The internet brings information to our fingertips almost instantly. The result is that we often jump to thinking too fast, without taking a few moments to verify the source before engaging with a claim or viral piece of media. Information literacy expert Mike Caulfield and educational researcher Sam Wineburg are here to enable us to take a moment for due diligence with this informative, approachable guide to the internet. With this illustrated tool kit, you will learn to identify red flags, get quick context, and make better use of common websites like Google and Wikipedia that can help and hinder in equal measure.
This how-to guide will teach you how to use the web to verify the web, quickly and efficiently, including how to
- Verify news stories and other events in as little as thirty seconds (seriously)
- Determine if the article you're citing is by a reputable scholar or a quack
- Detect the slippery tactics scammers use to make their sites look credible
- Decide in a minute if that shocking video is truly shocking
- Deduce who's behind a site--even when its ownership is cleverly disguised
- Uncover if that feature story is actually a piece planted by a foreign government
- Use Wikipedia wisely to gain a foothold on new topics and leads for digging deeper
And so much more. Building on techniques like SIFT and lateral reading, Verified will help students and anyone else looking to get a handle on the internet's endless flood of information through quick, practical, and accessible steps.
For more information, visit the website for the book.
Professor @UVA putting the funk back in functional brain imaging and the psycho in psychometrics. One study is just one study, folks. https://t.co/0QwQuKsIoh…
I just had the privilege of previewing a book which EVERY educator is going to want to read. "Verified," by @holden and @samwineburg, shows how to teach students how to know if an Internet source is trustworthy w/ simple, experimentally verified methods. Pub 10/23.
"Verified is the book and mindset that society needs right now. This is, of course, assuming that you want society to survive."
--Guy Kawasaki, Host of "Remarkable People and author of The Art of the Start"Anyone who wants to avoid being duped by all the fake news, distorted videos, and stealth ads that populate today's online universe needs this book. Verified offers a multitude of user-friendly tools for navigating our digital new world in which we cannot always trust the seemingly trustworthy sources we encounter."
--Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, authors of "They Say, I Say""Verified is a lifeline. With research-verified and surprisingly simple techniques, the authors show us, step-by-step, how to sift the real, useful, true information from the tsunami of online bogosity. Read it, give it to parents and their high school-age children, give it as high school graduation gifts, and please teach it at colleges and universities."
--Howard Rheingold, internet futurist and author of "Net Smart: How to Thrive Online""Verified does more than preach against the dangers of misinformation and online mischief, it provides clear, focused strategies for navigating and researching online that should become part of every literate person's repertoire of skills. Every educator whose students touch the web--which is to say all of us--needs this book."
--Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Executive Director, National Writing Project"With humor, clarity, and real-world examples, the authors illustrate both simple and nuanced strategies for making sense of an increasingly complex digital realm. Students, everyday citizens, and educators at all levels will find their varied examples relevant and applicable."
--Andrea Baer and Daniel Kipnis, Librarians at Rowan University"Verified will help librarians, students, and anyone else move beyond well-meaning but oversimplified checklists to be better at sifting the wheat from the chaff when looking for good information online."
--Brad Sietz, Director LOEX"Verified is a sorely needed intervention into today's chaotic, often deceitful, information environment of influencers, ChatGPT, deepfakes, viral videos, and distrust. Offering ways to combat the mindset of knee-jerk cynicism, it responds to a world in which political power, not truth seeking, has too often become the ultimate arbiter of truth. Verified will be a treasured resource for debunking internet disinformation to instructors, students, and for you (to hand to parents and skeptics)."
--André Brock, author of Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures