Squiz Kids, Australia's leading daily news podcast for children, is launching a new version of Newshounds, a free classroom resource aimed at teaching primary school students to identify misinformation online. The launch aligns with Media Literacy Week (October 21-25) and has already seen over 3,500 Australian classrooms sign up for the pilot version of Newshounds.

Newshounds 2.0 boasts a streamlined user interface, updated content covering artificial intelligence, and a refreshed virtual game board. The program, supported by the Google News Initiative, also includes new lessons on deepfakes and AI-generated content, teacher-friendly features, a revamped curriculum-mapping tool, a new gamified virtual environment, and new videos and workbooks.

Squiz Kids Director, Bryce Corbett, said: “We launched the Newshounds pilot just over eighteen months ago, to see if there might be an appetite among Australian parents and educators for a free resource teaching lids to spot misinformation when they come across it online.” He added, “With over 3,500 classrooms signing up, the response was an emphatic ‘yes’. So we’ve recalibrated, reinvested, consulted with teachers and come up with a new improved version of Newshounds”.

“In its short existence, Newshounds has become the premier media literacy tool for primary school students around the country," he added.

The Newshounds program was devised by Squiz Kids’ resident, a fully-qualified primary school teacher, in collaboration with its team of journalists, and refined in consultation with a group of educators. Squiz Kids engages over 160,000 Australian kids and their families every month, including in some 5,000 classrooms around the country.

“Media literacy is more critical than ever. With fake news on the rise and AI complicating what’s real and what’s not, the Newshounds program empowers teachers to make kids critical consumers of the information they see online. We're excited to be part of this vital shift in how future generations engage with news," said Corbett.