Welcome!
My name is Wes Fryer and this is the website where I collect and share a variety of resources relating to MEDIA LITERACY.
Some of my current media literacy activities and roles include:
Teaching middle school media literacy and STEM classes as a fulltime classroom teacher at Providence Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Leading monthly Zoom meetings of the MediaEd Club for the Media Education Lab.
Serving on the advisory board of Teachers for an Informed Public (TIPteachers) at the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public.
Continuing to develop a 15 module course and forthcoming book on "Teaching the Conspiracies" as part of my "Conspiracies and Culture Wars Media Literacy Inquiry Project," started in 2019.
Serving as an affiliated faculty member of the Media Education Lab.
Links to my various social media channels / profiles and sharing spaces are available on wesfryer.com/after. If you have questions please get in touch!
Resources for my "Teaching the Conspriacies" course series are available:
Media Literacy Games
Through Media Education Lab events I've connected with Randall Fujimoto with GameTrain Learning, who is an educational game designer. Among other themes / topics he designs games focused on media literacy. Examples include:
Escape the Echoes: An Educational Escape Game About Media Literacy
Media Literacy Games by Loki's Loop (Escape Room and Game Designers focused on misinformation)
Added March 7 2024: Check out all my presentations for NCTIES 2024, including "SIFTing for Trusted Sources Online."
SIFTing for Trusted Sources Online
Thursday, March 7
4:15pm: SIFTing for Trusted Sources Online (307)
Description
Media literacy skills are vital! How can students (and adults) decide "who to trust online?" Learn strategies to use the “SIFT Web Literacy Framework” (Stop, Investigate the source, Find Trusted Coverage, Trace to the Original" with students to interrogate new information and sources online. Using lessons from his "Froot Loop Conspiracies" unit focusing on the Apollo Moon Landings (and YouTubers who claim the landings were hoaxes) learn how students in Wes Fryer's classes create InfoPics, sketchnotes, narrated slideshow videos, and other media projects to demonstrate their understanding of how to use SIFT as savvy information consumers.
I taught a six week course on "Teaching the Conspiracies" for the MediaEd Institute in January / February / March 2024. I'm also excited to share that I'm officially "affiliated faculty" with the Media Education Lab.
I'll be teaching a TWO WEEK "Part 2" course on "Teaching the Conspiracies" in late July 2024.
Check out the slides for my May 2022 ATLIS presentation, "Teaching About Conspiracy Theories and Media Literacy"
Description:
Conspiracy theories are popular on social media and influence our local as well as national conversations and politics. How we can constructively teach about conspiracy theories and help students develop their media literacy skills to better evaluate information and sources in our digital world? This session will highlight the "Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories" media literacy unit, taught to 6th graders since fall 2020 at Casady School in Oklahoma City. By focusing on the Apollo Moon landings, students learn how to use and apply the "SIFT" web literacy framework (S = Stop, I = Investigate the source, F = Find trusted coverage, T = Trace to the original) analyzing together several online videos. While this unit is designed for middle school students, it an be adapted for other grades / ages / developmental levels. Access the full unit on lessons.wesfryer.com/lessons/conspiracy-theories.
Additional Resources:
For more resources about using Twitter lists & other clever, powerful apps and digital tools, check out Wes' workshop resources, "Discovering Useful Ideas."
