Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an iconic Democratic senator from New York. One of his most famous quotes was, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Decades ago, Americans embraced this stance. 

On January 6, 2021, a mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. These insurrectionists were inspired by their own set of facts. Their claims of election fraud have been roundly rejected by Republican appointed judge after Republican appointed judge. The Supreme Court, which includes 6 conservatives, declined to even hear the case. These are inconvenient facts for those who laid waste to the capitol that day. Why would normal members of far flung communities be willing to risk their reputations, their jobs, their family relationships, and their freedom for an idea that has not stood the test of objective judgement? The answer is that they have undermined Senator Moynihan’s directive and now live in a world created by their own set of facts. Most came to this paradigm through a wholesale diet of unreliable online sources. 

The attack on the capitol should be a wakeup call for educators. We have a moral obligation to help students evaluate online sources. Perhaps through our efforts, kids will develop a healthy skepticism about all sources. Unfortunately, many contemporary adults have trained their young to reserve their skepticism only for those sources that emanate from the other side of the political divide. Contemporary media literacy should encourage a healthy skepticism toward all sources. 

Before I describe my guests, I’d like to first promote the text that we use in my Education Technology class. Educational Technology for Teachers by Dr. Gregory Francom is user-friendly, interactive, and engaging. Dr. Francom dedicates an entire chapter to information literacy. This chapter was our focus this past week. 

To help tell this story, I deputized two outstanding aspiring teachers. Kaylie Callihan and Josh Hilgenberg are both students in my technology class. They consistently produce stellar creations. 

kayliec1@muskingum.edu                                    joshh1@muskingum.edu 

Last week, our focus was information literacy. My students were challenged to create a prompt for their future classrooms. This prompt would encourage students to evaluate online sources. A key aspect of their creations was a short informational flipped presentation. This would provide the class with basic information about information literacy. I challenged Kaylie and Josh to use PowerPoint and YouTube to create this flipped presentation. They put together marvelous videos. Here’s a link to Kaylie’s and here’s a link to Josh’s. But the bulk of our conversation is dedicated to the dissemination of the acronym CRAP. Intrigued? I thought so. 

Episode Template

The Problem: Students lack an evaluative template for online sources.

The Solution: CRAP

What you can do Tomorrow: 

• Utilize Kaylie or Josh’s flipped presentations.
• Gather some reliable and problematic online sources in your subject area.
• Challenge students to evaluate these sources utilizing CRAP.

Encourage your students to think objectively, to think critically, and to question the legitimacy of all sources. 

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