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Thank you so much for being here. It's wonderful to see so many dedicated teachers from all around the world. It's fantastic. Okay, I'm Armand Destroyer and I'm really excited to take you through some core areas of critical media literacy. All right, so let's get started with a quick guessing game. What do you think is this visual about? Um, please type your guess in the chat and I'll give you five seconds to do that. Let's see. Okay. What do you think is this about growth? Okay.

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Technology. Good strategy. I like this communication. Definitely input and output. Oh, creativity. learning global project. Okay. So many so many answers now. Are you curious to see? Well, I'll reveal the answer. It's a visual illustration of critical media literacy as defined by NAML. And NAML is the National Association of Media Literacy in the US. And it highlights the ability to access, retrieve information, analyze it from multiple points of view, evaluate its reliability, create and act responsibly

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in the media. Now, to make the best use of your time, here's our agenda. Fred will have a quick overview of what is critical media literacy and then we'll focus on one framework which can help you build those skills for your learners. And finally, I hope you'll take away two classroom strategies that you can easily adapt in your context and one original activity your students will love. Okay, so let's have another experiment. Can you please type what can you see here first? Your first image.

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What can you see? Oh, duck rabbit. Okay, good. Excellent. Okay, duck and rabbit. Both angled. Fantastic. What about here? A girl. Okay, good. A young lady and an old woman. Perfect. Okay. So, you might be wondering, Cara, what's the connection between these illusions and today's topic? Well, I think this is a beautiful analogy to help you understand better the nature of critical media literacy. And I would like you to picture critical media literacy as a tool to help your learners unsee theseformational

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illusions to help your learners stop, check, verify from multiple angles information they find online like you did uh you've done before. Okay. So I think it's a crucial skill, a foundational one in order to develop this critical media literacy skills. Another because we're in the guessing mode, another quick game for you. Can you guess what is this visual about? And please type your guess in the chat. I'll give you five seconds again. So let's see. Oh, bingo. Excellent. You're great.

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Amazing. It's an algorithm operating with hexadesimal numbers. And I think this visual captures in a thoughtprovoking way a key point made by uh historian Yuval Harrari in his book Nexus, his recent book you might be familiar with. And Harrari argues that we're evolving, but not necessarily into something, you know, smarter or wiser. And I know it doesn't sound fluttery, but according to him, we are evolving into something shaped into something which he calls homoalgorithmicus. So what defines homoalgorithmic?

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A creature defined not by reason, by imagination, but by predictions, suggestions, recommendations offered generously by algorithms. So try to imagine this future scenario. Um our learners, they are consuming, right? Consuming content but not questioning. A generation of learners who accept whatever the algorithm serves them such as biased digital fast food. A generation of learners connected but are they truly informed? So you might be arguing me well Aranda this is not necessarily a faristant

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future scenario. It's actually happening right now under own our own eyes. So I think this triggers a very powerful question. Will we allow algorithms to do the thinking for our learners or will we empower our learners to think for themselves? That's the big question and I think it's a wakeup call for us for educators right to develop these media skills. Now I'm a teacher at heart and I love practical parts. Now we are all aware that our learners live in this media saturated world uh permeated by floods

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of misinformation, disin disinformation, viral content, biased messages and it's important to develop the skills to critically evaluate information to check fact check right but how can we do this in our classrooms? Well, I recommend to try to adapt a framework designed by scholars critical media literacy scholars Keller Douglas and Sher. It's designed around six areas and um it has also these guiding questions. Now you might take this and the depth even for younger learners. Let's focus

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on the first area. Now, when young learners ask questions such as, "Who made this? Was it a person? Was it a company, a group, or I would say a nonhuman agent?" They uncover not only the creator, but they tap into power dynamics, right? We need to help our learners understand that media messages are never neutral. They are always co-constructed and they are shaped by social, political, economic forces and you can work use teams and you can ask your learners to take for example a piece of media news and figure out

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together um the answers for these guiding questions. For example, this uh Fiji campaign, every drop is green. Questions such as, "What do you notice about the words, images, how could they possibly influence you? What's included? What's excluded?" Right? What values are represented? And this is a brilliant case of media framing of telling one side of the story, helping reducing carbon emissions. What about the other side of the story? What about you know the fact that these are plastic bottles? What about

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transport which negatively impacts the environment? Okay, so a lot of questions to think about. Now let's look at some ideas in action. What can you do to simply implement this in your classroom? Let's play an AI generated fake news detective games. Are you ready? What do you think? Can you please type in the chat what do you think is this? Is this real or AI? Oh, AI. AI. It seems that everyone agrees. Now, can you tell me why? Perfect. Um, why is it AI? Any ideas? The face. H too smooth. Okay.

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Just a feeling. Okay. Okay. Just a feeling. Uh well, we have to look at details. Just have a look at details. Teach your learners to identify. Have a look at those fingers, right? Are naturally shaped. What about the text? Looks gibberish, right? So, train your learners to look for details. They are important. And actually, I think that he even appeared into a deep fake video in a Tesla commercial. So we need to teach our learners how to fact check their sources. Yes, hence obviously. Okay. Now another idea you can take in

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your class. What do you think happens when Tik Tok influencers partner with media critical media literacy community such as Namb? Well, they create powerful infomercials to address fake news. And let's see how it looks. Hold it right there. This claim sounds fishy. Before you go any further, you're going to want to question the source. Sam Star, source investigator, will help you identify the source. Are you having trouble knowing what to believe on the internet? You're in luck. I can help. It's time to ask questions.

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Let's identify the source and verify the credibility of the author. [Music] Aha! Just as I suspected, a bogus source. Now that's how you do it. Good work, Samar Source Investigator. Remember to identify the source, verify the credibility of the author, and always ask questions and report accounts or content that spreads false or misleading information. [Music] Okay. So, this can be a brilliant uh way to raise awareness of this reality or you can encourage your learners to create their own infomercials.

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Just try to encourage them. You would would be amazed how creative they can be. And now I'm going to show you some um ways in which you can encourage your learners to create counter media to expose greenwashing. So my learners uh deconstructed three real life case scenarios of greenwashing. The first one is the Fiji water campaign, right? With misleading slogans like every drop is green and visually appealing eco themed imagery. despite its environmental cost of bottled water production and

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transport. Another case we deconstructed is H&M's conscious collection. It was promoted as the brand's most environmentally sustainable fashion line, which is somehow in opposition with, you know, with the company's association with unsustainable fast fashion practices. And last, maybe you're familiar with this McDonald's paper straw campaign advertised as an eco-friendly initiative. although the paper straws were actually non-recyclable. So, my learners co-created um these

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responses and they conveyed their messages through both playful and incisive tones ranging from humor and I absolutely loved this. This draw lasted shorter than my attention span in math to sharp critique. They called it conscious. We call it a con. and to even deeper messages such as choose, refill, not landfill or think before you drink. So, it's brilliant how creative they can be if you allow them. Another strategy uh one of my favorite actually is to create a counter stereotype ad. So I um advised my

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learners to advertise a product to um counter stereotype. First we worked on what stereotyping is types of stereotypes and then they created this ad. They identified the problem. Are you tired of seeing all these stereotypes? And then they came up with a solution. introducing the unstertyping glasses designed not to change how you see the world but how you understand it. And then they came to me and told me teacher well I think these glasses when you put on these glasses these anereotyping glasses you flip the scenario. So

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instead of seeing women cooking in the kitchen you see them in leadership positions and men happily cooking in the kitchen and taking care of kids. Why not, right? Perfectly okay. And then they told me, well, these glasses are priceless, teacher. So, what if they don't have an actual sum, but they cost empathy, they cost kindness, they cost a mindset, growth mindset, right? Uh, and I thought that was brilliant. So please try to encourage your learners to create this type of counter ads and you will be

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amazed how creative they can be. And now if you scan this code you can have access to more resources from UCLA if you want to have access to critical media literacy toolkit and research articles which can really help you. And finally, I would like to tell you that you might be telling me, "Okay, Armandanda, this sounds really fantastic uh and inspiring, but I don't have time to insert critical media literacy in my classrooms. I have I'm so busy, right? What can we do?" So, I have a question

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for you, and maybe you can write your answer in the chat box. The last question, what's one change you can make tomorrow? What's one small idea you can use in order to start implementing critical media literacy? My idea is to encourage you to start small, right? For example, if you teach writing, just add a step where student fact check their sources or if you're using videos, ask them to analyze the intentions behind the creators agenda. Or if you are willing to develop their critical thinking

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skills, have them play those fake news detected games which are really easy to set up and uh implement in your classes. What's one idea you would choose from this session? Yes. Uh to the Qurode. Okay. Okay. I hope you could access it. And if we do this, then we can have in our classes this side of the story. Students using AI to expose media bias, stereotypes, greenwashing, right? It's what we would love to see in our societies, in our communities, in our classrooms. Role playing, fake news, guessing. Yes.

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Yes. game. Two truths and one lie. Really good. Yes. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much for your ideas. And in case you want to have I know have more questions. Uh please try to remember that identity matters. You can encourage learners to embrace the identity of a critical media thinker or a fake news detective. Right? Mindset is also very important and young learners loved it. A few words and asked them to create a story. Excellent. A detective story. I actually I worked on collaborative

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multimodel stories and they created detective stories. This is a brilliant idea. Thank you. So uh I would like to finish. Try to encourage your learners to question and create not just consume digital fast food. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your attention. Here are my details in case you want to keep the conversation going on. Thank you.