This Group is Trying to Teach ‘Digital Literacy.’ Here’s How
I recently talked with Sam Wineburg, the co-founder of the Digital Inquiry Group, about his research into misinformation. We discussed some of the studies he’s seen and conducted on misinformation, his book Verified, and how AI plays into the work he does. As you might expect, I had more questions for Sam, and he was kind enough to sit down for a second conversation about how the Digital Inquiry Group has tried to teach students “digital literacy.” Here’s what he had to say.
— Rick
Rick: Let’s dig a bit deeper into your current work. You’ve launched a new venture, the Digital Inquiry Group, that builds on your earlier work at Stanford. What exactly is it and what will you all be working on?
Sam: The Digital Inquiry Group, or DIG, is a new nonprofit organization that carries on the work of the Stanford History Education Group. We create evidence-based, nonpartisan, and free educational materials to help students learn about their past and their digital present. The average American teen spends over eight hours attached to a screen each day — not including schoolwork or homework. To learn about contemporary issues, Gen Z no longer goes to the library and pulls a book off a shelf. To learn about climate change, the efficacy of a tax on sugary drinks, or whether charter schools are more effective than regular public schools, they open a laptop or scroll on their phones. Our Civic Online Literacy curriculum helps them navigate an ocean of uneven sources. Our approach has been shown to make students savvier consumers of digital content in studies conducted not only by our group but also by researchers in Canada, Sweden, Germany, and Italy. DIG has also inherited the Reading Like a Historian curriculum, which was created over the course of two decades at Stanford. This curriculum has been downloaded 16 million times and appears on 41 state education department-recommended curriculum lists. We are always adding to it, most recently with new material for the elementary grades.
Rick: One initiative you’ve launched is a partnership with Microsoft, seeking to integrate digital literacy into the video game Minecraft. Can you talk a bit about how that’s going?
Sam: Minecraft is the world’s best-selling video game. There are a host of Minecraft versions that take up educational topics. The one we worked on was about finding and evaluating information. We collaborated with Minecraft’s education team on the game’s features, but the bulk of our efforts were devoted to creating the accompanying classroom materials that extend the game’s lessons. For example, we have lessons that help students distinguish between a claim shorn of references and one with ample links and others that help them grasp the concept of a conflict of interest — the problem with sources that advance claims in which they have a personal or financial stake. Our partnership with Microsoft also includes work with Search Coach, a browser with training wheels that introduces students to principles, like lateral reading, that are at the core of our work.
Rick: In launching the Digital Inquiry Group, you walked away from a prestigious faculty position at Stanford University. What prompted the move?
Sam: Stanford is one of the world’s finest universities. There’s not a day I don’t count my lucky stars that I was privileged to be a part of Stanford’s faculty for 23 years. At the same time, major research universities are not designed to act quickly to scale educational innovations. For example, when the Los Angeles Unified school district, the second largest district in the country, asked my team to help prepare teachers to use our Reading Like a Historian curriculum, it took months to move a contract through the university’s Grants and Contracts office. Schools and districts are scrambling to meet pressing needs. An organization that wants to help has to be agile and responsive. As an independent nonprofit, we can move quickly without having to go through multiple levels of approval.
Rick: More broadly, what are the trade-offs of doing this kind of education research inside or outside of the academy?
Sam: Stanford is a research institution par excellence; however, it is not an outreach institution par excellence. Thankfully, when my staff and I struck out on our own, we had the backing of Stanford. This has undoubtedly helped us gain financial footing and form strategic partnerships with prominent nonprofit organizations like iCivics and the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as with tech companies like Microsoft and Google. Sure, it’s true that as an independent nonprofit we no longer have to pay massive overheads on federal grants. But that’s not the primary reason we left the university. We wanted to work more intensively with schools and districts. Being independent allows us to do so directly without having to jump through the multiple hoops of university bureaucracy.
Rick: OK, can you offer a couple practical suggestions for educators when it comes to sorting internet fact from fiction?
Sam: In my book Verified, we use the acronym SIFT, coined by my co-author, Mike Caulfield. It stands for “Stop, Investigate, Find a better source, Trace back to the original.” Many people skip “stop,” the first step. Too many of us respond emotionally before asking a set of basic questions: How do I know that the image I’m looking at actually has anything to do with the caption that accompanies it? How can I be sure that the photo that stirs me was taken where its caption claims it was taken? With images, a brief “investigate” step can be conducted with Google Lens or TinEye. Similar caution should be taken when landing on an unfamiliar website. Before taking the website’s word, spend a minute reading laterally by, for instance, entering the name of the group in your browser and seeing what other sources — particularly ones you know and trust — say. And don’t forget about Wikipedia. Seriously. Well-trafficked Wikipedia articles are often time-saving first stops, where claims are backed by sources and bibliographies. If you still carry an impression of Wikipedia that you formed in 2003, you badly need an update. Today’s Wikipedia is vastly improved. The site now has a host of guardrails that prevent drive-by edits by bad actors, propagandists, and run-of-the-mill troublemakers.
Rick: That all sounds pretty sensible. But I’m also thinking that you suggest looking at other sources that “you know and trust.” What happens when the sources that I know and trust are different from those you know and trust? How do we ensure that doesn’t just reinforce our respective bubbles?
Sam: This is certainly a challenge. Anyone who says they’re immune to confirmation bias is an expert in self-deception. There’s no way to get out of our own filter bubble other than to read widely and purposely. In the words of John Stuart Mill, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”
Rick: Last question: We’re in the midst of a bitter presidential election. Any tips for helping students process the vitriol they’re seeing on social media?
Sam: It’s easy to get swept up in the politics of rage. None of us is immune. On social media, students should ask themselves: Are they ready to maul anything from the other side but caress posts that flatter their prior beliefs? Have they shared a post or video only to find out later that they were duped by an AI-generated deepfake? And the most important question students need to answer — actually, all of us need to answer — is this: What is to be gained by sharing? Are we really contributing to rational decisionmaking and reasoned debate about issues that affect our futures, or are we providing more oxygen to internet rage merchants whose toxins pollute the information stream? Quality, fact-based information is to civic health what clean air and water are to public health. Most of us no longer throw litter out of our car windows. Let’s not do it on the internet, either.
This post originally appeared on Rick Hess Straight Up.
