Introduction

Recap the last lesson. Ask the class: 

• What topics did we discuss? 
• What did we cover about the sources of the news we consume? 
• Why might fake news appear online? 
• What can we do to try and confirm the reliability of a news story?

 

For the remainder of this project the students will need to work in teams of around 4. One part of the news show they will eventually produce will be a special report on an issue relating to their school or local community. This is more than a normal news story, but an item on the show that reports a story and goes a bit deeper into a particular issue. 

In this lesson the students will need to decide on the topic for their report and consider how they are going to research and investigate the topic. 

You may wish to steer them towards particular topics relating to events in your school or give them the choice to pursue wider issues that matter to them, perhaps things that are current in the national media, but related to their lives or things going on in their local community. It might also be issues that affect them or someone they know in their wider lives outside of school. 

 

Activity 1

Once they are in teams their first task is to brainstorm some ideas for their report. Ideally it should be something that they can go and research and in some part, collect data for, which can then be part of the story. That could be facts and figures, interviews or opinion polls from people. Ask each team to come up with three ideas that they could base their special report on. 

Take some feedback from each group about their ideas, discuss any possible pros and cons of each idea as a class, and then ask each group to settle on their chosen story for their report. 

 

Activity 2

Next their planning needs to go a bit deeper and consider the following:

• What do you want to explore in your subject area?
• How are you going to approach the subject? 
• How will you find out what you need to? 
• What research do you need to conduct?
• Who might you need to speak to? 
• Do you need to conduct any kind of survey? If so, who, what, why? 
• Do you need to conduct interviews? Who? Why? How could it be arranged? 

 

A number of these questions are likely to throw up some issues and questions that will need to be carefully considered to ensure that everything in the report is well planned,  appropriate, ethical and possible to cover. 

 

Ethics of data collection and storage 

GDPR

Ask the class - Have you heard of GDPR?  What do you know about the laws that protect how our personal data is collected and stored?  

It is now very common for personal details to be stored on computers. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) exists to protect our data and regulate the collection, storage and ethical use of people’s data. The GDPR laws were passed in the EU in 2018 but cover organisations anywhere in the world that target or collect data related to people in the EU. Even after Brexit, the UK has committed to follow and adhere to these laws.

 

Activity 3 - What are the rules?

 - Ask the students to work in groups and come up with a list of things they think might be included in the GDPR laws about protecting personal data. What do you think companies have to do if they want to use your data? How should your data be treated and protected? 

Cover some of the key parts of the GDPR laws with the students, and point out that they will need to stick to these laws if they are going to collect any data about people as part of their special report. 

GDPR is about how we collect, process and store personal data. Not whether we can or not. personal data is anything that can identify an individual, this could be:

• name, 
• an identification number, 
• location data, 
• an online identifier 
• One or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that person. These could be ethnicity, gender, biometric data, religious beliefs, web cookies, and political opinions 

 

Other key terms in GDPR are: 

Data Subject - The person whose personal data is collected and processed by a data controller or processor.

Data Controller - The person or organisation that decides what information is to be processed and how. 

Data Processor - The person or organisation that collects, records and structures the information. Data processing is any action performed on data, whether that’s automated by a computer system or done manually by a person.

 

Requirements of GDPR

Breach Notification - Any breach needs to be reported to the data controller within 72 hours. Customers also need to be informed.

Right to access - Individuals can ask the data controller if their information is being processed. Any information should be provided by the data controller free of charge (digital copy).

Right to be forgotten - When information is no longer needed for the original purpose it should be erased and no longer shared.

Privacy by design - Any system should be planned from the beginning with security and data protection built in. It should consider things like What data are you collecting?  Why?  How are you going to store it?  Who will have access to it and for how long?

Data protection officers - All public authorities and large scale organisations need data protection officers.

Communication -

• If the personal data is obtained from an individual you must tell them at the time you collect the data
• If not directly obtained from an individual you must tell them within a reasonably time (1 month)
• If you use obtained data to communicate with people you must tell them when you first communicate with them
• If you pass their obtained data onto a third party you must tell them before you pass it on

Children's rights

• If offering services to a child you need to explain what you are doing with their data in a way they can understand.
• 13 plus is now the age for consent for processing children’s  data

 

So if the groups in your class  intend to conduct surveys or interviews which collect data about people as part of their report it is essential that they carefully consider what they need to collect and why, and include a privacy statement that clearly states why they are collecting the information, who will have access to it and for how long. And when the data is no longer needed it should be deleted. 

 

Ways of collecting data

Ask the class - What is the difference between data and information? Data refers to factual information, especially that which is used for analysis. Data itself has no meaning, but becomes information when it is interpreted. Information is a collection of facts or data that is communicated. 

 

For example:

• The amount of visitors to a website from different countries is data. But analysing the data and realising that visitors from Asian countries have increased this month while visitors from Europe have decreased is information.  
• Recording your weight and dietary intake over a year is data. But finding that your weight decreased when you lowered your intake of carbohydrates is information. 

 

Ask the class - in what ways do people collect information? Why might they collect information? How can it be useful for different kinds of people? - Companies, governments, shops, schools, environmental agencies, police and emergency services all might collect people’s data for various reasons. 

Ask - What data do you imagine that school holds about you? A lot of data is kept to allow organisations to be able to offer an efficient service to people, but a lot of  web data is collected to allow companies to build up profiles of their customers so as to be able to target specific advertising back to them. 

 

Questionnaires vs Interviews

Ask the class - What are the pros and cons of questionnaires compared to asking questions to someone face to face in an interview?

 

Questionnaires

Positives:

• not restricted by time and place, could be sent out globally and respondents could answer it at all different times
• works on most web enabled devices, 
• can be sent out to lots of people, 
• collected data is easy to manage, 
• quick and easy to complete. 
• can include media (images and videos)
• users only see the form, not the database

 

Negatives:

• needs internet access and a compatible devices - could exclude some people 
• some people might ignore it
• doesn’t give the chance to ask follow up questions.

 

Google and Microsoft Forms are both fantastic and efficient ways to collect data via an online questionnaire. 

 

Interviews

Positives:

• can be more personal
• gives the chance to probe deeper with questioning and get longer, more in depth answers
• can be done remotely over the phone or a video call 

 

Negatives:

• more time consuming to carry out
• Information collected might take longer to process

 

So both have their advantages and disadvantages, and the groups can make use of either or both methods, depending on their subject matter. 

 

Open and closed questions

What’s the difference between open and closed questions? A closed question is one that will only result in a 'yes' or 'no' answer, for example: Do you have a pet? An open question requires a more detailed answer and should require someone to include more information about their feelings or opinions on a subject, for example: How do you feel about people keeping pets?

Both are useful at different times but it is important you know what kind of question you are asking and why, so you get the information you want. if you don’t know why you’re asking a question, don’t ask it! 

As an example, ask the class, if we wanted to find out how environmentally friendly our school is, what method might be best to use? What sort of questions would you want to ask? What would give us reliable data? Who could you ask?  

 

Online research

As discussed in the last lesson, it's vital that students remember to check the reliability of their sources and the information they collect.

• Where does the story come from? 
• Is it a source you can trust? 
• Does the URL (web address) look real?
• Is the author genuine?
• Can you find at least two sources for the information? 
• Are there any reports of it being fake information 
• Images? 

If they are taking information from other sources and intend to include it in their report then they should also understand plagiarism and how to correctly cite their sources. 

Ask - as well as checking the reliability of information, what other responsibilities do we have for using material we find online?

 

Citation

Citation is when we acknowledge and give credit to the author of a piece of work or ideas of others that we use in our own work. Credit can be given by quoting them directly and giving a clear location of, or link to the original source, so anyone viewing your work can easily locate the original. 

Ask - What sort of things might you need to give credit to others for? This could be writing, images, music, even ideas and concepts that someone has come up with.

 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is when we do not give credit to the author of a piece of work or ideas of others that we use in our own work. 

Ask - What might be the consequences of plagiarism? If you are found to have plagiarised something and passed it off as your own, you may be failed, fired, or kicked off a course if it is an academic piece of work. You are also likely to suffer damage to your reputation with teachers, colleagues or friends as it might damage their trust in you. It may also harm the person you take the work from as they are not getting the credit, and in some cases, the financial reward they deserve. 

 

Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is taking someone else’s writing or ideas and putting them into your own words. Paraphrases should also be credited to the original source. 

You do not need to give credit when you are using facts or information that are widely available in lots of places, things that are obvious and easy for anyone to see, or commonly used everyday phrases. 

 

Plenary

Ask the groups to feed back on the questions in activity 2. Ask one person in each group to present back a summary of their plans, proposed methods and reasons. 

• What do you want to explore in your subject area?
• How are you going to approach the subject? 
• How will you find out what you need to? 
• What research do you need to conduct?
• Who might you need to speak to? 
• Do you need to conduct any kind of survey? If so, who, what, why? 
• Do you need to conduct interviews? Who? Why? How could it be arranged?