The Hashtag project deals with the impact of modern media and teaching media literacy in different European countries. Modern media have become increasingly significant in our daily lives, the school environment and the working world. Generally, the project focuses on the opportunities but also on the dangers of modern media. We focus on students’ media habits, social networks, modern media in general and at school, the dangers on the net and demands of the working world. Within each topic we keep in mind that today’s students are both consumers and producers on the net and we take our starting point from the daily lives and experiences of the students and move on to social,cultural and political issues. Teachers should motivate students to participate in political processes and thus fulfil their role as responsible European citizens. Modern media have the potential to encourage students to find new means of participation. Since modern media connect people all over the world, they can help overcome prejudices and barriers between countries but also between teachers and students at the participating schools. Six secondary schools from Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy, Malta and Spain will participate in the project. All schools will mainly focus on broadening their students' horizons and offering experiences by participating in such thematically attractive project. Within the topic of students’ media habits we propose to conduct surveys on the whole range of students’ use of modern media. When dealing with the role and impact of social networks we focus on opportunities and dangers, discuss the differences of usage and perception among members of different generations. Regarding various other tasks, like presenting the modern school or developing their own digital CV, the students will have to tackle new tasks by using new tools, like their own cell phone for interviewsor apps like adobe spark or instagram and thus including common modern media in the school environment. For each topic there will be detailed tasks with guidelines provided by the international teachers’ teams. Hereby , the participants tried to focus on a large variety of different methodological competences to address different competences of all the involved particpants.All tasks and results will be published on the web and thus be available to everyone. In the course of the project teaching materials are produced which can also be used by other teachers and schools. The participating students and teachers will improve their ICT-skills and benefit from each other’s knowledge. An essential part of intercultural education is foreign language learning. The lingua franca of our project is English which most of our students will need in their future careers. The cooperation between schools will strengthen the European profile of the schools and lead to the forging of a European identity among students and teachers. The project meetings provide personal contacts between teachers and students and usually lead to long lasting contacts or friendships. Additionally, the project provides opportunities for individual students’ and teachers’ exchanges. Students become more aware of their role as European citizens and their chances of a future working life in a European context. Networking will become increasingly important and schools should provide opportunities for the students to develop their networking skills. Teaching ICT skills helps prepare students for the challenges in the 21st century. The project will be a platform where students and teachers can exchange ideas on how to benefit from modern media in Europe.
The Hashtag project dealt with the impact of modern media and teaching media literacy in different European countries. Modern media have become increasingly significant in our daily lives, the school environment and the working world. Generally, the project focused on the opportunities but also on the dangers of modern media, as well as students' usage of modern media in their allday lives. We focused on students’ media habits, social networks, modern media in general and at school, the dangers on the net and demands of the working world. (see results platform and website) Within each topic we tried to keep in mind that today’s students are both consumers and producers on the net and we took our starting point from the daily lives and experiences of the students (their own modern media usage in all day life, at school and their expectations for the future) and consequently moved on to social,cultural and political issues. Teachers successfully motivated students to participate in political processes and thus fulfil their role as responsible European citizens by participating in this project. Throughout the project students learned and came to appreciate a new angle, that modern media have the potential to encourage students to find new means of participation. Since modern media connect people all over the world, students realized that digitalisation and modern media can help overcome prejudices and barriers between countries but also between teachers and students at the participating schools. Six secondary schools from Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy, Malta and Spain participated mostly successfully and reliably in the project . Having completed the project after 36 months, all schools agreed that broadening their students' horizons and offering experiences by participating in such thematically attractive project was achieved successfully. Within the topic of students’ media habits , some schools conducted surveys on the whole range of students’ use of modern media which was not possible everywhere to school organizational issues. But working with and discussing the results at a project meeting was quite an eye-opener for all the participants. When dealing with the role and impact of social networks afterwards we focused on opportunities and dangers presented by the students and discussed in our national project groups the differences of usage of modern media - also in different age groups and generation - , as well as the different perception of their importance. Various other tasks, like presenting the modern school or developing their own digital CV (see website and project results platform), confronted the students with new tools like genial.ly, google docs or video cutting software. They even learned to use their own cell phone as a recording devices for interviews or current visualisation apps like adobe spark or the above mentioned genial.ly.a Thus, both students and teachers broadened their knowledge about technological possibilities and including common modern media in the school environment as a result of the international exchange. For each topic teachers developed detailed tasks with guidelines provided by the international teachers’ teams. Hereby , the participants successfully included a large variety of different methodological competences to address and strengthen different competences of all the involved particpants - both students and teachers. All tasks and results were at first published for easy access in a google drive folder, then made available to everyone on the project website. The maintenance of the project website was outsourced to an external partner. As a result of this decision and due to the COVID 19 pandemic, it turned out to be problematic to keep the website up to date. That's why many results could not be found on the website, but on the project results website. Nevertheless, those teaching materials developed in this project can be used by other teachers and schools as an successful enrichment to national curriculas. Generally, it can be said that the studnets imporved their ICT-skills, benefited a lot from each other’s knowledge and strengthened cooperational skills, also over international boarders. By improving their English skills during the project, another part of intercultural learning was realized successfully. All participating schools felts their European profile to be strengthened as a result of the inter-European cooperation. This led and will in the long run lead to the forging of a European identity among the participants. Project meetings helped with personal contacts and led to lasting contacts/friendships. Besides improving their ICT skills Students confirmed becoming more aware of their own networking skills, their role as European citizens and their chances of a future working life in a European context.