Tech Tool Review: Checkology

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Hello! This week, I explored Checkology, a free classroom platform that was developed by the News Literacy Project for students in grades 8-12. This tech tool was designed to teach students how to think critically about the information they see online, especially in the news and on social media. The platform offers interactive lessons that cover topics like misinformation, bias, conspiracy theories, the role of journalism, and more.

Checkology offers free lessons on these topics that are led/created by real journalists and media experts. The content is delivered through videos, games, matching activities, and built in assessments, all designed to help keep students engaged in the lesson. The platform is student centered, allowing learners to move at their own pace, and provides feedback as they go. Teachers can create classes, assign lessons, and track progress right on the website as well. There’s no installation needed to run Checkology because the program runs in your browser, which makes it flexible for classroom, library, and remote learning settings.

In a school library, Checkology could be a great resource during digital citizenship or media literacy units. For example, you could use the "Misinfo 101" lesson to help students learn how to identify and debunk misinformation. After students complete the lesson you could host a mini “fact-check challenge” using real (school-appropriate) examples of viral misinformation. In the classroom, teachers might use Checkology as part of a unit on argumentative writing, civic literacy, or current events. The “Arguments and Evidence” module is perfect for teaching students how to evaluate sources and back up their claims with credible information. There are also built in before and after assessments that help measure growth, which is great for tracking learning outcomes over time.

After playing around with the program and looking through the resources, I would recommend Checkology for upper middle and high school classrooms and libraries. As someone who is going to be starting a new job at a school library this fall, I think this could be a great tool to try out with the upper grades. This tech tool seems to be full of valuable resources that can be used for building media literacy and critical thinking skills in students.

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