Now that the school year is in full gear, we want to be sure to celebrate you. Take a moment to breathe deeply, exhale and know that we have all your news literacy needs covered. And while words are nice, action is even better. That’s why we’re adding monthly events based on your feedback, offering exclusive NewsLit Nation membership discounts and holding monthly prize giveaways!
There’s still time to participate in September’s giveaway! Head over to NewsLit Nation — create an account if you haven’t yet — and pose a question, share a lesson plan or comment on a post. We’ll select a name from participants and announce the winner in a subsequent issue of the Insider.
Read on to learn more about upcoming professional learning events, discover what’s new on the Checkology® e-learning platform and meet one of our NewsLit Ambassadors.
Best regards, Miriam Romais
Senior Manager, Educator Engagement
P.S. The deadline to be a news literacy ambassador has been EXTENDED. Applications are due by Sept. 17. Apply today!
NewsLit Nation Speaks
We want to hear from you! If you were among the educators who downloaded and used the “Trust Me” documentary and study guide, please access this form to share your experience with us. Your voice matters, and your opinion is important. We look forward to hearing from you.
Professional Learning
Getting Started with Checkology webinar: Today!!
Our final Back to School webinar is today at 3 p.m. ET, so please join us to learn how you can set your students up for success using NLP’s Checkology virtual classroom. You’ll leave with tips to enhance your courses, connect news literacy to your subject area and design a course with content that is most relevant to your students. You’ll also be among the first educators to hear what we have in the works. Register now.
Fall webinar series: Sept. 17 and Sept. 24
You still have time to sign up for the final two sessions in our free professional learning webinar series that focuses on essential news literacy concepts and curriculum integration. Upcoming topics are Understanding bias and Using resources from the News Literacy Project. Register here.
What's New
Is That a Fact?is back
For the second season of our podcast Is that a fact?, we’ve decided to look at the origins of false narratives and the actual harm they cause. To launch the season, we look back at the untruths and myths that surround the 9/11 attacks. We spoke to the former editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics to learn how his team debunked many of the myths and described their impact, and we interviewed a journalist who traces the roots of today’s conspiracy theory movement to a film about 9/11 conspiracies. We also caught up with a woman whose husband was a firefighter killed that day to find out how she and her daughters have coped with the so-called 9/11 truthers. Listen here.
Checkology contest, “InfoZones” Student Edition! (Deadline Oct. 15)
Did you know that students completed “InfoZones” practice exercises more than 70,000 times last year? Now, your students can help thousands of others learn how to zone information! To participate, students send us examples of information about topics that interest them right from their dashboards. The winning submissions will be featured in a new “InfoZones” exercise.
Fact-Check It! classroom activity
Students join an “expert” group to learn one specific digital verification skill, then reorganize and join a “jigsaw” group to share what they learned with their classmates and to fact-check and analyze one example (or more) of viral rumors. Each group will learn several digital verification skills and consider how these skills can help them be more digitally savvy online as they work together to investigate misinformation.
Making Connections
Journalist Wes Lowery at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. Photo credit: News Literacy Project
Classroom visits with journalists
Checkology’s Newsroom to Classroom program lets you arrange virtual or in-person visits with professional journalists who are registered in our directory. More than 100 vetted journalists are available to speak with you and your students on dozens of topics, including the First Amendment, journalism standards, misinformation and social media issues. Learn more about the Newsroom to Classroom program in our help center.
Meet a NewsLit Ambassador
We launched our News Literacy Ambassador Program last year, and now we’re expanding to select cities. Want to get to know one of these amazing educators? Read about K.C. Boyd, a public school librarian in Washington, D.C., who was one of the first to join the program. Stay tuned to find out who our new ambassadors will be.
