Spot the Troll - Can You Spot Fake Social Media Accounts?

 

Spot the Troll is a quiz game that I recently learned about from Lee LeFever at Common Craft. Spot the Troll was developed by Clemson University's Media Forensics Lab as a way to educate people about deceptive social media accounts. 

Spot the Troll presents players with eight social media profiles. Based on the clues in the profiles players have to decide if the social media profile is genuine or a fake designed to spread misinformation. Players get instant feedback after making a guess at whether each account is real or fake. Whether or not the player is correct or incorrect Spot the Troll provides an explanation the signs that the account was real or fake. 

I played Spot the Troll this morning and found it to be a little trickier than I expected. It was also a bit more detailed than I expected. 

Applications for Education 
Before you have your students play Spot the Troll you should play the game yourself. Some of the profiles include content that might not be appropriate for your students. I definitely would not have kids younger than high school age play the game. That said, playing Spot the Troll could be an informative activity for high school students.

If you play through the game and find that some of the profiles aren't appropriate for your classroom, consider using some excerpts from the game to create your own lesson on spotting fake social media accounts. 

Jamboard is Now Integrated Into Google Meet

 

Back in June Google started teasing the possibility of Jamboard being integrated into Google Meet. The possibility has come to fruition as yesterday afternoon Google announced that Jamboard is now integrated into Google Meet.

Jamboard can be launched inside of Google Meet by opening the small sandwich menu (the three little dots in the lower, right corner) then choosing "whiteboard." Everyone who is in the meeting will be able to draw on the whiteboard. The best part is that because the whiteboard is a Jamboard, it will save in your Google Drive where you can then share it again for further use after a meeting has ended. 

I'm sure that you already have some ideas for how to use a whiteboard in Google Meet. These are the ideas that jumped into my mind as soon as I read the announcement from Google. 

• Mind mapping.
• Collaborating on flowcharts.
• Brainstorming sessions.
• Math lessons.
• Illustrating a sequence of events.
• Drawing on top of an image.
• Virtual gallery walks (remember that Jamboard allows you to have multiple pages).

Launching Jamboard in Google Meet is available now for some users and will be rolling out to all users over the next couple of weeks. If you don't see it today, keep checking back. 

On a related note, I recently published an overview of how to use Jamboard in Google Classroom. 

A Crash Course in Making & Teaching With Video

About a month ago I hosted a Practical Ed Tech webinar titled A Crash Course in Making and Teaching With Video. In the weeks since I hosted that webinar I've had a bunch of requests to host it again. So that's what I'm going to do next Tuesday (September 29th) at 4pm ET. 

This school year has going to have many of us teaching students in our classrooms as well as students online. For many of us that means we’re making instructional videos to address the needs of in-person and online students. If you find yourself needing to make instructional videos, but you’re not sure how best to do it, this webinar is for you! 

In this 75 minute webinar you’ll learn: 

• How to plan an instructional video. 
• Three simple and quick ways to make instructional videos. 
• How to share your videos with your students with and without using YouTube. 
• How to make sure your students actually watch your videos. 
• Tips for improving your videos regardless of the equipment you use. 

Your Registration includes: 

• Live webinar with Q&A. 
• Access to the recording of the webinar. 
• Handouts. 
• PD Certificate

Cost:

• $25

Register Here!

About the cost:

I announce the Practical Ed Tech webinars on this blog because the registrations from the webinars go to keeping the lights on at Free Technology for Teachers. I use GoToWebinar to for hosting the webinars and recordings. GoToWebinar is not cheap, but it is the best webinar platform out there (I've tried them all over the years). And while all the tools featured in the webinars are available for free, my time for teaching isn't free.