What makes media literacy effective?
AverPoint helps you make media literacy a dynamic, daily practice on the real internet. Media literacy has to be effortless and automatic in the age of AI, algorithms, and smartphones. That does not happen through static, one-off lessons in walled gardens.
AverPoint helps teachers
Measure student engagement with readings
Our Conscious Reading feature breaks down each student’s reading, whether on the real web or inside our app.
Measure close reading and critical thinking
The Credibility Layer lets students responsibly question, review, and add evidence to claims on any website.
Improve evidence-based writing
The AverPoint Writer helps students form their own arguments with evidence gathered from class readings.
AverPoint helps students
Understand and improve their media diet
Responsibly critique what they read
Form their own ideas backed by evidence
Restore trust in information and each other
AverPoint fits into your existing classroom
AverPoint lets social studies teachers integrate media literacy lessons into existing classes.
AP Government
AP US History
Current Events
World History
Journalism
Reinforces curriculum
We designed AverPoint to reinforce the teaching goals outlined in four standards:
The Stanford History Education GroupThe College Board - AP GovernmentThe Common CoreState standardsLMS Integration
AverPoint currently integrates with...
Google Classroom
Canvas
SchoologyIf you’d like instructions or request another LMS, let us know. We can work with LTI 1.1 and LTI 1.3
AverPoint addresses your concerns
Manage the Political Divide
AverPoint is content agnostic. We let teachers assign readings that fit their class, school’s curriculum, and community realities. Our credibility layer encourages students to responsibly question and critique every article. The emphasis on autonomy overcomes concerns about bias or indoctrination.
Transparent and fair article recommendations
AverPoint’s newsfeed shows you a list of articles, and we are transparent about our algorithm and how each article was chosen.
Data Security
For all users, we use industry best practices to transmit and secure your information. Our servers, databases, and identity management run on Amazon Web Services. Our custom package gives you the option of using a private server and database, where only you know the password.
Data Control
Students and teachers opt-in to features that save their data, and can change these settings at any time. If districts are comfortable with extensions, students can measure their reading engagement on real websites. If districts are not, students can experience all our features inside our reading app - a walled garden that doesn’t require an extension.
Cognitive Media Literacy
AverPoint is grounded in the cognitive theory of media literacy, which defines media literacy as
autonomy over one’s media consumption and the meaning one makes from the media.
Why a “cognitive” approach?
Media literacy lessons usually emphasize critical thinking skills. But today’s media products paralyze critical thinking by exploiting our cognition. This diminishes even the smartest among us.
The products do this by measuring what we watch, click, share, etc. They use this data to trigger our emotions, confirm our bias, and appeal to our identity.
Cognitive media literacy builds resilience to these techniques and enables critical thinking
It develops each person’s
- Knowledge about the media and subject
- Critical thinking skills
- Personal drive to apply one’s skills and knowledge
The problem is cognitive, and the solution must be too.
The Information Crisis is the Problem of our Time
Today’s information crisis has unraveled our social fabric, our election, our public health, and our minds. Our children are anxious, depressed, and worse.
Parents, teachers, and school leaders have no greater mandate than to fix this.
