What is the role of digital media in our lives? We often use our phones or other devices without even thinking about it. But paying closer attention to how -- and how much -- we use digital media can help us find better balance in our lives. Challenge students to truly consider how digital media adds to -- or takes away from -- their overall quality of life. Approximately 45 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Explore the role that digital media plays in their lives. Use the Digital Habits Checkup to reflect on the positive and negative impacts of digital media. Create a personal challenge to improve their digital well-being.

Real-life examples, interactive headline and image games and brief explanations make this an attractive site for learning to recognize media bias.

This is a full unit of study from iCivics, featuring multiple lesson plans with presentations, downloadable documents, and more. The universe of information we live in is a complicated web of messages with a mind-blowing array of sources, biases, and agendas. Help your students develop the mad news literacy skills they need with the resources in our hot-off-the-press News Literacy unit. Designed for the high school classroom, this unit teaches students to recognize high-standards journalism so they can make informed judgments about the information coming at them. Students get practical skills to help them identify and deal with misinformation, bias, opinion, and more.

Excellent site outlining each step for Internet research for grades 6-12. This site focuses on writing a research paper from selecting a topic through to the final paper. Click on Cite My Sources to get the electronic citation machines. Teacher resources and worksheets are also provided.

Use this site for analyzing the effectiveness and techniques of several aspects of web news. Pop up windows guide viewers to important questions about what they will view.

This website is a guide to the way the new media-blogs, RSS, podcasting, citizen journalism, wikis, news aggregators, and video repositories-are changing the way we take in the news of our world. Click on the underlined words to hyperlink to the sites being discussed.

Learn more about World War I by doing what historians do–analyzing visual media! Students will learn how to examine and interpret visual materials produced during World War I, and will better understand the importance of visual culture as a primary source and a means of recording history. This recorded program, uses World War I era photographs, posters, and cartoons to practice the skills required to analyze and interpret images. Teachers can show the recorded program to the class to start the activity, and continue the lesson with students by using the program packet, which includes additional images, descriptions, and supplemental questions to engage students with the content and develop analytical skills. The program packet includes a teacher’s guide, student photograph analysis worksheet, teacher’s image guide, and student image worksheet and answer key.

How can you respect the privacy of others online? Tagging friends on social media is a great way to connect with others and capture memorable experiences. But what if they don't want to be tagged? Encourage your students to take responsibility for how they may affect the digital footprints of others. Approximately 50 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Define "digital reputation," and identify examples of social media posts that can have a positive or negative effect. Use the 1-2-3-1 Perspectives activity to consider the causes and effects of posting about others online. Generate a list of questions to ask themselves before posting pictures or information about someone else.

How can I make sure my relationships are healthy and positive? "It's complicated" can describe many of our relationships with others, both romantic and otherwise. Add digital devices and social media to the mix, and things get complicated even further. Help students take the first step toward building healthy and rewarding friendships and romantic relationships, both online and off. Approximately 45 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Reflect on how their relationships are affected by devices and the internet. Identify the qualities of healthy and rewarding relationships. Use the Feelings & Options thinking routine to brainstorm strategies for navigating challenging relationships.

A detailed explanation of how bias works is offered at this site, including critical questions for detecting bias in writing.

What privacy risks do new technologies present, and how do we decide if they're worth it? New tech, like location services and smart devices, helps make our lives easier and opens opportunities that didn't exist before. But these innovations also come with a cost -- especially to our privacy. Help students consider the benefits and drawbacks of these new technologies -- and decide whether they're ultimately worth it. Approximately 50 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Identify important benefits and privacy risks that new technologies present. Decide whether or not the benefits of new technologies outweigh their privacy risks. Use the Take a Stand thinking routine to consider both the benefits and the risks of new technologies.

Tips and information about how to evaluate resources, both print and electronic. Includes information about source authority, purpose, objectivity, currency, completeness, and relevance. It includes a printable handout (top right)with questions to ask yourself and where to look for the answers. RI.11-12.7 Eval Different Media/format

Read about strategies to help students integrate information across diverse media formats. Includes video. [4:18]

How does your social media use affect how you feel? Social media plays a big role in most teens' lives, and research shows that it causes intense feelings -- both positive and negative. But not all media use is the same. There are many benefits that come with both active and passive media use. For better social and emotional well-being, encourage students to become creators of digital media, not just consumers. Approximately 50 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Reflect on how their social media use makes them feel and how it compares to other teenagers'. Describe how active and passive social media use can lead to positive and negative feelings. Identify action steps to increase their positive feelings when using social media.

In previous decades, most news with global reach came from several major newspapers and networks with the resources to gather information directly. The speed with which information spreads now, however, has created the ideal conditions for something called circular reporting. Noah Tavlin sheds light on this phenomenon. [3:42]

Questions to ask yourself when determining if a source is reliable. Discusses difference between primary and secondary source. List of reference sources and links to other sites that teach you how to evaluate sources. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7, SL.9-10.2 eval & integrate sources

This site by Virtual Salt offers a great deal of information on evaluating internet sources. Gives tips on what to look for when screening information for usefulness and reliability.

This site gives excellent information on why it's important to evaluate the content of everything you find in cyberspace, and also tells you how to do so. It also contains information about using search engines effectively and how to evaluate individual resources. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7

How can we act with empathy and positivity when we're online? We've all faced thorny situations where what we say or do could potentially harm or hurt someone. Being honest is important, but is there such a thing as being too honest? Sometimes, innocent -- but insensitive -- comments or actions can easily escalate to digital drama or even cyberbullying. Help students recognize and navigate these types of situations that happen online. Approximately 45 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Identify examples of online behaviors that may hurt, embarrass, or offend others. Use the Feelings & Options thinking routine to analyze and respond to a digital dilemma.