The Guardian article on “How Finland starts its fight against fake news in primary schools” (29.1.2020) attained major international interest to our information literacy materials and workshops. Most of our materials are created based on the great work of researchers, fact-checkers and media literacy communities around the world. In Finland this work has been adapted to part of the advanced Finnish curricula which empowers teachers to learn, teach and discuss the evolving, and in many cases very different digital information challenges safely inside the school environment. The development of hands-on information materials leans on work carried out within Faktabaari (FactBar) EDU platform by French Finnish School of Helsinki teachers and students and Faktabaari fact-checking and disinformation experts.
“The goal is to have active, responsible citizens and voters,” Kari Kivinen, leading the material development, describes the objectives. “Thinking critically, fact-checking, interpreting and evaluating all the information you receive, wherever it appears, is crucial. We’ve made it a core part of what we teach, across all subjects.”
Faktabaari (FactBar) EDU project brings together fact-checking experts, journalists, media specialists, and pedagogues to create Information and Internet literacy tools to support teachers in dealing with social media issues in the classroom context and to activate students to verify their social media content empowered with critical thinking and information literacy skills to resist mis- and disinformation. More on Faktabaari EDU and it’s international branch [FactBar](https://faktabaari.fi/in-english/) EDU.
We will publish our new Creative Commons Information Literacy materials in Finnish in February and in English by our International Fact-checking day event 2.4. and develop further materials also within our European medialiteracy project with Lithuanian, Greek and Spanish partners. For updates, support offers and more information on forthcoming information literacy materials follow us on Twitter @FactBar or send your contact details or questions to desk@factbar.eu.
Meanwhile, you can download below our Creative Commons voter literacy toolkit for educators that was widely circulated as a link to CNN’s special article 2019.
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