Name: Critical Thinking in a World with AI
Uploaded: 2026-10-08T21:32:20.815Z
Duration: 53 min 20 s
Description: Critical Thinking in a World with AI

Transcript for "Critical Thinking in a World with AI": Hello, folks. Richard, are you gonna do an intro or anything, or do you want us to... Are we are we all just set and ready to go? We're good? Okay. Good to go. You all can see me. I'm so glad. Welcome. Welcome. My name is Sue Thotz, and I am the director of outreach for Common Sense Media. I am going to be joined today by Jennifer Eholtz, and we are going to be going through, some lessons about critical thinking in a world of AI in celebration and anticipation of digital citizenship week. So this year for digital citizenship week, which is the third full week of October, I believe it's October nineteenth through twenty third, if you are, counting it for the weekdays, then we are gonna be sharing some lessons and previewing some ideas and talking about some best practices around, teaching, these lessons. And so I am going to share my screen, and you all can jump into my lesson here. Alright. So let's see if we could do this. Let's see if I do this all correctly. Perfect. Alright. Excellent. And so here we go. I am sharing my screen. Yes. So if you all wouldn't mind jumping into your Nearpod app or going to join nearpod.com, and putting in that code. And what I'm gonna do is also... I'm also gonna copy that link. I'm gonna put it into the chat. Oh, I haven't even seen the chat yet. Hello, everyone. Welcome to my chat. So hopefully, I've put in the chat here. By all means, tell us where you're from, where you're joining us from, what you do. There's plenty of folks in here, and so hopefully you'll meet some new friends today or see some familiar faces. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so glad to see many friends in here. And so we are going to be talking about critical thinking in a world of AI as said. So I'm gonna remove this code, but know that if you need it at any point, maybe we'll put it in periodically for those who are just joining us. We'll reshare that code. And, hopefully, you'll be able to see this. I'm gonna take away my notes here. And here we go. So critical. thinking in a world of AI. I'm not sure why... I... Am I missing Jennifer? see? Jennifer's supposed to be in here with me. Right? Can Alright. you hear me? Well, maybe I'll just do this by myself. Okay. Here we go. My name is Sue Thoughts, as I said, and I am the director of, outreach at Common Sense. And, hopefully, I will be joined at some point by, by Jennifer Eholt, who is our senior education manager. She is in Chicago, and I am in Los Angeles. There she is. Hi. Jennifer, I can't hear you yet, though. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Perfect. Okay. Life will continue. Alright. Thank you all. Alright. Thanks for the the patience from everyone. I'm sure none of you have ever experienced type of technical difficulty before. So, if you are unfamiliar with Common Sense, we are a national nonprofit organization and we do lots of different things, including provide full k through 12 curriculum, centered on the world of digital literacy and well-being. We also do a lot of research. And so, we talk about... You know, find out information about how kids are using media and technology. We put out, a census every other year on on anybody zero through 18. And then we talk a lot about things like AI or cell phones or any kind of technology, parenting, all kinds of research. We also, as I mentioned, do that k 12 education. For parents, we are often a place where folks turn to for, ratings and reviews on books and movies and television shows and video games and all that good stuff. And then we also do a lot of advocacy on behalf of kids, centered on privacy or on social media. And, we are probably certainly active here in California and in a lot of other states as well. And so that is what we do at Common Sense, all centered on kids and technology. And so, Jennifer, Can you hear me? the latest research? I can. Yes. Okay. Okay. You want... This is fantastic. talk about this? Okay. I know. We're so. excited. We're pleased with technology. Here we go. This is great. Yes. So based on what Sue had done, yes. We do lots of research and to kick things off today and really give us a... You know, the landscape and understanding why all of this stuff that we're gonna share with you today is so important because more than four in ten kids are not having safety conversations with teachers and parents. And we know that kids are using AI tools and platforms for... Probably top things are the chatbots and companionship. Next step is probably homework. And so they are navigating these spaces. And so we want to give you the information that you need to be equipped with these conversations and being proactive in these, settings. And so more kids overestimate what AI can do. Even those who think they know a lot about how it works, they really are not too sure. And to their defense, it is changing every day. It changes with the wind. It's updated. It's it's different. It's... So even when we think we are very confident in knowing how it works and what it does and where the information is coming from, it still changes a lot. And so we wanna make sure we are building critical thinkers in this world of navigating all things on... Online and in online spaces. So with that. question, we just wanna kick things off and get you thinking. As AI and algorithms increasingly shape what students see, hear, and believe, critical thinking has to grow with them, and there is a little typo there. We have mistake. Has to grow with them. Has to grow with them. We're on a roll today, Sue. Okay. I know. So know. it has. to grow... We are human. That is proof that we are human. We are not your AI, that I made. that slide. It's not an AI slide. I made that. So, one of the things that we just wanna, emphasize here is we get a lot of questions about AI used by students. So we do have a lot of, districts and and schools who are using AI tools for their their teachers and, you know, in terms of being able to be productive and and for their staff and, you know, for for all kinds of purposes. But when it comes to AI use by students, this is something that we are still, you know, very much cautious about, and we are trying to provide some sort of guidance around age and stage. And so I thought I'd throw this in here as I thought it might be helpful for folks to understand that even in grades k two, we think media literacy, AI literacy, those kinds of conversations of understanding what AI is, how to interpret information, you know, what is the information that we're seeing online. This AI literacy conversation, not necessarily the use of AI tools, is an important foundational piece of what it is that our kids are doing. Same thing in grades three, five. Maybe we are evolving a little in our understanding of how AI works and, you know, but we're not necessarily suggesting using AI with students. And then we also have, you know, a little bit of information here as kids progress and develop into middle school and high school about the supervised use of AI tools as well as, you know, maybe using it as a as a tool in high school, but not necessarily using it to bypass your learning, but to enhance your learning. Right? So we just wanted to be clear about what we mean when we talk about, you know, AI use on behalf of of students, and so we're not necessarily advocating it, you know, beyond just what we're suggesting here in this agent stage document. Alright? So, yes, there is a great, agent stage tech tech guide that is wonderful. Thank you so much for posting that. That has more information, not just about AI use, but about education technology in general. Right? So whether it's an AI tool in the classroom or it's, you know, education technology. There's a lot of... It's screen time, as folks like to call it. You know, what are some recommendations that we have? So as I mentioned, DigiSit Week, October 19, these are the lessons that we're talking about, and they all kinda center on a lot of media literacy today. So, and the ways in which we suggest learning about this. And so we'll begin with our youngest learners, and we'll progress to our eighth graders today, but, Jennifer, who is this? I mean, this is my little buddy, Head. He's one of our digital citizen, characters that we have through our k 12 lessons. And so each character represents a digital skill, and Head happens to represent, media literacy and kind of wanna use our head and make good decisions when we are online. And so just a really cool way to bring in some fun around some of these topics that can be somewhat hard for little ones. And so we love to figure... We love to tap into how everybody's feeling today, especially in the k two classrooms. We all have big emotions and big feelings at that grade band. We have big feelings and big, emotions at adult level as well. So on this beautiful Thursday afternoon, how are folks feeling today? We need to think about how we're doing. I mean, are things status quo? We're embracing life. Right? I was gonna say, did it become... We were gonna try to do this as a draw, but I think we. I think we did not quite do. that yet. That's okay. So. in the. chat. or however you wanna do this, you can imagine this. If you have used Nearpod before, you can imagine putting this on as a draw it and and... Or you could do this as a poll. You could do this in a way that kinda... We we failed on our part. We... I promise we will have some real Nearpod interactivity in a minute. But for now... Anyway, you know, how are you feeling in the chat? Right? You can imagine this. This is... This. would be an activity. Are we... Right now, Jennifer, how are you feeling right now? I'm okay. I am calm. Well, believe it or not, I am calm. Believe it or not, you are call... We are we are back to back to back today with a lot of presentations given that it is digital citizenship week coming up. And so I am a little overwhelmed, I will admit. Taking it one day at a time. Yeah. That's for sure. But, yeah. But you can imagine, wherever you are, we hope that you are feeling good and we're so happy to have you join us today. So how do you know something you see or hear is true? How are you as an adult evaluating information? Right? Or I can ask this of my my youngest learners, right, my kindergarten, first, and second grade learners. How do you know that something is true? Because we see a lot of things all the time that are just garbage is what I call it. Yeah. There are a few lessons here that are included as part of Digital Citizenship Week, and you have access today in the docs, tab of your of your window there. You will have access to this lesson about learning tech to learn to... I'm sorry. Using tech to learn new things. So you have access to this lesson that we're gonna demonstrate a little bit about. The other two lessons that are available for DigiCert Week that we're pushing for DigiCert Week are about how to search online and exploring search results. But today, you have access to this one. And this this one is basically... This is for your, you know, your your grade two students. You could probably do this younger. It's a story. It's just a story book. Right? And it's about our friend, Head, and his partner, Rolly, there. And Rolly is a robot, I think. Is is that is that really. his name, Rolly? It is. Rolly. And how does technology help us learn, is the question here? Because technology can help us learn in a lot of ways. What is this definition here? I mean, all of our lessons, I really like that we have vocabulary words because as much as some of these words are like, of course, we know what information is, but we wanna make sure we're building a common language in our classrooms. And so across the next forty minutes or so, we're gonna have lots of vocabulary words that you can add to your vocab wall. Really helps you build culture in the classroom so when these terms come up, we understand what we're asking ourselves or talking about. So this one happens to be information. We define it as fax details or knowing that... A knowledge that helps us understand something. And so Right. Yeah. So we'll see this word information a little bit later, and we're gonna read this story about head. And we're gonna. ask you to think about how head learns and, what is this information. So today's story is about penguins. And so you are all my second graders today for the time being, for the moment. And, you know, sometimes even in even in high school, like, we we start by, you know, understanding what it is that we already know. And so in this case, you know, how do we... What do we know about penguins? And so, you know, you all should be able to, you know, to draw on your own particular slide and show me, what do you already know about penguins? Is there something that you wonder? And what do you want to learn? Right? What do you wanna research? How would how would you begin to use those questions? And and so you can begin by just answering any of these questions if you are so inclined. Jennifer, what do you know about, penguins? Sue, you and I, we should have screen shared our... Or captured our drawings. We had some really cute drawings of penguins earlier, in practicing the session we run through. And if anyone's brave enough to draw us a penguin, we would love to see your penguin. But I'm demonstrating. Right? So I... I'd use my text box here, and I I I actually... I'm a big birder. I don't know that much about penguins, but I do know that penguins are birds. They are... What else? They're very cute. They're What else? they're... They're in cold, places. like, they they swim. Yes. Yep. They can... Some of them can swim, I think, at least. Yep. I've seen them so... Oh, I said, the penguin exhibit at the zoo Oh, the black and white? Great. Ashley, is. the. smelliest. Right. Okay. Oh, yeah. So, The smelliest. yeah, so so this is what I put in for my information. And I also drew earlier. I drew a picture of a penguin, and it was kind of like, it was like this, and then it had one little arm here, and it had a beak. And, yeah, so this was this was my penguin earlier. And so, you know, that's my... As a student, that's what I could put in. If anybody... Oh, yes. I love your pictures of penguins. If you have second graders... Oh, look at look at this, Bridget. You are clearly, cute. an a student, putting in your most amazing... Oh, look at this, Eva. I love your picture of this gorgeous penguin with your orange beak. Clearly, you know how to switch colors. Right? And so some of you have really interesting... Penguins live in cold areas. I wonder how long do penguins live. Right? Are they short lived? Are there many different types of penguins? Do they all live in cold areas? Yeah. Good question, Jenny. Good question. I appreciate this. Right? So, yeah. So I can see what all of you are... You know, we're just trying to get your curiosity my. god. Look how at. this. Julie knows how to do a KWL chart. Yeah. You are you are a student after my heart. That is for sure. So if I did not get to your... Oh, look at these. These are great. Look at how you guys got the same picture. Isn't that something? Penguins cannot fly. Interesting, Lisette. They cannot fly. Really? Oh, oh, well, let's find out. Oh, Right? oh, I wonder. if. penguins or swim. fly. Okay. That's great. Okay. Let's do this. Okay. Alright. So we are doing a very abbreviated version because we're trying to get through two lessons today. So I am gonna read a little bit of this this story book here today. Remember, you are... You guys are all way smarter than my first and second graders. That is for sure. This story book is is embedded in this, particular slideshow, and it... You know, I'm scrolling up in order to be able to access it. But you all can read too. You know, Head is traveling to South America with his computer Rolly, and he's headed to a special island that is home to the Humboldt penguins. I can't wait to see the penguins. I've always wondered, can penguins fly? Lisette does not think that penguins can fly. I think I see something flying over there. I can help you see it better. So, like, Roly's got a telescope, and Rolly takes out this telescope to help and head... To help heads see far away. I can see closer using Rolly's scope. It's definitely a bird, but I can't tell if it's a penguin. So he takes a picture. I can check to see if it's a penguin. Good idea. I'll do that. I can confirm that the animal you are looking at is a penguin. 100%. This is what Rolly the computer says. I wonder if anyone else has ever seen a flying penguin. I can look and see online. So Rolly does a little search to see and finds amazing flying penguins found. Right? That was from News Feed. I don't know when this article was published, but the mystery of rare flying penguins was another video that was there. And then there's a third hit that said penguins are so playful. Look at them flying. Oh my goodness. Clear proof, evidence that that penguins can fly. Right? Like, this is what we're finding here when we search for flying penguins. And so, you know, the computer found lots of stories about flying penguins. They must be right. So, anyway... So then, eventually, I'll I'll tell you the... I'm gonna spoil spoil this for all of you. This is your spoiler alert. Roli and Head eventually go and talk to some scientists. And the scientists are like, uh-uh. These these penguins cannot fly? Like, yeah. No. I am a scientist. I study penguins. These penguins do not fly. What you're seeing is this. Right? And so, you know, you go through the whole story and and learn that just because I searched this, and I found what seems to be information about flying penguins, that does not necessarily mean that it's true. So had found information online that said people saw flying penguins too. After finding a credible source, this this scientist who also shared a lot of information, we were able to prove there's no flying penguins. What does this teach us about things we read or... Do we see or read online? Right? So, you know, if you are all my students, you could tell me with your, you know, with your words about what do you understand about the things that we find out online? Sometimes we think that there's good information there, but sometimes we understand that it's not true. Right? So we can debrief this experience a little bit, hopefully, in a developmentally appropriate way. Right? So, but it's the same content. It's the same idea. Media literacy, you know, we can't always believe the things that we see, but we're doing this in a way that is for storybook for our youngest learners. Right? Jennifer, anything to add? Yes. I just put a couple things in the chat around the strategies around using the book in terms of pausing for, understanding and making. predictions. Yeah. I mean, this is a great, you know, morning meeting, carpet book. I'd love using literature to teach some concepts with kids. So that's all I had. So... Yeah. Of course. Anytime. So if I... I'm I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna kick out of here. And so, like, if I were using this for morning meeting, if I was if I was going to this book, I could certainly, like, you know, get to this slide and then take a pause and say, tell me. Yeah. Give me your predictions. Do you think that, you know, that this is actually a flying penguin? And then we could all jump back over here. Do you think there's a flying penguin? And then we could talk about... You know, we could have them write, and then I could then share the results with my class and have this conversation and do that prediction and then go back to the storybook and, you know, and and so on. Right? So this is, you know, some sort of a literacy technique that we can think about as teachers to try to get our kids to be invested in in this experience, and also to do more writing and to respond, you know, in a in a writing capacity before we have a discussion. Right? Yeah. So as we move on to the next grade band, this one is centered on using a process, using a protocol for determining what the source... You know, the credibility of a source. So we'll see this, this particular technique, is also repeated. As kids get older, we will also be using protocols for determining, you know, source credibility, but in a in a different kind of of of way. So this one is developed for, you know, fourth graders, I believe. Yeah. So this is a fourth grade information media literacy type, session, but you'll see the same thing in older grades, using the same kind of technique. Yeah. So this one is using the SIFT protocol. And the question is, how can we tell if information we see online is credible? Yeah. You know? So the question here is, like, did you know that we only use 10% of our brain? Yeah. Yeah. I guess I guess I could ask you all. If you were all my students in the classroom, I would ask you to give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down on, like, true, false. What do you think? Right? So, or we could do this in a poll here or something like that. So when something seems unbelievable, it's important to question where it came from, what it's telling us, and whether we can trust it. Just like detectives, we are trying to, you know, find... We're treasure hunters. We're trying to use clues. And so the Internet is filled with all kinds of credible information as well as things that are garbage. Right? So when we say a source, what do we mean by source? I mean, I just put them in chat. I spy more vocabulary words. I love a good vocab word. And so, obviously, these next couple are great for your word wall. That way, when we're talking about what a source is, we all understand we're on the same page. So, obviously, it's where information comes from. It could be a person, a website, a book, a video that tells us something, and this is what we're trying to find that's credible. Right? Oh, what's the next. one? Claim. Acclaim. Oh, yes. We gotta keep these straight too. So something, that someone says is true, but you need to check before believing. And so I'm claiming Yes. I... You know, Finding I saw... something. I have incredible. Obviously, able to be trusted or believe believed in. So, again, these are part of maybe your, technique. Right? Kind of building this vocabulary and this wording and this language into your routines and habits as we continue to do more and more research with kids. Yeah. So when we're online, I know. we see all kinds of information, and, you know, from all different kinds of sources. And the SIFT method will... That helps you determine whether this claim, is valid or not valid, and we are using sources and determining the the credibility of the sources in order to be able to support the claim. Right? There's a lot of a lot of scientific of. words. Right? Yeah. A lot of words. But... Yeah. Yeah. So, And that's okay. you can use... Yes. Yes. Everybody needs to build vocabulary including us. So I'm just gonna show you a little tiny bit. I don't know if I have sound, but we're gonna give it a shot. And if I don't, that's okay. So I'm gonna play this, just a little bit of this SIFT video and so you can feel the the tone of it. Oh, yeah. Amy uses CRAP. Yep. CRAP is also same kind of thing. Right? It's just a protocol and a and a, I love that it's just a... It's a stepwise protocol that you can use to determine every single time, and you at least... You know, you have a methodology by which your students are determining credibility. Yeah. Same same thing. Well, So, well, we've got some treasure hunters. Are you ready to find real gold on the Internet? The Internet is full of cool stuff, but not everything that shines is gold. So how do we find the real treasures? We'll use a special technique called SIFT to help us find those golden nuggets of truth online. This method was created by an information treasure hunter like you named Mike Caulfield. Just like miners sift Right. Real human in the world. Right? Information researcher, and all the good things that he did. So we're giving some credibility to Mike, giving him a shout out. And so, you know, we watch the video and we learn this SIFT protocol, stop and think, investigate the source, find more resources, and then trace the claims back to their origins. Right? How are you determining the original source? And so this is this something that that we're asking folks to do when they are, you know, trying to determine whether information is credible. Is it fool's gold, or is it real gold? So let's use the SIF to get some answers. We go through the process and practice this, you know, a few different ways and scaffolded ways, you know, using a gradual release of of responsibility here. And, so for example, we practice with this one. Right? Chocolate milk comes from brown cows. I don't know. Many of your kids are probably city dwellers, and they have never milked a cow before. Maybe they've never seen a real cow before. How would they know whether or not that, you know, this claim is true? And so, you know, the first question we need to do is just stop. Right? How do we... How does this make us feel? Alright? How how do we feel about this claim? So for any of you, you know, does this feel true? Are you not quite sure? You're not sure? I mean, by the way, you are all fourth graders. Right? Yeah. It makes me not great for chocolate. That's not an option, Jennifer. Not an option. I do love chocolate milk. Not sure... Or it feels like, yeah, that's a bunch of garbage. Right? And so, I can also, you know, see up here. I think this is what you all see. Like, if you wanna revisit the claim and take a look at it, Yes. then we have it there as well. So for all of you, you know, as a teacher, I can see, back here that, you know, whether or not you feel like, oh, yeah. This feels true. Not sure feels false. Oh, you guys are so smart. So, you know, where did this claim originally come from? Right? So here, if you look at this, do you see where this claim originally came from? I'm trying to see if I can see a source here. It says fun facts daily. Can fun facts be credible? I don't know. I mean, just because it's fun, does that mean that it's not credible? No. I don't know. Right? It's just it's just weird. Fun did not make our vocab wall yet. Fun fun doesn't necessarily mean that it's untrue. Oh, no. So did it come from scientific research? Did it come from a joke? Or did it come from... Here. Let's see. What's what's the third option? I don't know if you can see this. I'm... Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at the student room. see. A. chocolate milk. a chocolate milk advertisement. Advertisement. And by the way, I am toggling between the student view up here or the teacher view. So when I'm in the student view, I see what my students see. And when I'm in the teacher view, I am seeing... You know, I am omnipresent. I am seeing what every single student is looking at on... You know, for their own... I'm seeing their re... Their responses and their results. So, you know, in the teacher view, I can see, a summary of what people are saying. A joke, you know, a chocolate milk company, or scientific research. Very few of you. I I know you don't really believe that is scientific research. Okay. You're just playing fun. And then this is also another, student view, which says chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Is this real gold or fool's gold? After we go through this process and determine the source and look at where it originally came from, then we can make a determination if this is garbage or this is real. Right? So once again, we could take a look at it. We can do a quick analysis, and we can talk about how we know whether this is real or a junk claim. So just like gold miners or treasure hunters sifting through sand to find valuable gold, we can use this sift method. We can stop and think. We can investigate the source. We can find more sources or we can trace. Is this any different? Like, you know, with with AI, you know, we, this is the same method that we would be using whether it is an AI summary or whether or not this is coming from, you know, sources. And so this is an opportunity. Let's say we all, you know, use our technology to determine whether, you know, brown cows make chocolate milk. Right? And if the AI summary comes back, we can have a conversation about what makes that AI summary. How is that created? Where does that come from? Right? Or how do we scroll down past the AI summary and look at the resources that are posted there and analyze whether or not any of them are, you know, are companies, are scientists, are places that, you know, that are trying to get us to believe that this chocolate milk is coming from a brown cow. Right? Is corporate media true? I fear AI will will make money equal true. Right? So having this conversation about how to examine each of these sources and who is trying to make money on this, and what are they trying to make us feel. Is this a joke? Right? It's a joke here, but at the same time, we have students who are every day kind of coming in and seeing all of this information. Jennifer, how do you take this back into our real life and. not just using technology we see? I know. It's like you gotta make it relevant, and you gotta tell our students, like, this is all important because we are exposed to the back of a cereal box, in some cases, every morning, a toy commercial, a school fundraiser flyer, a billboard, you know, videos and influencers, AI generated images. We really have to be mindful around the credibility and information and whether or not it's true and what their point is. Right? And, like, what's their reasoning in terms of why do they want you to know this, or why are they sharing it? What's the intent? So, these are habits and routines that we have to practice and model every day with our students because it's the only way they're gonna get good at it, just like everything else. Right? We have to expose them to the examples and talk through them and and show them the way. So I just like to bring in... just passively. accept. all of this information. We have to help our students stop and take a good look. I mean, you know, it doesn't matter if they think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Like, no. It's not the end of the world. It's just we do not want gullible students who are believing all the garbage that is passing across their screens every single day or every... You know, across their eyeballs. So how are we helping them to be critical about the information that is out there and, you know, not suckers for all the bad information? So when we get to. middle school... Oh, sorry. Yeah. Go ahead. When... Well, I just wanna point out when we... There's been some, questions around the nine twelve content. And so while this is a middle school, there is a nine twelve version of critical ignoring. So as Sue gets into this, they really do complement each other. So make sure you're taking notes on this lesson if you happen to want some nine twelve content because this one will transfer nicely. So just wanted to give folks a heads up that this. will be relatable. has nine twelve. lessons. And I shared it, and it was fine. But, yeah, I just wanna make sure that as you go through this, they are... They perked up perhaps. Mhmm. Yes. So with this one, you know, this is really... At the beginning, we talked about information. Right? Yeah. And we talked about understanding that not all information is true. Then we talked a little bit about how do we analyze this information to determine its credibility. At this point, when we get to middle school, we are talking about redesigning a system. How do you even control that information before it even comes to your screen? Right? If you are... We'll we'll we'll get into this. But what we're trying to look at is how do I protect my ecosystem of information, especially on my phone or on my screens so that I am not being bombarded with a bunch of garbage in the first place? Because it's a lot of stinking work to make that determination every single time for every single claim that comes across my feed. So how do I redesign my system to make sure that I am not being bombarded with potential garbage? Yeah. Keep the garbage out. So this lesson is about what is critical ignoring, and, you know, why is critical ignoring a huge part of our own, like, digital well-being, you know, in a in a day when we have so much information coming at us. And so how can we focus our attention in an information filled world so that we can, you know, better move through this world and really focus on on what matters? And so, we're going to play a game right now that's called Flash Facts. And, I'm gonna do my best to kinda go a little bit slow here, but I will show you... It's not exactly flash. It is kinda slow Flash Facts. I will show you, I'm not gonna show you eight statements. I'm gonna show you three. I I I cut some out here. And you will have to mark whether you think each statement is true or not. You have a few seconds per statement to make a choice. Alright? So, we'll see how this goes. Alright. So true or false, humans only use 10% of their brains. Alright. So five or three, two, and one. I'm gonna see my teacher thing here. Alright? Alright. False. Oh, yeah. True. Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh. Oh, many... Oh, more trues than falses. Interesting. Right? And there's those of you who are like, no. I'm not gonna put... Oh, back up to the true. Oh, more trues. More trues. Alright. Excellent. Okay. I'm gonna move on to the next one. True or false? There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all of Earth's speeches. This is very Carl Sagan, I use my best Carl Sagan know. voice. And so I'm gonna go back to that student one and I won't show you the, the teacher version. So what do you think? Is this true or is this false? In five, four, three, two, one. I'm going back to teacher. What do we got here? Oh, many of you think this is true. Alright. Excellent. Excellent. Alright. Oh, we got... Yep. More more true than false. Alright. What about this one here? True or false, carrots significantly improve, I guess, your night vision if you eat them daily. So, Jennifer, while we're doing this, do you mind opening up, you... The the lesson on your end so that we can give some answers? So maybe... I I won't open them up on my end, but, we will. do that. So if you do... If you drink... If you eat a bunch of carrots, you know, does that improve your night vision? All right. So, oh, yes. Many false believers. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Okay. So you're saying more people think that's false than true. I am gonna tell you this. I I am pretty sure all of you are wrong. Oh, boy. The the majority is wrong in. all three cases. Is this... Do I got it right, Jennifer? Okay. So humans only use 10% of their brain is false. Okay. Why? There are more... Oh, oh, you're telling us it's false. And you have a source that you can use to verify some of this. Yes. Hold on. Let me... Oh god. Yes. Or you can just post the the the information in the, in the comments. So the first one, about 10% of our brain, is false. Yep. There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand is also false. False. Carl Sagan let us wrong. Right? This is wrong. Yeah. And so Jennifer will post the source on this. Yeah. And then this one, carrots significantly improve your night vision? Okay. This one's kinda funny because it's true ish. That is what is... ish. Yes. And what we mean by that is, you know what? It could be, no. Here, I'll give you fact or fiction. I'm gonna go ahead and here's the link for the... There we go. Did it work? Yeah. There. you go. Scientific American. I believe Scientific American. Explain. more grains of sand. Rock sand is very skeptical. And I, you might just. have to go to the, lesson and find out. me hear. Yeah. Let me, let me put that one in there. I love it. This is so fun. Exactly, Brett. They help your rods, not your cones. I used to be an ophthalmology researcher. So beta carotene is the is the vitamin, and it does help you develop your rods, which help you with your night vision. It's your black and white vision. Your cones are your color vision during... You know, that you use during the day, but your rods are your ones that help your night vision. And so the beta carotene in the carrots will help you make sure that your rods are healthy, not necessarily your cones. Oh my god. We just went from was a literacy a... to health education. See how see how I've seen classes unpack so much. It's the best. Oh, yeah. Don't... I was a I was a molecular biologist for a long time, and I worked in an ophthalmology lab, and I did a bunch of, you know, primary tissue culture. And so, yes, I care very much about, ophthalmological health. Right? So... Yeah. Anyway, how did... So we just did three. And you can imagine if you do this in your classroom and you're doing this kinda fast. Everybody's a little bit flustered. What that's supposed to do is it's supposed to simulate your feed. Right? I'm going through, Instagram, and I get 15 different pieces of information, like, every five seconds. Right? I do not stop to make a determination about whether these are true or not true. I mean, every once in a while, I was just try... I have a talk with Jennifer in a minute, and I saw a video and I'm like, that video looks very AI. Right? That one looks very... I don't know how I feel about that one. So sometimes they hit me, and I'm like, did Tyson Batchett and Kyle Manunguy really, record that song together? Like, no. I I I would... That does not sound like them. I am going to step back, by the way. That's Chicago Bears folks. Okay. So wanna... I just wanna... Maureen has a comment. I wanna address it because I wanna make sure we're getting the point of? the fast facts, the flash facts. So the idea is consider yourself using your device or on an email and scrolling. The idea here is there are 10 of these that you are actually looking at for three to five seconds and making an educated guess as to whether or not you think it's true. But the idea is to understand what is worth your time investigating. I mean, I see there are some passionate people about the stars in the sand, and that's fantastic. But the lesson is really about, the awareness that, yes, so much information is coming at us all day long, you know, through our feeds. But the idea is you can't look up all of it. There's not enough time to track what is true and what is not. But there is a strategy here to talk about what... Is it okay to ignore, you know what I mean, and keep going. But if you're planning to share it or believe it, maybe you should do some lateral reading and find that source. And so it's a very quick part of the... This long lesson, but it's just a fun way to get things going because it is hard. It is hard to make those quick decisions as to whether or not it's true or not. So just wanted to clarify. We're not, yeah. Just wanna make sure we're? clarifying are not. being... We're not trying to laugh. at your students for making. them feel like dummies. Right? I think. part of it is we see a lot of claims. We see a lot of information all the time. And, yes, as Jennifer said, we do not necessarily always have the time to investigate each claim. And so how do we clean up our whole feed so that most of our feed is information that is true and valid in the first place? Right? So, because all of this stuff just comes at us so fast, and if some of it is false, then, you know, we start absorbing that information into our brain whether or not it's true or whether it's false. And so sometimes it leads us to think things that aren't necessarily true. And so how do we curate our feeds in a way that make it mostly positive, you know, true information that's coming through our our feeds? Exactly. We'll do our best. And maybe you are going to find some very controversial things in this and we'll send you all down a rabbit hole with your classroom, which I think would just be fun anyways. And maybe you have a debate in your classroom and debate on who can find more credible sources and you know, solidify these claims in some way. Right? So, imagine that all the content you saw and that was all the content you saw in one minute on social media. We just went through this whole entire thing. How likely is it that you would fact check all of these statements? Probably unlikely. And how long would... Do you think it would take you to do that? A very long time. Right? So, you know, so I I would ask you as my students, we have to make sure that that we are making these claims or, you know, helping our students understand that there's a lot of information that goes past us all the time. We tend to absorb it whether it's true or not. Right? I know. So when we go online, we are exposed to so much information that it can be difficult to know whether the content we're consuming is accurate, reliable, or misleading. We're learning about critical ignoring a strategy for maintain... For managing how you consume and engage with information online. So that is what we're talking about here today. And so there is this little video here that I'm gonna just play the first, you know, just, again, just a little bit of it. This is kind of a seven... Oh, no. It's... I think it's a little bit of a a five minute video, but I'm just gonna play a little bit. day, we're surrounded by media competing for our attention. There's the constant notifications popping up on our screens, posts vying for our attention, and videos on autoplay keeping us hooked. So let's focus on social media. It's a place that helps us stay connected and explore our interests, but it's also a place where everyone is trying to get us to consume their content. Because of this phenomenon, creators are constantly producing more and more content resulting in an endless flow of information. Too much for our brains to actually process. So in a world filled with endless amounts of information, knowing what to ignore is just as important as knowing what to pay attention to. This skill, it's called critical ignoring. Critical ignoring isn't about ignoring opinions you don't like. It's about choosing wisely, deciding what to focus on and what to skip. Step one, adjust your digital environment to help you manage distractions and filter out low quality information. This means setting limits for notifications and screen time to deal with the endless scroll. Think about curating your online experience, following creators and sources that share helpful or trustworthy content. Alright. So, I mean, this is this is the... You know, if you're in if you're in here, it says, like, you know, what is the first step? This is just a a check for understanding. Right? So the first step is, curating your digital environment. What was it? Looking at your digital environment? Yes. I think something like that. Right? Okay. Yes. I I was paying attention. Alright? So, so we're just gonna stop there. But it goes through this video and it goes stepwise how you can curate your digital environment. What is it that you should do? So this is the definition, once again, of critical ignoring. Right? So we have. this skill of of purposely choosing what information you pay attention to and what to ignore based on its reliability and usefulness. So in this case, adjusting your environment. Somebody said, like, delete the feed. Right? Kind of. Right? Truth. Is that. a... Is that what we're ask... Like, I don't know that we necessarily are asking our students to just get rid of their socials. They're? Is that realistic? going to delete the feed. I I would put money on that. But, anyway, no. We're not betting. Sorry. We're not betting. But we, we think... I think I want people to pay attention to these next four sides because there is a way to pull back and not have so much coming at us. And I do take the time to do this. I know it sounds silly, but adjusting your digital environment. Right? What is distracting you? And I know maybe you too, Sue. Like, sometimes I follow folks and I get involved in these different feeds or these platforms because it's a season of my life. Like, it just... Like, a season I really, like, relied on that, whatnot. But then, like, you kinda forget about it, but you're still getting the stuff from them. And then you're just like, okay. I'm done. I don't need this anymore. And so it is it is important to take time to go through, you know, what... I guess, you know what my biggest one is? The unsubscribe. Mhmm. Right. Right. It's the equivalent of of unsubscribe. It's it's? like taking... Yes. I mean, I would hire somebody to unsubscribe me from all my garbage. But... Yeah. No. There is. ways to do this. It's just time consuming, and that's the hard part because you gotta take the time to do it. and being mindful of what it is that you do seek to, you know, to to have in your life. Right? So the... Somebody has already said, Yes. I think, Yes. be wary of engagement bait. A lot of this content is meant to provoke us, are meant to give a more emotional response, so watch out for that spam that's trying to manipulate you in a way. So I think this has to be explicitly said for our students. Right? So be wary of some of that... You know, the stuff that's meant to give us a reaction. Alright? And then... You know, because that stuff is often, you know, exaggerated or, you know, garbage that is not meant to to be productive for you. Practice lateral reading. And so we talked about using the SIFT method or the CRAP method or, you know, opening up multiple tabs in order to be able to confirm some of the information that we're seeing. And so, you know, like, if there is something on there that you are questioning, how do you make sure that you are looking at it in a way that, you know, we're confirming our resources? And so, you know, all of these devices and websites and apps and, you know, the the information that we're getting every single day, these are all part of our information ecosystem. And so getting your kids to be mindful of how much they're getting off of, you know, Spotify, Instagram, Snapchat, like all of these places, YouTube, right? These are all places where they're getting information. And so it's at this point where you can ask kids to do, it's almost like an audit, right? Where you as the teacher ask your students to determine which devices, which sites, which apps, which other sources they currently get a lot of information from. Mhmm. Right? So asking them, where do you get this information? Right? And, and help them be aware of where their information comes from. And then, you know, after that... And also hold on. I'm gonna go back to the student view on this one. This question here is if you could only keep three information sources, which would you keep and why? Which ones might be causing you an information overload? And then when you scroll through that content, how do you decide what deserves your attention and what to ignore? What clues help you make this decision? And then what's one specific change you could make to reduce your information overload in your digital life? So getting students to be mindful of where all of their their information comes from and how, they make a determination to curate some of that. And have them have a conversation about this after they've done some self reflection. Yep. I love it. It's... I mean, as an educator, this is the great way to get... Kinda meet where your students are at. What are they, you know, struggling with? What are they going... What are their go tos? And is it... Does it feel good to you, or is there a time and place where we need to model better, you know, better feeds and better sources? So Yeah. Yeah. I like this one the lot. idea. I I mean, so today, I think, you know, the idea is really, like, this was about, you know, your your personal feed, your personal information. Like, these are practices that we are asking our students to consider, you know, in their own life, you know, and apply it to. their their own personality and their own experience in the social media and in the digital world. But, you know, in today's world, Yep. knowing what to ignore is just as important as is knowing what to pay attention to. Right? This is gonna be helpful to your mental health to, you know, to manage your own information ecosystem. You know, by practicing this critical ignoring, we help our students just be informed. Right? We have to have enough information to be informed and to have a joyful and lovely life, but also, you know, to be focused and not be distracted by any of the stuff that can, you know, take us away from the things that give us purpose and meaning. Right? Mhmm. Yeah. What else? I mean, this is where it all... I love how it all comes together here because you know what? This is where students' media environments fundamentally change. Right? Because in the k, k five, k six, you know, they're searching things up. Right? They're being curious. They're finding things. They're stumbling across things. But at this point, our older students' information is finding them and looking for them and coming to them. And so we just have to make sure we are treat... You know, giving them the tools, strategies, and habits to question question question the delivery system, the intent. I mean, this is stuff we've been doing for decades with our kids. But it's just we're up against some more powerful tools and more... Maybe even more coming at us at once. So there is a switch there. Absolutely. Yes. So that is the intention. You know, if you are looking to just begin with some of these resources and begin, thinking about, you know, the importance of AI literacy and in media literacy, you know, this would be October 19 is a great place to start. All three of these lessons that we showcase today are found underneath the docs tab. If you have any need for, for bringing this to your school, to your classrooms, and, you know, starting with one, two, three lessons, during digital citizenship week, that is, this is a great place to begin. And just really, you know, media literacy is is the the foundation of AI literacy. And if we teach our kids to examine the information that's coming across, then that is where we begin when it comes to a lot of these resources, resources, and how to navigate this this world. We have our survey, but I know that, Bridget said that you guys all get a survey too, with information, from Nearpod. So do we have materials to promote DigiSit at libraries? Good question. We have a slide here. Then... I don't know if folks are be able to receive these slides today. Maybe, Bridget, you could pop in and and let us know if this is something that, on the technical back end, how we'd be able to share those slides. Oh, we can't hear you. Yes. We are gonna share these slides with you after, in the follow-up email. Jennifer and Sue, we will just get the preview link from you guys, and then we. will be able to input... Email, and we will send it along with, a follow-up email from us. So you will have access to the slide deck from today. And. Excellent news. then we are gonna also launch another survey. It might have popped up for the attendees on your screen, just some feedback from the the session today. If you don't mind, we always love hearing, how this this resonates with you. Somebody also asked, will the docs be available after the PD? Yes. You'll be able to access the docs tab, and we will, and come back and access all of the resources within the docs tab. Recommend spending a little time there. There are common sense resources. There are links to the lessons that you saw today. We added the link to our... To the Nearpod, landing page around digital citizenship. So just a plethora of resources to help you support... To help support your classroom post this webinar. And as you think about your digital citizenship plans coming up, around digital citizen... I can't say that mouthful. I don't know how you guys, like, get around saying that all day. Around the upcoming digital citizenship week. Fifteen years of practice, Bridget. I've been saying Digital. Citizenship? Week for fifteen years. I think I still would fumble it. You know? It's just one of those ones I gotta take on the chin, I guess. Oh, I love it. Anyway, well, thank you. all for hosting for. hosting us today, and thank you all for attending. We appreciate. Oh, it. Soon, I hope. you'll be able. you so much. this is fun. course. Alright, folks. You all have a great. day, and, hopefully, we'll see you soon. Bye. Bye. Thanks. Take care.