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Lesson | 5 Weeks

MediaWise A.I. Unlocked Series


OVERVIEW

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A MediaWise/PBS News Student Reporting Labs series of videos and lessons all about teaching students the basics of generative A.I. This series explores how to detect A.I., identifying misinformation, ethical challenges, and prompt engineering. Aligned with national standards, each lesson is designed to facilitate smart classroom discussions that encourage critical thinking and digital literacy.

ALL LESSONS

Lesson 1: What is Generative A.I.?

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How A.I. works and the implications of the technology is what this lesson will explore. Students will be challenged to think critically and collaborate on ideas for responsible use.

Lesson 2: Ethical Considerations in A.I. Usage

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This lesson will teach students about ethical A.I. use. They will think about ways to identify responsible A.I. use and apply those understandings to their lives.

Lesson 3: Recognizing A.I. Generated Content

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This lesson teaches students how “bad actors” use A.I. to spread misinformation and explores practical tools and strategies to detect A.I. generated content.

Lesson 4: Finding Facts with Generative A.I. Search

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This lesson teaches students how A.I. responds to different types of prompts and how they can use prompt engineering to get accurate, well-structured information.

Lesson 5: Evaluating and Testing A.I. Tools

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This lesson will walk students through how to evaluate A.I. tools by examining their purpose, reliability, privacy policies and credibility. They will also brainstorm their own ideas for A.I. tools.

KEY VOCABULARY

  • Generative A.I.: Generative Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is a system of algorithms or computer processes that can create novel output in text, images or other media based on user prompts (National Library of Medicine).
  • Bias: To give a settled and often prejudiced outlook to (Merriam Webster).
  • Hallucination: A.I.: Hallucinations are incorrect or misleading results that A.I. models generate. (Google Cloud)
  • Large Language Model (LLM): Large language models, also known as LLMs, are very large deep learning models that are pre-trained on vast amounts of data (Amazon Web Services).
  • Ethics: The principles of conduct governing an individual or a group (Merriam Webster).
  • A.I. Transparency: A.I. transparency helps people access information to better understand how an artificial intelligence (A.I.) system was created and how it makes decisions (IBM).
  • Accountability: A.I. accountability refers to the idea that artificial intelligence should be developed, deployed, and utilized such that responsibility for bad outcomes can be assigned to liable parties (Carnegie Council).
  • Deepfake: An image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said (Merriam Webster).
  • Fact-Checking: To verify the factual accuracy of (Merriam Webster).
  • Disinformation: false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth (Merriam Webster).
  • Media Literacy: The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication (NAMLE)
  • Misinformation: Incorrect or misleading information (Merriam Webster).
  • Prompt Engineering: Prompt engineering is the process where you guide generative artificial intelligence (generative A.I.) solutions to generate desired outputs (Amazon Web Services).
  • Source Credibility: The degree to which people believe and trust what other people and organizations tell them about a particular product or service (Cambridge Dictionary).

ABOUT MEDIAWISE

The MediaWise Teen Fact-Checking Network – or TFCN – is a virtual newsroom made up of middle and high schoolers from across the United States who use social media to debunk viral misinformation and share media literacy tips.

These videos and lessons were developed by the Poynter Institute’s MediaWise and the Teen Fact-Checking Network in partnership with PBS News Student Reporting Labs. This partnership has been made possible through our collaboration with the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation.

Ethics

A set of moral principles based on standards of right and wrong, usually in terms of obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.

Source: Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

Trust

Belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc.

Source: Merriam Webster

Bias

Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

Source: Lexico, Powered by Oxford

Accountability

An obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions.

Source: Merriam Webster

Solutions

Investigating and explaining, in a critical and clear-eyed way, how people try to solve widely shared problems. Solutions journalism focuses on responses to problems.

Source: Solutions Journalism

Fact

Something that is known or proved to be true.

Opinion

A view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

Assumption

Something that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.

Research

An investigation into and study of sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.

Source

A source is an individual, company, document or more that can provide information to fuel a new story. In order for a story to be considered verified and to maintain a reputation as a news outlet, it is important to have a credible source.

Follow-up Question

A question that comes after an interview subject responds to an initial question asked by the interviewer. A good follow-up question derives from listening to what the interviewee is saying and determining how best to help them elaborate and share more information.

Feedback

After someone reviews your work, it is good practice to receive feedback, or an evaluation of your work based on certain standards. Feedback from multiple perspectives is an important part of the process. Masterpieces are rarely created in isolation.

Fact-check

The process of verifying the accuracy of a piece of information.

Curiosity

A desire to learn and know about something or anything.

Historical Sources and Evidence

Historical inquiry is based on materials left from the past that can be studied and analyzed. (NCSS D2.His.9.9-12 - D2.His.13.9-12)

Participation and Deliberation

Civics teaches the principles—such as adherence to the social contract, consent of the governed, limited government, legitimate authority, federalism, and separation of powers—that are meant to guide official institutions such as legislatures, courts, and government agencies. (NCSS D2.Civ.7.9-12 - D2.Civ.10.9-12)

Determining Helpful Sources

Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of view represented in the sources, the types of sources available, and the potential uses of the sources. (NCSS D1.5.9-12)

Constructing Supporting Questions

Explain points of agreement and disagreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a supporting question and explain how supporting questions contribute to an inquiry and how, through engaging source work, new compelling and supporting questions emerge. (NCSS D1.3.9-12 - D1.4.9-12)

Engineering Design

Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants. (NGSS HS-ETS1-1)

Digital Citizenship

Students recognize the responsibilities and opportunities for positively contributing to their digital communities. (ISTE)

Empowered Learner

Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences. (ISTE)

Knowledge Constructor

Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others. (ISTE)

Evaluate technological advancements and tools that are essential to occupations within the Arts, A/V Technology & Communications Career Cluster.

  • CCTC AR 6.1: Research the impact of potential new technological advancements related to this cluster in the future.
  • CCTC AR 6.2: Analyze the technological systems that are apparent within the various pathways in this cluster.

Language - Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 9–10 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.6: Acquire and use accurate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

Reading - Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.10: By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9–10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
    By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 9–10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

Change, Continuity, and Context

At its heart, chronological reasoning requires understanding processes of change and continuity over time, which means assessing similarities and differences between historical periods and between the past and present. (NCSS D2.His.1.9-12 - D2.His.3.9-12)

Demonstrate the use of basic tools and equipment used in audio, video and film production.

  • CCTC AR 2.1: Assess workplace conditions with regard to safety and health.

Gathering and Evaluating Sources

Whether students are constructing opinions, explanation, or arguments, they will gather information from a variety of sources and evaluate the relevance of that information. (NCSS D3.1.9-12 - D3.2.9-12)

Processes, Rules, and Laws

Civics is the discipline of the social studies most directly concerned with the processes and rules by which groups of people make decisions, govern themselves, and address public problems. (NCSS D2.Civ.11.9-12 - D2.Civ.14.9-12)

Constructing Compelling Questions

Explain how a question reflects an enduring issue in the field and explain points of agreement and disagreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a compelling question. (NCSS D1.1.9-12 - D1.2.9-12)

Creative Communicator

Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals. (ISTE)

Global Collaborator

Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally. (ISTE)

Computational Thinker

Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions. (ISTE)

Demonstrate writing processes used in journalism and broadcasting media.

  • CCTC AR-JB 2.1: Demonstrate how to cultivate sources for stories.
  • CCTC AR-JB 2.2: Demonstrate how to obtain information to use in writing a story.
  • CCTC AR-JB 2.3: Develop written stories for print and broadcast.
  • CCTC AR-JB 2.4: Demonstrate how photographs support the development of stories.
  • CCTC AR-JB 2.5: Employ knowledge of the similarities and differences among editorial, feature, and news writing styles.
  • CCTC AR-JB 2.6: Define the terminology associated with journalism and broadcasting.
  • CCTC AR-JB 2.7: Develop a complete radio project.
  • CCTC AR-JB 2.8: Develop a complete television project.

Analyze the legal and ethical responsibilities required in the arts, audio/visual technology and communications workplace.

  • CCTC AR 4.1: Analyze the legal and ethical responsibilities required in the arts, audio/visual technology and communications workplace.

Analyze the interdependence of the technical and artistic elements of various careers within the Arts, A/V Technology & Communications Career Cluster

  • CCTC AR 1.1: Summarize the features of the partnership that technology and the arts have in developing presentations and productions.
  • CCTC AR 1.2: Analyze how the roles of creators, performers, technicians, and others are similar and different from one another.
  • CCTC AR 1.3: Discuss how specific organizational policies, procedures, and rules help employees perform their jobs.
  • CCTC AR 1.4: State how various Career Pathways within the cluster work together to generate productions, media, and other activities.

Language - Knowledge of Language

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.3: Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.

Language - Conventions of Standard English

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.2: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Writing - Range of Writing

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.10: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

Reading - Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.7: Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus).
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10. 8 (Not applicable to literature)
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.9: Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).

Perspectives

Historical understanding requires recognizing this multiplicity of points of view in the past, which makes it important to seek out a range of sources on any historical question rather than simply use those that are easiest to find. It also requires recognizing that perspectives change over time, so that historical understanding requires developing a sense of empathy with people in the past whose perspectives might be very different from those of today. (NCSS D2.His.4.9-12 - D2.His.8.9-12)

Civic and Political Institutions

In order to act responsibly and effectively, citizens must understand the important institutions of their society and the principles that these institutions are intended to reflect. That requires mastery of a body of knowledge about law, politics, and government. (NCSS D2.Civ.1.9-12 - D2.Civ.6.9-12)

Plan and deliver a media production (e.g., broadcast, video, web, mobile).

  • CCTC AR-JB 3.1: Analyze the elements of a newscast production.
  • CCTC AR-JB 3.2: Analyze individual announcing competence.
  • CCTC AR-JB 3.3: Identify wardrobe suitable for on-camera appearances.
  • CCTC AR-JB 3.4: Analyze production functions..
  • CCTC AR-JB 3.5: Demonstrate promoting productions.
  • CCTC AR-JB 3.6: Analyze how image capturing and graphics design support the development of electronic presentations.
  • CCTC AR-JB 3.7: Distinguish amongst various musical radio formats.

Describe the diversity and variety of functions within the Journalism & Broadcasting Career Pathway.

  • CCTC AR-JB 1.1: Summarize the roles of journalism and broadcasting in society today using knowledge and history of journalism and broadcasting.
  • CCTC AR-JB 1.2: Distinguish between different forms of media and their specific applications.
  • CCTC AR-JB 1.3: Explain the value of having a broad general knowledge base and how awareness of cultural, regional, and diversity issues adds to a journalism and broadcasting career.
  • CCTC AR-JB 1.4: Analyze the business and economic factors that influence programming, content, and distribution.
  • CCTC AR-JB 1.5: Demonstrate professional conduct that follows a professional code of ethics.

Demonstrate technical support skills for audio, video and film productions.

  • CCTC AR-JB 4.1: Examine equipment and its function.
  • CCTC AR-JB 4.2: Examine production activities.
  • CCTC AR-JB 4.3: Explain how to run a board shift.
  • CCTC AR-JB 4.4: Examine set design principles and practices.

Describe the career opportunities and means to achieve those opportunities in each of the Arts, A/V Technology & Communications Career Pathways.

  • CCTC AR 5.1: Locate career opportunities that appeal to personal career goals.
  • CCTC AR 5.2: Match personal interests and aptitudes to selected careers.
  • CCTC AR 5.3: Identify pathways with common knowledge and skills that provide a worker with the potential for mobility.
  • CCTC AR 5.4: Examine the numerous career paths in this cluster to discover personal preference.

Analyze the importance of health, safety and environmental management systems, policies and procedures common in arts, audio/video technology and communications activities and facilities.

  • CCTC AR 2.1: Assess workplace conditions with regard to safety and health.
  • CCTC AR 2.2: State the implications and rationale for various rules and laws designed to promote safety and health may have on a work environment.
  • CCTC AR 2.3: Demonstrate personal and group health and safety practices.
  • CCTC AR 2.4: Illustrate situations that demonstrate compliance with OSHA safety regulations and practices as it relates to this cluster.
  • CCTC AR 2.5: Demonstrate safe work habits and procedures in working with electricity in this career cluster.
  • CCTC AR 2.6: Demonstrate safety procedures in operating equipment commonly used in the career pathways.

Speaking and Listening - Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and task.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5: Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.6: Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Speaking and Listening - Comprehension and Collaboration

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.2: Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.3: Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, identifying any fallacious reasoning or exaggerated or distorted evidence.

Writing - Research to Build and Present Knowledge

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.7: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.8: Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Writing - Production and Distribution of Writing

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grades 9–10.)
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.6: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.

Writing - Text Types and Purposes

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Reading - Craft and Structure

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.6: Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.

Reading - Key Ideas and Details

  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.3: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
Topics

Media Literacy

Education

Digital Literacy/Citizenship

Levels

Beginner

Materials

Computers

Post It Notes

White board, chalkboard or other visual board

Markers

Slides

Projector

Internet

Notebook

Estimated Time

5 Weeks