How do students learn to tell fact from falsehood?

One way is our Checkology® virtual classroom.

In this video, three students — Conor McCormick, Uriel Reyes Morales and Sihin Yibrah — tell Pierre Thomas of ABC News how our lessons opened their eyes to the world of false news and misinformation online. The students — all seniors at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia — spoke candidly about their news and information habits during a News Literacy Project reception in Washington in October.

Yibrah relied on retweets and shares from her friends to let her know about the news — but she didn’t dig any deeper. Reyes simply believed much of what he saw on his phone, and might check with friends only if something looked dodgy. McCormick was more cynical: “I wouldn’t really believe much of anything I saw,” he said.

After they had completed the lessons in the Checkology® virtual classroom, though, their attitudes changed.

Yibrah, for example, described her current news habits, which include CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post. And if she sees a questionable post on her social media feeds, she added, “I am quick to fact-check it.”