To teach children how to discern truth from fiction, and to educate them on a topic they may not have learned about before, the Library of Michigan has launched a free resource, “Wonder Media,” the state’s Department of Education announced recently.
A collaboration between Western Michigan University (WMU), the Kalamazoo Valley Museum and the Library of Michigan, the website provides an interactive toolkit that allows users to learn about media and news literacy by exploring the topics of daily media use, the history of media, media as a business, the construction of social media posts, and how algorithms work, according to a recent news release.
The target audience is students between the ages of 11 and 14, though some of the site’s games, videos and lessons are suitable for 10-year-olds. The main goal is to provide users the ability to understand varying forms electronic and print media, why people use them, how people use them, and how to analyze news stories and determine their credibility and accuracy, the news release said.
“The Library of Michigan is proud to be a part of a project that combats the spread of misinformation online,” State Librarian Randy Riley said in a public statement. “Public library staff, now more than ever, need tools and resources to create meaningful and important programming to do so, and it is very exciting to know this toolkit is available.”
These online and interactive materials originated as a temporary exhibit at the Kalamazoo Valley Library. State library and WMU employees were so impressed by it that they decided to make it a permanent resource that anyone in the world can access, Cathy Lancaster, Library of Michigan youth services coordinator, told Government Technology on Tuesday.
“We assume they [site users] are starting with a blank slate where they don’t know how to trust the timeline of the news source,” Lancaster said. “Digital media, especially social media, comes at them so much faster now. It’s important that they learn how to recognize where that information is coming from.”
The site is brand agnostic and nonpolitical. It identifies the largest media conglomerates, but it does not endorse any news publications, social media platforms or companies.
On the “Whack a Fact” game page, users select fact or opinion in 12 different slides. The questions range from, “the Detroit Lions are the hardest-working football team,” to “pizza was invented more than 200 years ago in Italy,” to “school days really have to be shorter than seven hours a day.”
The “Same Message/Different Meaning” page on the site lists various responses to the question “What does the U.S. flag mean to you?” from a cross section of the United States. A college student notes that the flag, in connection with the National Anthem, says it means we value wars to achieve our freedoms. A middle-aged Columbian immigrant answered that the flag means liberty, opportunity and family. An elderly veteran says the flag represents a world standard for freedom and acceptance. A high school history teacher identifies it as an interesting experiment of weaving 50 states with 50 different identities into one country. An activist said it symbolizes hope but also covers up important history about the nation’s justice system.
“This is very much needed,” Lancaster said of the Wonder Media website. “There’s a lot of talk about news and media literacy, but where else can you provide lessons and games in a fun and interesting way?”
State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a public statement that improving childhood literacy remains a top priority — that in addition to learning how to read, “our students also need to understand the different forms of news media and how to analyze media to determine accuracy and credibility.”
