Published On: December 27th, 2016|

UConn Today – Loretta Waldman

“Fake news and questions about its role in the outcome of the 2016 election have thrust concerns about internet literacy to the forefront. It’s an issue Neag School of Education professor Donald Leu has been studying for years; and the findings of a 10-year-old study he led demonstrating the inadequacies of classroom instruction in “new literacies” has been getting renewed attention. The 2006 study, conducted by Leu and a team of researchers at Neag’s New Literacies Research Lab, asked 25 seventh-graders attending middle schools across Connecticut to review a website devoted to a fictitious endangered species, the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. The results were troubling.”(more)