Media Literacy Roundup: 21 Nov 2023
Weekly links and ideas from Wes Fryer
Happy Thanksgiving week to everyone celebrating this U.S. holiday! Here are a few links and articles I’ve enjoyed and recommend (or I’ve created) in the past couple weeks since our last media literacy roundup. Topics in today’s roundup include:
I’ve Quit Twitter (at last!)
Elon Musk Broke All the Tools Historians Need to Archive Tweets About Israel-Gaza War
BYU professor teaches writing with ChatGPT
AI fake nudes are booming. It’s ruining real teens’ lives.
Students Create “Favorite Music” Webpages
More Tutorials for Google Sites
Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online
1. I’ve Quit Twitter (at last!)
After pondering a departure from Twitter for ethical reasons for months, I’ve finally made the move. I recorded a 5.5 minute video version of a script I wrote and shared to my “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” blog.
I created / accumulated quite a few Twitter channels over the years. I’m FINISHED using all of these, and posted this “Dear John Letter” on each channel, pinning it to the top of each one forevermore. Those channels includes @wfryer, @digishare, @GCampOKC, @CookWithWes, @iPadMediaCamp, @StoryChasers, @PocketShare, @VideosByWes, @MakeMediaCamp, and @OKEdAction. I know, pretty ridiculous, right?! I still need to visit with my podcasting partner (Jason) to decide what to do with @edTechSR.
The article I referenced in this video / script / blog post (and highly recommend) is:
Antisemitism was rising online. Then Elon Musk’s X supercharged it. (Washington Post, 19 Nov 2023) #GiftLink
As the video and script notes, I’d love for you to “Meet Me on Mastodon!” Find links to all my social media channels (including Mastodon, but now NOT including Twitter) on wesfryer.com/after.
2. Elon Musk Broke All the Tools Historians Need to Archive Tweets About Israel-Gaza War
Jason Koebler’s October 26, 2023 article for 404 Media, “Elon Musk Broke All the Tools Historians Need to Archive Tweets About Israel-Gaza War” provides valuable insight into the new challenges faced by journalists, fact checkers, as well as news-reading citizens around the world after Twitter removed API access which previously allowed for tweet archival. It’s even harder than before to verify the authenticity / validity of shared photos and videos allegedly originating from war zones including Israel / The Gaza Strip and Ukraine.
We should all continue to keep this in mind as we continue to see and share headlines and media files relating to ongoing conflicts in these and other parts of our world.
3. BYU professor teaches writing with ChatGPT
Amidst articles about the existential threats posted by AI and turmoil at OpenAI following the firing of founder Sam Altman, here’s an optimistic and positive AI article about a university professor finding ways to leverage its power constructively in the classroom. In Annika Ohran’s November 2, 2023 article for “The Daily Universe” online newspaper at BYU, we learn:
BYU communications professor Robert Walz… has rewritten his classes this year to heavily rely on the use of AI to teach writing and visual communications to public relations students. According to Walz, over the 14 weeks of his public relations writing class this semester, students will write about 200 articles using AI — an unprecedented number, as previously, students created somewhere around five to seven pieces.
I particularly love the ways in which the professor describes generative AI technologies serving as a transformative catalyst for deeper learning in this class:
Walz expressed he is excited about being able to focus more on storytelling in his writing class. Since the class is an entry level class, he has previously been unable to focus on a higher level of writing because of time constraints. Now, he said he has extra time to focus on creating stories that will resonate with an audience and inform them or change their thought process.
Woo hoo!
Read the entire article, “BYU professor teaches writing with ChatGPT.”
4. AI fake nudes are booming. It’s ruining real teens’ lives.
“Deep fake” videos have been making headlines for several months now. The Tom Cruise deep fake video from May 2023 is one you should know about. (Consider this an example of “AI Cultural Literacy.”) The November 5, 2023, Washington Post article, “AI fake nudes are booming. It’s ruining real teens’ lives” (#GiftLink) reveals that deep fake videos are affecting many others in addition to celebrities, and “media literacy weather signs” point to even more harmful uses of AI technologies like this in the months and years to come.
From the article:
Artificial intelligence is fueling an unprecedented boom this year in fake pornographic images and videos. It’s enabled by a rise in cheap and easy-to-use AI tools that can “undress” people in photographs — analyzing what their naked bodies would look like and imposing it into an image — or seamlessly swap a face into a pornographic video.
Read the original article as a “Gift Link.”
5. Students Create “Favorite Music” Webpages
As a middle school media literacy teacher, I enjoy teaching my students how to create a variety of basic webpages using Google Sites, in our unit on “Digital Portfolios.” One of the engaging additions I’ve made to this lesson series this year is inviting students to create “Favorite Music” webpages. I explain that students can only include CLEAN, “school appropriate” songs. They learn to link as well as embed YouTube music videos, and love to share them. The way the YouTube sharing algorithm works, some of these must be embedded using the actual “embed code” rather than the direct hyperlink.
We’re having a variety of great conversations about digital citizenship and appropriate sharing in this lesson series! This semester I’ve created a sample portfolio as a fictitious student named “Claude,” and you can check out Claude’s Music page! I highly recommend this lesson series if you’re teaching older students.
6. More Tutorials for Google Sites
I’m continuing to create and share a variety of tutorial / how-to videos about Google Sites for both my middle school media literacy classes and my middle school web design class.
Now that we’ve transitioned as a school to use Canvas instead of Google Classroom and/or Blackbaud OnCampus as our “Learning Management System,” I’ve been re-creating all my student lessons. It’s helpful to include step-by-step video tutorials for lessons, especially for students who are absent.
These videos are also available in my “Google Sites Tutorials” YouTube playlist. 10 videos and counting!
7. Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online
Last but certainly not least, I want to recommend the newly published book, “How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online” by by Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg.
This book focuses on the “SIFT Web Literacy Framework” which is the cornerstone of my favorite media literacy unit on “Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories.” I’m hoping to finish reading it over the holidays this year, and I’ll definitely include it in the January / February online class I’ll be teaching for six weeks titled, “SIFTing for Media Literacy Amidst Conspiracies and Culture Wars.” I’ll share more about this when registration is available.
Have a great week and (if you have one) a restful Thanksgiving holiday!