Factitious is a game for testing your skill at identifying fake and misleading news stories. The game was developed by the American University Game Lab and the American University’s School of Communication. I learned about the game last month when Larry Ferlazzo featured it and I have since shared it in a couple of professional development workshops. It was a hit in both workshops in which I shared it with teachers.

To play Factitious simply go to the site and select quick start. You’ll then see an article appear on the screen. Read through the article, click the source listed at the bottom, and then select either the green check mark or red X to indicate whether or not you think the article is a real news story. After you make your selection you’ll get instant feedback and an explanation of how you can tell if the article was a real or fake news story.

Factitious does offer the option to create an account to save your progress in a game, but you don’t need to create an account in order to play the game in “quick start” mode.

Applications for Education
Factitious could be a great game to have students play at the conclusion of a larger lesson about evaluating the credibility of websites. If you don’t want to have students play the game on their own, you could print the articles listed in the game and use them as part of lesson that you teach to your class.