Below is an element-by-element overview of the entire "InfoZones" lesson. To the left of longer elements, you will find short summaries of those elements. In each assessment element, a yellow highlight indicates a correct answer. Whenever relevant, we also include teacher tipsđź’ˇand definitions of important words from NLP's word wall đź’¬*.*
InfoZones - Get Started
<aside> 💡 Teacher tip: Have students define each of the zones prior to starting the lesson. Focus especially on the differences between news and opinion, propaganda and opinion, and entertainment and advertising.
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Determining the "zone" of a piece of information is an important first step in figuring out whether that information is reliable.
[Notifications fill the screen]
"Did that feel familiar? It's an overwhelming amount of information, isn't it? Hi, I'm Tracie Potts. I'm a reporter covering national and international news for NBC News here in Washington, D.C.
In this lesson, you'll learn how to sift through all that content by using a simple technique we call "zoning information.” Knowing how to sort through content is a foundational skill of news literacy. In fact, it's a great first step in determining the credibility of information.
This step is more important than ever. You and your generation have more content at your fingertips than any other generation in history...much more.
There are now almost 2 billion websites on the internet. Every minute, Instagram users post more than 48,000 new photos; Twitter users share more than 480 thousand tweets, and YouTube users watch more than 4 million videos. But much of that information is not reliable because it is unverified, meaning it hasn’t been checked for accuracy by an editor or an expert."
<aside> đź’¬ Word wall: Unverified Information that has not been checked for accuracy by an editor or expert.
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<aside> 💬 Word wall: Verification is proof or confirmation of factual accuracy. In journalism, verification is a set of practices — such as getting details of an event confirmed by multiple sources — designed to ensure accuracy.
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Which of these kinds of information is likely to have been verified by an editor or expert before being published, posted or broadcast? SELECT ALL THAT APPLY