Productive Conversations without Confrontation

When a friend or loved one shares a viral hoax, fabricated photo or conspiracy theory, how do you respond? With the holiday season and a presidential election ahead of us, we can expect to encounter rumors and falsehoods along with heated debate. We each have an opportunity within our networks of influence to build understanding and trust in our democracy. This webinar offers strategies for productive, civil conversations – especially when discussing misinformation.

Experts from the News Literacy Project, the National Institute for Civil Discourse and the League of Women Voters will talk about how and why misinformation manipulates emotions and exploits biases, provide strategies for civil conversation and resources to help you debunk falsehoods in a productive way and discuss opportunities to help your community find reliable election information.

Register here.

Next Level Audio Storytelling: Engaging Student Voice

Free online workshop for grade K-12 educators. Register here!

Ready to help your students share their voices? Podcasts are a great place to start. Students build both traditional literacy and media literacy skills as they research, write and share their learning about any concept or topic of interest. Connect podcasting to a unit you’ve already planned or explore KQED’s Show What You Know Youth Media Challenge project. As always, we’ll get hands-on with scripting and audio production. You’ll leave empowered to do a podcast project with students. This workshop is great for all levels of experience—no prerequisites!

Intro to Audio Storytelling: Soundscape Building Blocks

Free online workshop for grade K-12 educators. Register here!

Get a taste of audio storytelling by exploring ways to use sound to communicate ideas and create a more immersive audio story. In this workshop, we’ll focus on all things soundscape, especially the way sound effects can draw in the listener. You’ll create a sound-rich audio story, then discover ready-to-use resources to start making audio in your classroom. If you’re new to audio, this is a great place to start. And if you’ve already got some experience, you’ll gain new skills and ideas. (Then come back for more on Thursday, Oct 26!)

Artificial Intelligence, ChatPGPT: The Future is Here!

Celebrate U.S. Media Literacy Week by attending this in-person session to learn about the different types of Artificial Intelligence that may shortly have big impacts on our lives. The website ChatGPT and other online AI services have taken the world by storm. The ability of websites that can create text and images from simple commands, called “prompts,” is revolutionizing education, business, and the economy. In this interactive presentation, you will learn about the latest AI tools and also explore the ethical, moral, and legal issues related to this technology that are both exciting and frightening.

Presenter is Jerry Crisci, New City, NY resident; recently retired District Technology Chief at the Scarsdale Central School District. Ten years ago he created the Center for Innovation at Scarsdale. Lastly, in 2022 he was awarded the TELL Award for Outstanding Innovative Leader by the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center of Southern Westchester BOCES.