I am in the midst of a book update and am sharing some issues here as I write about them elsewhere. This recommendation is related to the development of online content evaluation skills.
We have long advocated learners being aware of certain characteristics on online content that they should consider to determine the qualify of a resource. Many, including me, have offered a checklist of things to check.
However, bad faith content creators have become more sophisticated making the items to check about a source of less use. Wineberg and colleagues now argue that online content that seems questionable should now be evaluated using the techniques of fact checkers. He describes a productive strategy as lateral reading – open a few extra tabs in your browser and search for additional information related to claims you question. I can see a classroom demonstrated related to this skill making use of a project and after reading a document together open tabs and asking students who issues they wonder about and what search terms they might recommend to cross check.
Mike Caufield offers an online resource with a large section explaining lateral reading strategies.
