Kalev Leetaru writes in Forbes on “How Data and Information Literacy Could End Fake News”:

[F]ake news exists because as a society we have failed to teach our citizens data and information literacy … [R]equiring programming and data science courses in school would certainly create more technically-literate citizens, but this is not the same as data literacy and the kind of critical and devil’s advocate thinking it requires. Technology is also not a panacea here, as there is no simple magic algorithm that can eliminate false and misleading news. Instead, to truly solve the issue of “fake news” we must blend technological assistance with teaching our citizens to be data literate consumers of the world around them.

We focused our project on how students “read” and “write” with data because we know how important it is to develop this kind of critical thinking around data.

As you approach the New Year, what will you do to help your students better understand the data in the world around them?

Kristin