Earlier this month, Mike Caulfield came to the University of Mary Washington to give a talk about digital literacy. His big takeaways were for us to be more aware of how we get and absorb information online. One of the ways to do this is by reading laterally, this basically means that we should be aware of links that are tagged within a post, seeing where this information came from and whether or not it is reliable information.
He also talks about the pros and cons for the CRAAP model. CRAAP stands for currency, relevance, authority, accuracy and purpose. People typically don’t follow this and tend to rely more on the individual posting this information to have done their research rather than checking on it as well.