KT Lowe | Library Blog - Indiana University East

KT Lowe

Separating fact from non-fact

critical thinking, KT Lowe, newspapers February 6, 2017 Research mdilwort

The buzzwords are legion: Fake news, alternative facts, falsehoods. In the last three months, all these terms have been printed in newspapers, flashed on screens and rehashed on television on a nearly daily basis. It’s difficult to discern reliable data from opinion or lies these days. While there is no single sure-fire method for telling fact from non-fact, here are some tools to help you sort through the news today. Know your news First, it would help to know more about different kinds of inauthentic news sources. Fake news: While it’s simple to say that fake news is simply news that isn’t real, the truth is more complicated than that. According to media scientist Melissa Zimdars, fake news falls under … Continued

IU East Math Counts! Tutor Proves Innovation + Teaching = Success

Kaylyn Flora, KT Lowe, Math Counts, service learning, tutoring January 30, 2017 Ann Tobin, outreach mdilwort

Math has always been one of Ashton Fee’s strong suits. When Ann Tobin, Service-Learning Liaison, asked her to tutor for the Math Counts! program over the summer, she was more than enthusiastic to join. Ashton, a sophomore at Indiana University East with a major in Elementary Education and a minor in Early Education, has been a welcome addition to the program ever since. Math Counts!, which has served over 75 students to date, began in February 2016 after a successful summer tutoring program at IU East in 2015. Recognizing that the community need for tutors would remain even after the end of summer, Tobin applied for and received a Chancellor’s Innovation Grant to pay tutors for sharing their math skills … Continued

On the Lookout for Fake News

critical thinking, KT Lowe, website evaluation January 9, 2017 Library Resources, Research mdilwort

Did you hear that taurine can reverse the effects of tinnitus? Or that a man named Tom Ogle invented a carburetor that runs entirely on fuel vapors? Maybe you did, but hopefully you didn’t believe those stories – because they’re not true. Fake news is legion these days. According to Merrimack College professor Melissa Zimdars, fake news comes in one of four categories: 1 – Completely false news, with no factual basis 2 – News that is misleading or inaccurate 3 – News stories with attention grabbing headlines that may not have anything to do with their article’s content 4 – Satirical sites, whose content is meant to invoke humor And it’s not always easy to tell fake news from … Continued

Top Ten IU East Library Resources, according to KT

KT Lowe November 28, 2016 Library Resources mdilwort

I’m a librarian. My job is to help people find the resources they need, whether it’s for a project, paper, speech, or simply for enjoyment. But that doesn’t mean I don’t entertain myself sometimes, too. I’ve provided here a list of my top ten favorite resources, which you might find useful, intriguing or fun as well. 10: IU East Children’s Library IU East has a diverse children’s section, with books ranging from classics to bilingual materials in Spanish and English. For education students, we have a variety of curriculum materials. Plus, any collection with Clifford the Big Red Dog must be worth exploring, right? 9: ILLiad The Campus Library has great resources but we don’t have everything. ILLiad, our Inter-Library … Continued

Authority, accuracy, transparency and more: tips for being media literate

critical thinking, information literacy, KT Lowe November 14, 2016 Library Resources, Research mdilwort

Misinformation, either accidentally or intentionally, is prevalent online and it’s up to you to decipher fact from fiction. The ability to analyze, assess, evaluate, create and act on media is called media literacy. Similar to books and websites, media can be “read” for its content and educational value. Any work of media – a YouTube video, a news article, an alternative health website – can be viewed critically, using a set of criteria that can help you decide whether or not to trust it. For example, let’s say you’re researching why leaves change color in the fall. You stumble across an article on a naturopathic site which claims that leaves change as a result of pollution. The article has an … Continued