The educational programme for 13-16 year olds, Detekto.hu, has been expanded with learning materials to help them check information online. The new courses cover topics such as the importance of curiosity and multi-sourcing, using answers from ChatGPT, and lateral reading to help check information.

Why is curiosity a particularly important quality in the 21st century? How can asking the right questions help to debunk misleading information? Why and how to get information from multiple sources? How reliable is information from ChatGPT and Wikipedia? What does lateral reading mean, why is it useful and how does it work in practice?

The online courses aim to prepare students to navigate the online media environment independently. Recognise when they need to be more alert, aware and to check information, and what tools they can use to check facts.

In our previous tutorials, we have already covered the typical types of misleading content and the signs of fake information, as well as the characteristics and social utility of quality news. In our new courses, we sow the seeds of critical thinking, pointing out the importance of self-reflection, common sense and curiosity, among other things,” says Krisztina Nagy, Programme Leader of the Idea Foundation.

In the programme, which is part of the Hungarian Digital Media Observatory funded by the European Commission, students can practise recognising fake information through content similar to that they encounter on social media.

“For example, in one of the exercises, we show how to ask questions that can help you check the authenticity of a social media post or image. But there’s also a task in which we have to evaluate the answers of the artificial intelligence-based chat program ChatGPT to see if we could use the information to write a school project,” says Iván Marinov, one of the project’s developers.

The courses support independent learning, but their content, development areas and objectives can be linked to school education in several ways. “In the teacher’s guide to the curriculum package, we also provide specific tips for use in schools, whether it’s homework or classroom work,” says Borbála Timár from the Foundation.

The Detekto materials are available here: https://detekto.hu/ (recent courses can be found under items 7-9)
Guides for teachers can be downloaded from: https: //detekto.hu/tanaroknak/

Contact: Krisztina Nagy – [email protected]