Digital Literacy Continued

This is a continuation of our previous post regarding digital information literacy. Websites and news organizations make money from advertising when we view their content. There are three important distinctions for you to know:

1. Native Advertising - advertising that tries to sell or promote a product disguised as a news story
2. Traditional Advertising - most common advertising that sells or promotes a product 
3. News story - real content containing factual information about a subject and independent of bias and should answer, who, what, when and how

For this post take a look at the following two website banners and answer this question:

Which are these an example of: native advertising, traditional advertising or a news story and why? 

Digital Literacy

A few posts ago we discussed the difference between fake and real news. Since it was post election most of the focus was on Facebook and how fake news stories may have influenced people's votes. A recent Stamford study went further by including the internet as a whole and found troubling results.

Please read: http://motherboard.vice.com/en_au/read/we-need-to-teach-kids-how-to-be-skeptical-of-the-internet There will be a 6 question quiz on the article on Wednesday, 1/11/17.

You are bombarded by information all day long. Some from legitimate sources and others with dubious intentions. How do we determine fact from fiction? One way is to go to the source.

So let's begin. Visit this site and put your detective hat on: https://www.minimumwage.com/

For our post:

1. Is this a legitimate news source? Why? What are you basing your decision of legitimacy on? 
2. What organization is supporting this website? Who are they? Does that change your opinion of the information supported by the website? 

Do not copy someone else's response. Do your own research. 

Modeling Empathy

em·pa·thy

ˈempəTHē/

noun

1. the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

According to some studies empathy is on the decline among young people. Recent "research, led by Sara H. Konrath of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and published online in August in Personality and Social Psychology Review, found that college students’ self-reported empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years." 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-me-care/ 

For this post:

1. research what is contributing to this phenomena. READ THE SOURCE and summarize it for us. You must also include a link. -5 without a link to the source. 
2. Also discuss briefly these questions: Why empathy is important? What are the potential consequences of a world with less empathy? 

Here is one way a student changed his entire school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=PIHtuKc3Gjg

FSU football player changes 11 year old autistic boy's life: http://time.com/4474258/florida-state-football-boy-lunch-autism/ Video is short please read article as well.

Hidden emotions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDWvj_q-o8

The Brain and Personality

How we learn best may lie in first finding out our own personality strengths and weaknesses. The more we know about ourselves the faster we can eliminate unwanted situations and recognize quicker what works best for us.

IMPORTANT: None of this is scientific. We are merely exploring the concepts, trying to draw connections between learning and creativity.

For this post:

1. Take a test from one of the many listed on this site and share your results. https://www.123test.com/personality-test/ Tell us which one you took and share your results. Did they reflect your view of yourself or not? 
2. Then check out this brain simulator. http://www.g2conline.org/ Choose 3D brain in the top right hand corner and then Choose 1 section of the brain from the drop down on the left and describe its core function. Do not copy and paste. Summarize the Overview, Associative functions, Disorders, and Associated with Damages sections in the left hand sidebar.  

Fake news is the new news?

What happens when we only see what we want to see?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10/12/facebook-has-repeatedly-trended-fake-news-since-firing-its-human-editors/

The internet is an amazing tool and has transformed society and how we communicate in profound ways. However, with the emergence of social media algorithms are now determining what we see and hear.  This is increasingly dangerous when we know there is a lot of incorrect and misleading information online.

For this post:

1. First read this article: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/09/rigged/ and share one fact that stands out to you. What do you think are the implications of the fact you shared? 
2. Then go online and find a recent trending article/story that has been found to be misleading or outright false. Read the article and tell us what the controversy is surrounding it. 

Other sources: 

https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/14/google-added-fact-checking-facebook-its-your-move-now/

http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/11/the-forces-that-drove-this-elections-media-failure-are-likely-to-get-worse/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/opinion/mark-zuckerberg-is-in-denial.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

https://www.propublica.org/

http://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/16/13659840/facebook-fake-news-chart

How to be successfull...

https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_st_john_s_8_secrets_of_success#t-193591

For Blog post IV, I thought we would take a small detour. In our first class together I challenged each of you to make the most of your final year here at St. Saviour. We are a month and a half in and I thought this TED talk would help serve to help remind us of what it takes to be successful.  The video we watched in class was provocative and informative. For this post do one of the following:

1. Pick one the eight qualities you believe you possess and discuss how it has helped you
2. Or consider one quality you lack and how you intend on improving it
3. Or describe someone who is inspiring to you and what about them are you drawn to

Digital Media Etiquette Survey

Last week you took a survey on Digital Media Etiquette. Here's the results:

https://docs.google.com/a/stsaviour.org/forms/d/1aGHlpC0uTIaWb8kdIIiq463KKWedquWIt2_0UKoD3g4/edit?uiv=1

Take a look at them and compare them to the Pew Research Center results. http://www.pewinternet.org/files/2015/08/2015-08-26_mobile-etiquette_FINAL.pdf Starts on page 3. Compare and contrast one example from both surveys and give your opinion on what you think it means.