Skip to content
Buzza Start Learning
Learn with real videos

Bilingual YouTube Learning

▶
Choose a video to start learning Choose a video from the full Library to start learning.
Time English Language 2 Action
00:00
Hi, my name is John Green…
00:07
In a few weeks we will begin a 10-episode series on Navigating Digital Information,
00:14
which probably sounds boring.
00:16
We thought it about calling something else--Crash Course Saving the Internet from Itself, Crash
00:20
Course Oh My God This Virtual Place Is On Fire, Crash Course Maybe We Should Go Back
00:26
to Trusting Experts, et cetera.
00:28
But we ended up calling it Crash Course Navigating Digital Information because that is what we
00:33
are actually going to try to learn how to do together.
00:35
And I say together because I am not particularly good at navigating digital information.
00:41
Like a lot of you, I’ve read entire stories online before even looking at the name of
00:46
the website I’m on.
00:48
My brain has to an extent been hacked by large corporations that are able to monetize my
00:53
attention, and they hold my attention in part by showing me information that outrages and
00:59
astonishes me, that scratches some itch so deep down in my consciousness that I can’t
01:04
even quite identify it.
01:06
I find myself scrolling into the infinite, refreshing to see what is newer than the news
01:11
that broke ten minutes ago, passively ingesting all kinds of information without pausing to
01:17
consider the quality of that information or how it is shaping my understanding of the
01:22
universe and my place in that universe.
01:24
And as we let that happen, as we allow ourselves to fall into the vast endlessness of passive
01:30
scrolling, we allow the information we ingest, and the algorithms feeding us that information,
01:37
to shape who we are as people--to shape how we think, what we value, whom we trust, and
01:44
what we do.
01:45
Much attention has rightly been paid to the ways that misinformation and disinformation
01:49
are shaping our political and social discourse, but they are also shaping us--as individuals
01:55
and as communities.
01:57
Getting better at evaluating information means becoming a better citizen of the communities
02:02
where you live; it also means become a better informed and more engaged person.
02:06
I love the Internet.
02:08
As a child in the early 1990s, I felt isolated and struggled socially, and the Internet helped
02:13
me feel less alone and better connected to nerdy, weird people who were like me.
02:18
It has made us a closer species and given voice to people who otherwise would not have
02:23
been heard.
02:24
I am not here to attack the Internet.
02:25
I’m also not here to celebrate one ideology’s misinformation over another’s.
02:31
Everyone is susceptible to being misled online, and anyone who believes themselves to be somehow
02:37
immune to misinformation is, in fact, especially susceptible to it.
02:42
Instead, I want to share with you proven methods for evaluating the quality of information
02:47
you encounter online, and for becoming a more active consumer of information.
02:51
You may be wondering, how is this different from your crash course in Media Literacy.
02:56
Well, in some ways that was more of an academic introduction and this is more of a practical
03:02
one.
03:03
This is vocational school for being online
03:06
Internet is different for each of us--and never more so than in this era of endlessly
03:11
personalized and customized information flow.
03:14
So I don’t know if we’re going to figure out how to fix the Internet in the next ten
03:20
weeks, but each of us can improve our approach to information on the Internet.
03:26
To do this, Crash Course is working with MediaWise, a project from the Poynter Institute designed
03:31
to help students evaluate the accuracy of digital information.
03:35
Mediawise--and so indirectly this series--is funded by Google, which owns YouTube.
03:41
Google also loaned Crash Course its initial funding way back in 2011, although we eventually
03:46
paid them back.
03:47
I’m saying all of this, and will say it again during the series, because it’s important
03:51
to understand where funding comes from when evaluating the accuracy of digital information,
03:56
including when you’re evaluating the accuracy of digital information about evaluating the
04:02
accuracy of digital information.
04:04
It’s evaluating the accuracy of digital information all the way down.
04:08
The curriculum itself we’ll be using was developed by the Stanford History Education
04:12
Group, based around research on civic online reasoning they began in 2015.
04:17
With their help, we’re going to learn how to interact with the Internet the way professional
04:20
fact-checkers do, and along the way maybe also come to understand some of what’s wrong
04:24
with the way our information feeds are working, and how we can tack against the prevailing
04:30
winds of misinformation.
04:31
Thanks for watching; I’ll see you in a few weeks.