Interpreting AI in the News: A Media Literacy Lesson Plan

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Media coverage of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) often fails to distinguish between hype and reality. This results in public misconceptions that can fuel unnecessary fears or unrealistic hopes.

To improve the public’s understanding of these tools, Aspen Digital created educational primers on the fundamentals, ran a public event on how to talk better about AI, and launched a hall of fame highlighting examples of great reporting on AI.

This latest effort focuses on helping students understand these systems by publishing open education resources for high school and junior college teachers that promote media literacy. The “Interpreting AI in the News” lesson plan teaches students how to recognize and critically interpret how writing choices impact readers’ perceptions of how AI works, what it can be used to do, and who is using it.

Aspen Digital consulted with the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), the AI Education Project (aiEDU), as well as high school educators to develop this lesson plan so that teachers have resources to promote a more nuanced and comprehensive dialogue on AI in media literacy.

The plan includes a comprehensive set of resources: a materials list, resource links, detailed instructions, a sample presentation, conversation starters, assessment guidelines, and a vocabulary guide.

In the spirit of open access and to make this work as useful as possible to educators, we’ve also uploaded the lesson plan to the following websites: OER Commons and Merlot. We welcome educators and anyone to use, repurpose, and expand upon this work, which is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was produced by Tom Latkowski, B Cavello, and Eleanor Tursman, and was made possible thanks to generous support from Siegel Family Endowment.

Thank you to the educators and organizations who provided invaluable feedback and edits: Sheeva Azma, Ashwin Dubey, Megan Fromm, Creighton Laughary, Steve Miller, Ed Puchalla, Gabriel Quiroga, and the aiEDU Learning Team.

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Interpreting AI in the News: A Media Literacy Lesson Plan by Aspen Digital is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.

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