Introduction

The world wide web consumes our world now, and it is most people’s first stop when they want to find something out, mainly because of the wealth of information out there and the speed in which we can access it all. However, it’s not all true, and it seems to be a growing minefield to find the answers we want while trusting our sources. There are lots of interesting articles online now about fakery online, fake news, fake photographs, fake quotes and fake websites selling you fake goods. 

Take a look at this blog all about search skills and research. The post from the blog challenges you to spot the fakes in three different examples; a photo, two hotel reviews on Tripadvisor and a series of quotes from Thomas Jefferson, not at all easy! There are plenty of comments below the article suggesting ideas and this site picks it all apart very nicely, but it’s difficult to be sure sometimes. Our mantra is often ‘don’t just read the top result in Google!’ this is true, but even looking further down the page does not always shed light on the truth. This scary article from the Guardian describes how Google’s ranking algorithms can now clearly be manipulated to distort truth, and monumental events in history, like the holocaust, can be erased or denied by those who wish to influence others to believe such things.

 

This lesson is about evaluating search results and websites, mainly for authenticity and validity and asking questions like: Is it what I’m looking for? Can I understand it? Is it true? (do other websites back this up?) Is it safe and legal? ... But don’t tell the students any of this yet!

 

Main task

Begin the lesson by asking the children to go to zapatopi.net/treeoctopus. 

 

 

Introduce it to them as a really interesting science website you’ve found about a new species of animal that has been discovered recently, and that you’d like them to just have a look over the site for a few minutes to see what they can find out about the Tree Octopus. The site is a total spoof, but do not mention this yet.

 

Then go through the motions of listening to a few things they found before telling them it is a fake site. 

Did they know they were fake? If not, what made it seem like credible sites? 

• Quality of the design, layout, and text     
• Quality of the images including the photographs, magazine covers, and posters
• Inclusion of two e-mail addresses as contact information
• Copyright mark
• Links to legitimate environmental organisations
• Links from other websites

 

So how could you check it? A quick Google search for ‘Tree Octopus’ quickly brings up mentions of the hoax site if you past the first few search results:

 

http://www.newser.com/story/111264/tree-octopus-suckers-students.html 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_tree_octopus

 

 

At this point you can introduce the lesson objectives (so as not to spoil the previous activity)

‘Fake news’ is a term that has become more prominent in the last couple of years due to the attention it has received during political campaigns such as the 2017 US Presidential elections. Fake news is misinformation or hoaxes that are deliberately intended to mislead people. This can be for a number of reasons, sometimes to gain financially or more often to get attention (positive or negative) for an individual, company or group.

 

Here are four examples of fake news stories that have been disproved.

 

Try this CBBC Fake news quiz with them, so what they score as a class (or on their own). Fake news often employs eye-catching headlines or entirely fabricated news stories to increase readership, online sharing and Internet click revenue (money paid to websites by advertisers for the number of people that click to get to their page). This tactic of tempting people to click on links to go to a webpage is known as ‘click bait’ and commonly uses sensationalist images and headlines like these:

 

• You won't believe this...

• This [.......] will change your life

• With this one weird trick...

• This [......] will restore your faith in humanity

• ...you won't believe what happens next.

• 17 secrets [......] don't want you to know

• [......] Companies/Professionals hate this trick

• The 15 fakest/worst/most terrifying...

• Lose 15 kg in 3 months with this natural product

• 20 Signs You're actually a [.......]

 

 

These links are really best left alone, and at the very least we should be aware of what they are, what they are there to achieve.

We can sometimes get clues of how trustworthy a website is from simple things like it’s domain (the ending of a URL or web address). Although there are lots of other domains available now, here’s some examples and what they mean.

 

You can find lots more tips on spotting fake news in this really useful article and this video from Common Sense Media on spotting fake news.

They suggest you start with some simple questions:

• Who made this?
• Who is the target audience?
• Who paid for this? Or, who gets paid if you click on this?
• Who might benefit or be harmed by this message?
• What is left out of this message that might be important?
• Is this credible (and what makes you think that)?

 

Other useful sites to help determine if an online story is true include:

• That’s Nonsense
• Snopes
• Truth or Fiction

 

Next, ask the children to go to http://allaboutexplorers.com/ 

 

This site can be introduced for what it is. Explain that the information on the site is a mix of facts and lies.  

The site has been set up by teachers (in the U.S) to specifically teach about web hoaxes and unreliable information online. There are a number of planned lessons on the site in the Teachers area, that cover similar themes to this unit, you can find the teacher resources here: http://allaboutexplorers.com/teachers/.  

However, a great way to use the site is to try the Treasure Hunts - http://allaboutexplorers.com/hunts/ These are colour coded for differentiation, but all set the children a challenge of finding out the answers to three questions about a number of different explorers. 

 

They are given links to two pages about the explorer and have to decipher which answers they find are true and which are false. This could be recorded in many ways, perhaps with a Google Doc so a group could work together on it or collect information about a number of the explorers together in one place, or simply in note form if you prefer.

 

Plenary

While both the Tree Octopus and Explorers sites are fun and harmless examples of fake sites, discuss how fake websites could be more dangerous for things like online fraud. We need to be really careful what we click on as often things just are not true. 

But there are times when we need to trust websites. Billions of people shop online everyday and you can’t do that without giving up some of your personal information such as your name, address and bank account details. So we need to be as smart and as careful as possible when shopping online or signing up to services. You can research a website and look for reviews from other customers to see what they say about them before you hand over your details. But always ask for help if you’re not sure, and generally speaking, if it’s too good to be true, don’t trust it! 

 

 

 

Finish off by watching and discussing this video from BBC News about how holidaymakers were tricked out of thousands of pounds by internet fraudsters creating fake holiday listings and fake websites.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25378520