Series 2. Misinformation

 

Series 2 Misinformation

The Series consists of 11 episodes (duration 1hr 11 min) and it is accompanied by this resources booklet: https://www.slideshare.net/martzoukou/maddie-is-online-series-2-final-booklet

An updated version of the booklet is available as an eBook: 

Series 2 aims to teach children the importance of information evaluation on the Internet. The series includes 11 episodes. Episode 1 introduces the scenario, where Maddie has been asked to prepare a presentation on a country called ‘Kaione’ (it is a fictitious place for the purposes of the story) and particularly to find information on its culture and its people. 

However, Maddie is not allowed to use the Internet and therefore she needs to find other sources of information for the country and this is where the story unfolds as Maddie tries to find information. When Maddie meets up with Miss Mason, the new Computer Class Assistant (Episode 2), she promises to help her. 

However, Miss Mason tries to misdirect her to sources that are confusing and unreliable. For example, Miss Mason sends Maddie to a travel agent who tries to sell her a holiday rather than give her information. 

She also sends her to a scientist who gives her very technical information she cannot understand, and then to a journalist, the editor of a dubious newspaper, ‘The Bold Voice’ who tries to mislead her to believe that the wind turbines recently installed in the country are only dangerous (episodes 3, 4 and 7).

Maddie also meets up with some helpful people, Betty, a girl from a community centre and with the Top Class Librarian, who both try to help her and teach her about good information evaluation criteria and critical judgement (episodes 5-6).

In the end, it turns out that Maddie has not listened to her teacher’s advice and went to check the Internet instead. At the same time, it is revealed that all the sources of information that Miss Mason sent her to were actually websites and that Miss Mason herself is misinformation personified. Episodes 8-10 reveal this secret. The story then presents the importance of evaluation criteria such as currency, authority, point of view, and highlights IFLA’s ‘How to spot fake news’ infographic (Episode 10).

It should be noted that this story presents a mixture of fantasy and reality. Miss Mason in the story directs Maddie to all the websites presenting them as physical places rather than as online. This is an intentional addition to the story, which aims to demonstrate metaphorically the thin borderline between the online and physical information world in today’s online connected environment (and a possible basis for discussion with the children who watch the videos, especially those that use the Internet and social media as part of their everyday life).

Instructions

It is important to not reveal the scenario to the children but let them watch it to keep their interest going. As the videos require more than 1 hour, you may wish to play them over a number of days and not necessarily in one go.

Play each video and ask questions related to the characters and the events featured:

Episode 1. 'Introduction’. Q. Ask the children if they have access to the Internet at home using a laptop, a computer or a phone. How do they search for information for class assignments? Where do they go? How do they find information?

Episode 2. ‘Meeting Miss Mason’. Q. Why did the school recruit a Computer Class Assistant?

Episode 3. ‘Mr Sherlamond’. In this episode Mr Sherlamond represents a tourist agent website usually found in the first page of results when people search for information online.  You may want to demonstrate how websites can be sponsored advertisements when searching online. Young children may not be able to tell the difference between an advertisement and another website. Q. Who is Mr Sherlamond? Why was he trying to sell a holiday to Maddie?

Episode 4. ‘Meeting with Ms Kanabera’. Ms Kanabera is a scientist and is giving too difficult to understand information. Q. Who is Ms Kanabera? Did she give helpful information to Maddie? What were the main facts she shared about Kaione? You may ask children to search for information on Australian dropbears and report back. Here is an article to use as basis: 'Drop bears target tourists study says'.

Episode 5. 'The Library'. Maddie goes to the library, where she finds an encyclopaedia with information on the country but it is an older edition and it has some out-of-date information. There she meets with the 'Top Class Librarian' who teaches her some basics about information evaluation. Q. Why did the encyclopaedia have confusing information? What did the 'Top Class Librarian' teach Maddie? 

Episode 6. ‘The Community Centre’. This episode is about critical evaluation skills. Betty explains to Maddie that there are two sides in a story. Things are not always just good or bad and this depends on the circumstances. Q. Was Betty helpful to Maddie? Why? What did Betty teach Maddie?

Episode 7. ‘The Bold Voice’. Q. Was Andy’s story true? What did he say about the wind turbines? You may ask children to search for information on the positive and negative aspects of wind turbines. Andy also mentions the weight loss properties of chocolate. This is an interesting story to discuss with older children: 'I fooled millions into thinking that chocolate helps weight loss. Here is how.' 

Episodes 8-9. Q. What is Miss Mason’s real name and what does it mean? Have you ever been in a situation like this where you came across on the Internet /were told something that was not true and you believed it? What happened?  You may wish to use IFLA's 'How to Spot Fake News' infographic.

Episode 10. ‘The Teacher Meeting’. Q. What is information evaluation? Do you evaluate the information you find? You may discuss with children different information evaluation criteria for online information. See, for example, this advice from the University of Edinburgh library.  You may wish to also check the CRAAP Test (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy and Purpose). 

Play the concluding video until the end (it has a hidden part). 

Ask the children, ‘what did you think of this story?’ and ‘What would you do if you were in Maddie’s place?’ Teachers/Librarians/Parents (if they are Twitter users) could post the name of the school and some key lessons the children learned from watching the series to Twitter using #maddiesonline (see question above). In that way, schools will be able to compare findings.

If you have used the series, I would be grateful if you could fill in this short 10 minutes evaluation questionnaire which aims to collect anonymous data from you in relation to how you have used the resource in your teaching and how your students/children interacted with it.

Our work addresses children's lifelong development of information and digital literacy. Your contribution and participation is very valuable.

Thank you for your interest in our project and for taking part.