As a student of history in 2025, your ability to sort information is the fundamental skill of historical thinking. Writing, analysis, and presentation build on your ability to first decide if information is worthwhile. Here are five facts to consider:

1. 96% of the American adults use the internet. (https://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/) We use the internet to learn new information.
2. There are more lies and distortions on the internet than evidence-based information. *
3. Tracking on the web is near ubiquitous. This means that your digital identity shapes what information is available to you. For an example of this, with your friend, type in an address into a map app and see what businesses are shown around that address.
4. Artificial intelligence (Ai) is, like a toxic invasive species, taking over the general web with unedited and unsupported content.
5. Two-thirds of all searches result in no-clicks on the results. When people do click, 29% of clicks go to a Google product.

When we consider the centrality of the internet to learning, the abundance of bad information, and the fact that searches are increasingly not resulting in clicks, we need to shift the way we learn history, and that starts with becoming information literate.

Each lesson has multiple pages and activities. After clicking through to each lesson you can use the list of links at the bottom of the first page to navigate, or just click through using the "Next up:" link under the main text.

We will do Lesson 1-5 during week 1.

✏️ NOTE: Please answer the questions in Lesson 1-5 in your Assignment file. Please answer with complete sentences, but briefly. It’s more important to finish the assignment and answer all the questions than to answer some questions in depth.

<aside> 💡 Instructions for setting up your assignment file in either google or Office 365.

Office 365 (supported by Normandale)

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• (Noble, Safiya Umoja. Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: New York University Press, 2018. Wineburg, Samuel S. Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Next up: Lesson One: Introduction to SIFT

All Lessons