Hapgood

Mike Caulfield's latest web incarnation. Networked Learning, Open Education, and Online Digital Literacy

September 2018

  • A Suggested Improvement to Facebook’s Information Panel: Stories “About” Not “From”

    Facebook has a news information panel, and I like it lots. But it could be better. First, let’s look at where it works. Here it is with a decent news source: That’s good. The info button throws the Wikipedia page up there, which is the best first stop.  We got the blue checkmark there, and Continue reading

  • GIFs as Disinformation Remedy (aka The GIF Curriculum)

    Earlier today Alexios Mantzarlis tweeted a GIF by @PicPedant that demonstrates a particular photo is fake in a precise way: This is interesting because recently I’ve been moving to GIFs myself for explanations. Here’s some demonstrations of our techniques, for example: Check for other coverage (in this case with a good result): Check what a person Continue reading

  • A Short History of CRAAP

    Update: I recently learned that this post has been selected for inclusion in a prestigious ACRL yearly list. Newcomers unfamiliar with our work may want to check out SIFT, our alternative to CRAAP, after reading the article. I reference the history of the so-called “checklist approaches” to online information literacy from time to time, but Continue reading

  • The Fast and Frugal Needs of the Online Reader

    I’m writing a couple framing documents for some events coming up. This is one that I’m still drafting, but I thought I’d throw the draft up and take any comments. Note that this is already at max length. Also, one site name has been removed in an effort to not attract the trolls. And citations Continue reading

  • Tribalism is a cognitive shortcut. Addressing it requires better shortcuts.

    Beautiful essay this week by Zeynep on Politico, six paragraphs you should read to become a smarter human. But I just want to point to something in paragraph three very relevant to media literacy: Deluged by apparent facts, arguments and counterarguments, our brains resort to the most obvious filter, the easiest cognitive shortcut for a Continue reading

  • Stop Reacting and Start Doing the Process

    Today’s error comes to you from a Tulsa NBC affiliate:   Of course, this was all the rage on Twitter as well, with many smart people tweeting the USA Today story directly: It’s a good demonstration of why representativeness heuristics fail. Here’s the story everyone fell for: So let’s go through this — good presentation, Continue reading

  • Safety Culture and the Associated Press

    More journalistic mess-ups in the news today, this time from the Associated Press, which labeled director/producer Costa-Gavras as dead when he is very much alive. Via Alexios Mantzarlis here’s a snapshot of the AP headline on the Washington Post from yesterday (I think?) of a hoax that happened almost a week ago. How did it happen? Well a person Continue reading

  • A Roll-Up of Digipo Resources (4 September 2018)

    One of the nice things about running a blog-fueled grassroots semi-funded initiative is the agility. The Digipo project has moved far and fast in the past year. But one of the bad things is all the old blogposts a just a snapshot in time, and often out of date. I’ve wanted to get everything updated Continue reading