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Get to know our digital learning platform

What is Checkology?

Designed for grades 5-12, Checkology is now your one-stop shop for teaching news literacy. Once you register, you’ll find hundreds of free resources — like quizzes, posters, downloadable lesson plans and classroom slides. You’ll also gain access to our interactive classroom, where you can register your students and assign them the platform’s core interactive lessons and other activities. Track student progress using our online grade book, and assign lessons using our teacher dashboard.

Check it out

Preview Checkology’s library of hundreds of teaching tools, interactive lessons, activities and more, where you can sort by grade level, topic and activity length to make planning easy.

Key features

  • Unlimited sections: Set up an unlimited number of classes and student accounts with one educator login.
  • 250+ teaching tools: Easily find the right materials by sorting by grade level, topic or activity length.
  • Preset courses: Start with ready-made sets of lessons and activities.
  • Check Center: Help your students navigate their online world with the tips and tutorials here.
  • Word Wall: Consult our vocabulary list aligned with lessons from the interactive classroom.
  • Newsroom to Classroom journalist visits: Connect with 150+ professional journalists who can visit your class in person or online.
  • Help Center: Get support when you need it.

NEW for school year 2025-26:

All educator resources — including posters, infographics, lesson plans and instructional supports — are available free in one place: Checkology! It’s truly your one-stop shop: all of these resources are now combined with our virtual classroom, saving you time and effort.

Top journalists and experts guide students through Checkology’s interactive lessons. Featuring real-world examples from social media and news sites, these engaging e-learning experiences resonate with students of all ages.

InfoZones
What Is News?
Practicing Quality Journalism
Democracy’s Watchdog
Misinformation
Introductions to Algorithms
Evaluating Science-Based Claims
Be Health Informed

How will Checkology help my students?

Checkology helps students think independently and ask smart questions about what they read, watch or hear. Students develop the ability to identify credible information, seek out reliable sources and apply critical-thinking skills to separate fact-based content from falsehoods. Students can learn about news media bias, misinformation, conspiratorial thinking, how personalization algorithms work and more. Checkology will teach them how to:

  • Consider their role in seeking, sharing and producing information
  • Distinguish news from other types of information
  • Explain why a free press matters in a democracy
  • Tell if information and sources are trustworthy
  • Spot misinformation and AI-generated content

During the 2024-25 school year, after completing lessons on Checkology:

88%

of students recognized when a social media post failed to provide credible evidence — a gain of 20 percentage points from pre-assessment.

82%

of students identified the more credible of two articles on the same topic from two different sources — a gain of 23 percentage points from pre-assessment).

81%

of students recognized that a free press is very important to a healthy democracy — a gain of 17 percentage points from pre-assessment.

Teachers love Checkology

Educators who used Checkology in 2024-25:

97%

rated their overall impression of Checkology as either good or excellent.

91%

rated their students’ overall experience with Checkology as above average.

How do we measure Checkology’s impact?

We contract with an independent evaluation consultant to develop a pre-platform assessment and individual post-lesson assessments to measure student growth for specific learning objectives.

When students first log in to the platform, they will be prompted to begin the pre-platform assessment. Students will not see the results and will not be scored.

At the end of every school year, an evaluation consultant prepares a report analyzing results. 

We also ask teachers and students to share their thoughts about the platform and its lessons so we can keep improving.

Hear from Checkology students and educators

Built to fit your curriculum

We developed the Framework for Teaching News Literacy, which includes news literacy standards, essential questions and knowledge/skills objectives, along with suggested performance tasks and learning activities. Our framework can be used for integrating news literacy into existing curriculum or as the basis for creating stand-alone courses or units.

Checkology students develop essential life skills that cut across subject areas. That’s why our core interactive Checkology lessons are aligned with national standards in English language arts, library and media studies, social studies, science and technology.

Experience the difference Checkology can make for your students.

Bring current events into your classroom

Our weekly educator newsletter, The Sift®, offers discussion prompts and classroom-ready insights to help students navigate today’s information landscape using timely examples of news and viral content.