Combating fake news in the classroom

UNESCO MIL Alliance and U.S. Embassy Kuala Lumpur with the support of U.S. Department of State under The Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF) 2022, has launched an initiative to combat fake news and disinformation in social media in the ASEAN region. 

An inter-regional team from Malaysia, the Philippines, and Cambodia will be running the Boot Camp for teachers from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand who are committed to fostering an informed and resilient society. The Boot Camp aims to train teachers and deepen their understanding of the importance of media and information literacy in today’s fast-paced digital media landscape.

This initiative supports UNESCO’s goal to ensure that all citizens have access to media and information literacy competencies. 

The fight against fake news

With over 400 million people in the Southeast Asia region accessing the Internet, the battle to fight fake news and false information is understandably arduous. The actual degree of damage caused by false rhetoric and malicious rumour-mongering is unknown.

However, we have all witnessed from anecdotes around the world the harm that false information can cause. Sick people who are scared to seek professional help have died from consuming off-label medications. Vulnerable groups have been targeted by hate speech, political propagandists have pit supporters against one another.

Media and information literacy is crucial for developing the life and work skills necessary for the twenty-first century. It is one of the tools that may be used to stop radicalization, stop hate speech online, and enable individuals to recognize and defend themselves from political propaganda.

Rising cases of misinformation and disinformation around the globe amid growing access to the Internet and social media especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, led scholars and policy makers to rethink policies related to media and information literacy to address issues arising from the lack of it. Media activists and educators are also working frantically to teach media and information literacy to citizens. 

Media and information literacy (MIL) competencies help us to better understand the messages that we are receiving. MIL emphasises critical thinking skills that enable consumers to develop independent judgements about media content and should be included in the school curriculum to better combat misinformation and disinformation issues. 

Teachers as primary agents of change

Since teachers are primary agents of change and play a key role in this 21st century learning environment, they need to ensure that their curriculum develops the much-needed media and information literacy competencies, so their students can take full advantage of knowledge societies thereby becoming empowered global citizens. 

Renee Hobbs encourages the research community to “develop meaningful tests for new teachers to measure their ability to implement digital and media literacy instructional practices into the curriculum”. In doing so, she stresses the importance of instruments in measuring teacher competencies in media literacy.

Teachers needs to continue teaching about biased reporting and learn to find ways to gather evidence in the classroom through accurate data, not subjective opinions. In this context, teachers play a role in empowering students not only by knowledge transfer, but also by teaching them how to critically evaluate information, process verification, and access credibility of source, and responsible use of social media.

Ambigapathy and Kalantzis (2001), in the publication titled “Literacy Matters: Issues for New Times”, pointed that Malaysia lacks trained teachers with media and information literacy backgrounds. 

Sharing the mission from UNESCO that every community and individual across the globe should acquire MIL competencies, the MIL for ASEAN Network, now a UNESCO MIL Alliance and one of the primary drivers of media and information literacy in the Southeast Asia region strives to empower teachers across Southeast Asia region to integrate MIL components into the schools’ curriculum.

The Network conducts regular dialogues through capacity building programs such as workshops, seminars and Boot Camps, conducts research and consultancy work to inform policies and runs communication and information campaigns on integrating MIL in their subject areas for school teachers and teacher educators across the Southeast Asia region. 

Building resilience for the futures of learning

With fresh funding from the U.S. State Department through the Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF¹ ) 2022, the co-founders of MIL for ASEAN Network, Lai Cheng Wong (Malaysia) and Melinda Quiñones (Philippines) will work with partners across the ASEAN region to run the ASEAN Teachers Media and Information Literacy Boot Camp in February 2023.

MIL for ASEAN Network will partner with Kampuchea Action to Promote Education (KAPE) in Cambodia, SEAMEO Regional Centre for Education in Science and Mathematics (RECSAM) in Malaysia, SEAMEO Regional Open Learning Center (SEAMOLEC) in Indonesia, Centro Escolar University (CEU) in the Philippines, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in the Philippines and Rangsit University in Thailand.

The theme for the ASEAN Teachers Boot Camp, “Media and Information Literacy: Building Resilience for the Futures of Learning”, is timely and pertinent to the Southeast Asian region. As it is, Malaysia and its neighbouring countries have seen a drastic increase in the spread of disinformation and online scams over the last two years during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Taking off from the success of TechCamp Malaysia – Philippines “Teaching Media and Information Literacy in Everyday Life”, the inter-region team will soon hold the ASEAN Teachers’ Boot Camp and launch the ASEAN Media and Information Literacy Hub (MIL for ASEAN Network) official website in February 2023.

The target groups for the ASEAN Teachers’ Boot Camp are school teachers and teacher educators, administrators or education officers from public and private schools, and teacher training institutions. A total of 100 highly aspiring and motivated teachers from across the region, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand has been selected to join the Boot Camp. 

Including MIL across the curriculum

The project aims to expand participants’ knowledge and competencies on MIL to enable them to integrate MIL across the curriculum and develop the critical thinking skills of students so that they can actively engage with different segments of society.

Boot Camp participants will have opportunities to participate in intensive seminars and discussions on topics related to MIL, such as strategies to counter media misinformation and disinformation in a modern classroom, fact-checking, strategies to develop student digital detectives in a post truth era, data privacy and protection, internet safety, and deep fakes detection. 

“The goal is to provide opportunities for teachers and teacher educators to discuss and address critical issues such as cyberbullying, hate speech, misperceptions, and information disorder in the media. Teachers must be well trained to empower students with the necessary competencies to critically understand the ethical issues surrounding the access and use of information from all forms of media. It is therefore important to take a healthy approach to the information disseminated in the media, a skill that should be practiced from elementary school onwards,” Wong said. 

ASEAN Teachers’ Virtual Boot Camp and MIL is a three-day event taking place from February 8 to 10, 2023. The entire programme will be delivered virtually via Zoom, including the MIL Webinar Series and Networking Session.

For more information about the ASEAN Teachers’ Boot Camp and MIL for ASEAN Network please visit https://aseanmil.org/ or email: [email protected]