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    © American Values Are, LLC and americanvaluesare.wordpress.com, 2010-2011. Unauthorized use or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to American Values Are, LLC and americanvaluesare.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

ABA Mediation Week 2018

October 2, 2018 — tballeu

American Bar Association (ABA) Mediation week is scheduled this year for October 14-20. The topic this year is “Mediation, Civil Discourse, and ABA 2011 Resolution 108”. Now, or in the coming days, would be a good time to review the various resources provided by the ABA’s Mediation Toolkit. Events will be also held in multiple states. For a list of locations and dates, see the Mediation Week Events List.

Posted in Civic Engagement, Dialogue, Education, Resources. Tags: ABA, Civil Discourse, Engagement, Mediation, Mediation Week. Leave a Comment »

Resources On Information Literacy

August 14, 2018 — sjr

It used to be said that “you can’t believe everything you read on the internet” although apparently many now do.  Information literacy is increasingly an important part of civics education.  There are many good emerging on-line resources available (yes, on the internet!) to help you teach this valuable skill.  Several of these are listed below.

Challenges in Information Literacy:

  • Information Literacy and Comps: Common Challenges and Some Solutions
    • Finding Data and Primary Sources
    • Exploring a Range of Source Types
    • Going Beyond the Sources
  • Information Literacy Instruction in Higher Education: Trends and Issues.
  • The Value of Information Literacy

Possible Lesson Plans:

  • Information Literacy Lesson Plans
    • Why Information Literacy Matters
    • Evaluating Information
  • ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox
    • Fake News: Fight Back
    • Evaluating Online Sources Activity
    • Matters of Authority

Fact-Checking & Resources:

  • Fact Checking & Media Literacy
  • UMass Amherst Libraries – Fake News
  • Fact Checking Resources
    • Politifact
    • Fact Check
    • Snopes
    • Flack Check
Posted in Civic Engagement, Education, Political Participation, Resources. Tags: civic education, fact checking, information literacy, Politics, students. 1 Comment »

Can I Trust What I Read On The Internet?

August 14, 2018 — sjr

The guide below was prepared to help inform readers about using the Internet as a source for discussions. It was put together several years ago by Rachel Brekhus, Humanities Reference Librarian at Ellis Library, University of Missouri-Columbia.


When you find a website with interesting information, don’t trust it automatically.  There is no guarantee that anyone is checking websites for accuracy.  Even sites with basically accurate facts might be selective about WHICH facts they mention, which can also produce distorted information.  You might use these sites, but you may need others to balance them.  Even sites whose information was good  when it was first put up can get out of date.

When you want to use a website, look for an author. This can be a person or an organization such as a university, a “think tank,” a church, or a person affiliated with an organization. Questions to ask about all websites:

  • Who puts up the information? (see further questions below)
  • What’s the motive for putting up the information (see further questions below)
  • How often is the site updated? Good websites should indicate this.

Questions to ask about personal authors:

  • Are they experts in the subject they’re writing about?
    • Ph.D. or Master’s degree in something is a good start, but make sure the credential is for the basic subject they’re talking about. “Fellow” of an institute is not, in itself, a qualification. Anyone can be hired as a “fellow.”
    • If the person is a reporter or other non-expert, do they show some awareness of what experts think?
  • Will they suffer consequences if they tell lies or make factual errors? Journalists in major newspapers usually will. Bloggers may or may not.
  • Do they have a commercial motive to say or not say certain things?
    • is the website owned by a company that sells the product, or a competing product? It probably won’t put up information that will drive its customers away from its products.

The last three questions have to do with organizations authors belong to – they are why you should find out more about the organizations.

Questions to ask about organizations:

Is accurate, reliable information the main selling point or (newspapers, universities, some institutes)?

Do they exist in order to provide information with a particular viewpoint or change people’s minds on a particular issue? (think tanks, some institutes, religious sites)? Look for this information on the organization’s home page and look for what others say about them.

There are also questions that have to do with how the website works. How does the information get there? If there’s a single author or organization who puts up all the information, you can ask the above questions. It’s more complex with blogs, online groups (like Yahoo or Myspace groups) and wikis (like Wikipedia). Some blogs and groups, and all wikis, allow all members to post to the site, or at least edit existing content. Wikis can be especially tricky, because information that might look “definite” or “permanent” might be totally changed if you look at it a few days, or even a few minutes later.

Questions to ask about group-authored sites:

  • Is membership/ability to post restricted to certain people? Which people? Does this make you trust the posted content more or less?
  • Is there any concern with maintaining “quality control?” Is there an editor, or a “reputation” system, and how does that work?
  • In wikis, where do you go to look at earlier versions of the page and see why it was changed?

 

Posted in Civic Engagement, Education, Resources. Tags: Civic Engagement, Education, Literacy, Resources, students. 1 Comment »

Running For Office – Lessons Learned/Confirmed

June 18, 2010 — sjr

Earlier this year I took a break from this blog while I ran for a seat on our local city council.   Going door to door,  I met many thoughtful and politically active people, several of whom expressed discouragement over their ability to be heard or to “make a difference”.   I also talked to many who were unaware of the upcoming election, or who were aware but (in their own words) “hadn’t yet done their homework”.  This was true even the weekend before the election.  Several were reluctant to talk, some apologized that they were too busy to focus, and others simply told me they had too many other things to think about.  Some said they were voting for me or for another candidate based just on the recommendation of a friend or family members, or an organizational affiliation.  Many were eager to share their own thoughts and questions once they realized I would not debate or argue with them and was interested in what they had to say.

We had determined from the outset that we would run a substantive and civil campaign, which by all accounts we did.  Many of our supporters, and even some who were not, thanked us for that.  Both I and the winning candidate in our field of four stressed a need for the council to use more common sense and focus on the basics.  This was a very resonant theme with all of the voters I talked with.  The winning candidate also had an easy-going personality and promised (without much detail) “more jobs and less crime” while I highlighted several complex and interdependent issues that affect our community and the need to work together to solve them.   A third candidate emphasized general “slow growth” and liberal themes.  The final vote was very close.  Overall, I believe that most voters wanted someone who would focus on the delivery of basic services and care about what they had to say.

Stressed out voters, informed or not,  yearn for stability and for reassurance that something can be done to make their world safer, less stressful, and more hopeful.  When voters feel disconnected from the issues put before them, or too tired to sort through constant conflicting streams of information, it’s easy for them to resort to cynicism about the system and the futility of being involved.  We all have become adept at tuning out voices we don’t know or don’t understand.   For this reason final votes often come down more to intuition and personal identification than to information.  It’s a hard call.

If we are going to engage more citizens in developing the policies that affect their lives, we need to provide more relevant information and opportunities for involvement in between elections.  Making the complexities (and potential unintended consequences) of our choices more comprehensible and more accessible will require helping voters to understand the connections between issues.  It will require not only active invitations for citizen input, but also visible, relevant responses to citizen driven efforts.  Relationships of trust and a sense of community are more influential with many voters than the “facts”.  If those in government don’t find ways to build that trust, it will remain difficult to navigate hard issues in productive and efficient ways.  Building trust takes time – more time than an election cycle allows.  Pushing information doesn’t build that trust.  Listening, inviting comment, and responding in thoughtful ways does.  More efforts at authentic dialogue not tied to specific issues could help.  We invite your comment.

Posted in Civic Engagement, Culture, Dialogue, Political Participation. 1 Comment »

Metaphor from the Midwest

December 14, 2009 — Dave L Overfelt

Civic engagement cannot simply be demanded from citizens, it must be cultivated among them.  In this presentation (pdf), we offer a few of our favorite quotes as guidelines for understanding civic engagement as an ongoing process through which citizens gather skills and become more aware of and more involved in the issues that impact their lives.  We hope that you can find some time to reflect on and engage with the issues that impact your community over the holidays.  In the new year help plant and cultivate the seeds of citizenship.

Posted in Civic Engagement, Culture, Dialogue. Tags: Civic Capacity, Dialogue. Leave a Comment »
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