Today’s students are digital natives, but are they digitally literate? In this Classroom #Decoder, guest writer Michael Leedom of the University of Toronto surveys media literacy curriculums around the globe, finding that media literacy education in Finland may be the world’s most robust.

Exercise: Read the article with your class, then have students try their hand at “lateral reading”. This is defined in the text as “checking the credibility of a claim by consulting other sources. Rather than remaining on a website with questionable information to find answers, known as ‘vertical reading’, students are taught to open a new tab and see if new information conflicts with what more trusted websites offer.” Present students with a web page and have them verify the credibility of that page by practicing lateral reading.