate facts by looking for similar information from other reputable sources.

The amount of information available on the internet is truly overwhelming; often it feels like drinking from a fire hose! But that can't be an excuse for believing and sharing false or inaccurate information. Being critical consumers of information is key to having digitally literate citizens.

Getting information online can feel like this....

Google News You Can Use!

I wanted to take this opportunity to share some Google news you can use -- improvements, changes to the Google tools you and your students use every day.

First up is YouTube. Essentially, YouTube is wide open for teachers -- you shouldn't have any videos blocked. However, not all videos are available for students. You'll know if a video is watchable by students when you see a blue banner under a video that says is is watchable. If a video is not watchable for students, you as a classroom teacher will need to click the "Approve" button to make it available for students to view. Please be sure to preview all videos before showing them to students :-) See the image below to see examples of the banners below the videos.

Next is Google Forms! There are some cool features on Google Forms to make it easier for you to ask questions -- things like being able to predict the type of question you're asking as well as predict the answers you might want to provide for a question. Also, you have the ability to use a picture or a video in a question as well as ask for a file to be uploaded as part of an answer to a question. These features not only make your work more efficient but also allow for the questions you ask students to answer to be more interactive. Here's s short video I made demonstrating some of these features:

Finally, I MUST tell you about Google Sites! There is a new version of Google Sites, and it is AMAZING! I'll readily admit that I was never a big fan of Google Sites -- I just had a really hard time figuring it out. Not anymore! It is super simple to use -- all you do is essentially click, type, and drag to create and customize a page. Adding and rearranging pages takes a couple mouse clicks. Updating your site is very easy, too, because now Google Sites lives in Google Drive! You don't have to go to a whole different place to create or update a Google Site! Just open Drive and voila! It's there! See?

And Google Sites is now collaborative! This means you can have multiple people collaborating on a Google Site in real time! This makes a class website something that can truly be maintained by the kids in your class! I started making a website with the new Google Sites today, and 30 minutes later (yes, I timed myself), this is what I developed: click here to see my website (still in progress). Three pages complete with links and images!

Now, here is something else important to know:

Good: New Google Sites is super easy to use!

Not So Good: If you are currently maintaining a website with Google Sites, you cannot simply convert your old site to the new version; you would have to create a whole new website.

Good: Google is working on a way to make migrating from old to new available.

Good: You don't have to use the new Google Sites right now if you don't want to.

Not So Good: Eventually the old version of Google Sites WILL go away.

Good: That's probably a year away.

I hope you find these Google tools easier to use -- both in your teaching and in your students' learning!

Using Images for School Projects

As you've heard me mention before (and you'll hear me mention again and again), now that students have Google accounts and Chromebooks, digital citizenship needs to be a focus across grade levels and subject areas. Any chance we get to reinforce ways for our students to be good digital citizens, we need to seize that opportunity!

One thing that is commonly done in schools -- and done improperly -- is searching for and using images found online. (This falls under the theme of understanding digital law as well as digital rights and responsibilities.) When they need an image for a school project, most students simply do a Google search for an image, find what they want, and plop that image into their report, web page, presentation, etc. But the problem with that is that copyright and usage rights are being ignored. While this might not seem like such a big deal in 4th grade, it can be a more significant issue when those kids grow up and improperly use copyrighted materials on a college or work project. Just like we teach students to respect another person's physical property (don't take Kelly's crayons, don't use Michael's calculator without asking him first), we need to teach students to respect others' digital property.

Many moons ago, I put together a quick how-to document about searching for images that might be helpful. Feel free to share this with kids. I can even come in and do a quick mini-lesson with your class on this!

Please take every opportunity you can to reinforce digital citizenship to our students, including all the great images available for our kids to use at school!

Updated October 16, 2019

Coding -- 3 W's

I'm sure you've heard of coding, but what the heck is it? Today, you will learn three W's about coding, and I'm going to use some videos to explain since other people out there are way smarter than I am:

• What is coding?
• Why is it important for our kids to learn coding?
• When will our students get the chance to learn about coding?

Are you old enough to remember taking a computer class where you learned to write a computer program? Maybe you learned how to write in Basic! Coding is kind of like that! Check out this video that explains very simply what coding is:

Coding is not part of the Common Core State Standards. It's not mandated by the state that schools present lessons in coding. So why should precious time be taken out of the school day to teach kids how to code? Well, check out this video for just a few reasons why learning to code is awesome!




So NOW that you're convinced that learning how to code is really important and worth the time, you might be wondering when is a good time to give kids a chance to learn and practice coding! Well, I've got an answer for that, too!