Media Literacy
Learn to evaluate the sources competing for your attention
A course on catching up to the present
A timely approach to navigating the world of information
This media literacy course is made in partnership with Ground News, the premier website and app for gathering all the world’s media in one place so you can compare coverage from the left, right, and center. This course will not teach you there’s always a way to know the right answer; it won’t give you a definitive list of “trusted institutions”; it won’t give you the secret inside scoop that “the media” doesn’t want you to know about; it won’t pretend there’s a way to eliminate perspective and counterargument; it won’t prop up your political point of view; it won’t decry change and technology; and it won’t make a complex world overly simple.
In fact, it’ll do the opposite—it’ll make a simple, cartoon world of good guys and bad guys, right answers and wrong answers, more complex; it’ll work to make you less comfortable with black and white thinking, and more comfortable with nuance, ambiguity, and uncertainty; it’ll assume that that confidence doesn’t have to come from certainty, it can also come from humility, openness, competence, strategic ignorance, and a questioning disposition that refuses to compromise for the sake of an easy answer and a pat on the back.
To those ends, read on for a glimpse into course design and methodology!
Learn to Cut Through the Noise
Our Media Literacy course takes an innovative approach to navigating an increasingly complex world of information:
Follow today’s headlines and partisan news coverage with clear insight into the interests of your sources
Find the range of sources that will constitute your healthy news diet
Learn to understand and get behind the surface of language and images like a professional
Gain perspective on the political landscape of our information environment, and arm yourself and your students with lifelong skills for discernment and judgment
An Introduction to Media Literacy
Media Literacy in Five Units
The Fundamentals
From humane technology, to technology's way of pushing back on us, to the impact of the medium, to our confidence in our intuitions, and more
The History
Where did "the media" come from in seven parts: from the "penny press," to 24-hour news, to social media, to the fragmentation of legacy media, to artificial intelligence, and more
The Politics
From the "political spectrum," to the American media landscape, to echo chambers, filter bubbles, and the "Daily Me," to information warfare, and more
The Language
Including bias, vested interest, agenda, fact, opinion, rhetoric, logic, fallacies, value judgments, political cartoons, figures of speech, framing, inferences, and more
The Tools
Including lateral reading, reading like a historian, cognitive resistance, misinformation and disinformation, single-tasking, search engines, and more
Ready to begin?
Join us for this timely, cutting-edge course with The Nomadic Professor! Questions? Contact us anytime at [email protected].
Frequently Asked Questions
What credits does Media Literacy offer?
Media Literacy has been designed to fulfill the hours requirements of a one semester, ½ credit elective course, when taken in full. The course will require approximately 65 hours of classroom time to complete.
Can my student earn high school credit?
Media Literacy fulfills the hours and content requirements for the credits listed above. Students, instructors, supervisors, and/or parents should organize coursework into a portfolio that can be used to justify the credits and grades claimed on final high school transcripts. The Nomadic Professor does not provide the high school transcript unless the course is taken through one of our partners, such as Aim Academy Online. When taken through our live instruction listing with Aim Academy our courses are also A-G and NCAA approved.
Last, each Nomadic Course comes with an Instructor’s Guide with further details about how to document hours and content for transcript credit.
What does Media Literacy cover?
This course covers the following topics:
• Unit 1: The Fundamentals
◦ What is “Media Literacy”?; Humane Technology; The Question Concerning Technology; The Medium Is the Message; How accurate are our intuitions?
◦ Unit 2: History
◦ Where did “the media” come from? Parts 1-7: The Partisan Press, the Penny Press, and the Professional Press; The Collapse of Time and Space; Toward a Wireless Public Sphere; Shifting Models, Shifting Incentives, and Shifting Experiences; The Many Faces of Journalism (A and B); Is being informed really worth the trouble?; Epilogue: Artificial Intelligence (Part 1)
◦ Unit 3: The Political Landscape
◦ What is the “political spectrum”? How well does the “political spectrum” map onto the real world? What does the political spectrum look like in the American media landscape? What is an “echo chamber”? Can information be used as a weapon?
• Unit 4: Language
◦ Bias and Point of View; Framing and Political-Speak; Implications and Inferences; Word Choice and Tone; Figurative Speech; The Rhetorical Triangle; Logical Arguments; Logical Fallacies; Facts, Opinions, and Value Judgments; Agenda, Slant, and Vested Interest; Parody and Satire; Persuasive Techniques; Symbols; Political Cartoons; Ads and Demographics; Artificial Intelligence (Part 2)
• Unit 5: Tools
◦ Reading Like a Historian: Sourcing and Contextualizing; Misinformation, Disinformation, Fake News; Lateral Reading; Going Upstream to the Original Source; The Best Source, Not the First Source; Multi-tasking v. Single-tasking; Cognitive Resistance to Manipulation
When should my student take Media Literacy?
The course includes some abstract and sophisticated concepts that make it most appropriate for students between 8th and 12th grade. See the Free Preview session above by clicking the “Preview course!” button for a model of what to expect.
Who grades the student work?
Users may elect to take Media Literacy through one of our partners, such as Aim Academy Online. Through Aim Academy this course includes live instruction, teacher-grading and feedback, A-G and NCAA approval, and a transcript and accreditation recognized by any institution that recognizes Middle States regional accreditation.
Users may also elect to take the self-paced version of the course, in which case there are consistent graded elements in each Nomadic Course. Daily quizzes are automatically graded and recorded in the student gradebook. Other graded assignments must be assessed by a qualified supervisor, parent, or instructor, who will manually enter scores into the gradebook.
To assist with grading student work, all graded assignments include (1) an answer key, and (2) an easy-to-use checklist rubric. In most cases student work can be graded in a few minutes a day, or in short sessions at the end of each week. The gradebook is pre-weighted, and will immediately reflect changes as new scores are entered.
In some cases students can be trained to assess their own work, perhaps overseen by a supervisor, but this should be decided case-by-case.
Further grading guidance is included within the course as part of the course Instructor’s Guide.
How much time will the courses take?
Sessions are designed to be completed in 30-90 minutes, depending on the reader and what parts of the course they utilize.
Media Literacy has been designed to fulfill the hours requirements of a one semester, ½ credit elective course, when taken in full. The course will require approximately 65 hours of work to complete.
Further calendar and planning guidance is included within the course as part of the course Instructor’s Guide.
Do I also have to pay for Ground News?
A subscription to Ground News’s paid features is not required to complete the course. However, some parts of the course, such as learning about who funds a source, or what parent organizations own a source, will be easier to research with access to the paid features of Ground News.
To learn more about the value of what Ground News offers, check out this introductory video.
To sign up for a Ground News subscription, click here.
