The National Library of Estonia invites school students of different age groups to attend free educational programmes that teach to identify fake news.
Estonia celebrated the last week of October as the Media Literacy Week, aiming to rise the awareness of school students, teachers and the wide public on the information space around us and the threats within it.
One very important skill is critical thinking when using the social media and consuming other media.
Pille Slabina, Curator of Educational Activities in the library, says: “We offer basic schools and upper secondary schools a free thematic class on media literacy titled “Slipping On Fake News”. These lessons improve the media literacy of young people through games and real-life examples, teaching youngsters to critically evaluate information disseminated in the media and realise when they are manipulated. Students are also instructed how to protect themselves and their close ones from cyberbullying”.
In view of raising awareness on media literacy, the National Library team created a novel card game “Smarter Than a Troll”. Its humorous questions test the skills of the players to find their bearings in the information space packed with trolls and data of dubious quality (the illustration on the left shows one of the cards). The National Library invited schools to draw attention to media literacy by playing the card game and make photos or videos while playing it. The game was a huge success and all available decks of cards have been delivered to schools who requested them. The feedback from students enables the library to develop the game further.
Along with media literacy, the library offers a variety of other thematic classes ranging from history and cartography to legislation and the European Union.
More information on educational programmes and registration is available at the library’s website www.nlib.ee/et/haridustegevus for Estonian-language programmes and www.nlib.ee/en/content/programmes-students for English-language programmes.