Finding balance and perspective

Time Needed: 30 minutes

Supplies Needed:

• One or more classroom- and age-appropriate news articles about algorithms, adjusted for language, reading level and accessibility as needed, with enough copies for the class.
• Three designated areas of the classroom, with signs that say, “I already knew this”, “I didn’t know this” and “I want to know more about this”

Learning Goal: Learners will demonstrate understanding that algorithms limit what we experience, and that they can have an effect on how we understand the world through reviewing a current events article.

Activate (8 minutes):

• Ask learners to listen as you read the article aloud to them. Take lots of pauses between sentences so they can move about the classroom.
• Ask them to listen for issues or ideas that they a) already knew b) didn’t know and c) want to know more about. Designate
• As you read, have them move between the areas with the signs, noting where their greatest strengths and gaps of knowledge are.

Acquire (5 minutes):

• When the article is finished, ask the learners to share what they noticed in the classroom and how the information relates to their experiences online and at school.
• Based on these experiences, help learners recognize how the main ideas from the article are manifested in their lives.
• Repeat with another article if desired and if there’s enough time.

Apply (17 minutes):

• In small groups, have students come up with three “tech tips for kids” for navigating the issue discussed in the article.
• Learners can now share to the class, use the tips to create technology rules for their own classroom, and/or discuss each others’ tips to gain personal understanding and agency over their own experiences online.