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Media Literacy

Culture

YouTube Trouble

February 20, 2020

Piper Leypoldt, 11, of Durham, North Carolina, likes to watch cooking videos on YouTube. Recently, she learned that the site collects users’ data, such as search history and location­. She’s not concerned. “Other websites I use at home and school…

Audio

Debate

Is Social Media Good for Society?

January 23, 2020

Students today have never lived in a world without social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are a few of the most popular social-media websites and apps. They can be a fun way to connect with friends and family, especially…

Audio

People

Find the Facts

January 16, 2020

More than half of teens learn about the news from social-media sources and YouTube videos. That’s according to a 2019 Common Sense Media survey. But the information on those sites is not always trustworthy. “There’s more misinformation out there than…

Audio

Food and Nutrition

Fighting Food Ads

December 4, 2019

Food companies engineer junk food to make it addictive. They label their products to make them seem much healthier than they are. And their advertisements target children. All of this is according to a news report read recently by students…

Audio

The View

What's the Password?

October 23, 2019

In an ancient folktale, a giant rock blocks the entrance to a cave filled with treasure. A door appears only for those who speak a secret phrase aloud: “Open, sesame!” This is an early example of a password. Passwords have…

Engineering

Fakeout

September 12, 2019

Deepfakes are videos with visual or audio content that has been manipulated. They make it seem as if the video’s subject is saying words he or she hasn’t actually spoken. In the past, videos like these could be made only…

Video

Culture

Be Internet Smart

August 29, 2019

Picture this: You’re searching the Internet and come across a website with interesting articles. Some are news stories. Their goal is to share information. Others only look like news stories. They’re actually advertisements, or ads. The goal of an ad…

Video

People

Making Sense of the Media

August 31, 2018

Students at Capital Preparatory Magnet School, in Hartford, Connecticut, are watching a video of a basketball drill. “Keep track of how many passes the players dressed in white make,” Marcus Stallworth, a media-literacy educator, tells them. Many of the kids…

Audio
Spanish

People

Fact Check

November 4, 2016

Khadija Qanoongo, 12, says she used to believe everything she read online. Then, in sixth grade, she took a news literacy class. She learned how to determine if a website is reliable. She found out that many are not. "Now…

Audio