For centuries, literacy has referred to the ability to read and write. Today, we get most of our information through an interwoven system of media technologies. The ability to read many types of media has become an essential skill in the 21st Century. Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media. Media literate youth and adults are better able to understand the complex messages we receive from television, radio, Internet, newspapers, magazines, books, billboards, video games, music, and all other forms of media. Media literacy skills can help youth and adults: - develop critical thinking skills, - understand how media messages shape our culture and society, - recognize what the media maker wants us to believe or do, - name the techniques of persuasion used, - recognize bias, spin, misinformation, and lies, - evaluate media messages based on our own experiences, skills, beliefs, and values, - create and distribute our own media messages, - advocate for media justice. Media education is a powerful way of contributing to achieve the sustainable development goals. Information and media literacy skills is a good way to improve the autonomy of individuals of any society and allow them to participate more fully in their country’s political, economical, social and cultural life. In this crucial area the needs are immense. Let´s: "My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style".
Literacy has been about reading and writing for centuries. Today, we get most of our information through an intertwined system of media technologies. The ability to read many types of media has become a basic skill in the 21st century. In the project, we worked with 12 - 15 year old students and taught them how to access the media, analyze them, evaluate and create them. The aim of the project was to contribute to the education and training of media literate youth to better understand complex news from television, radio, the Internet, newspapers and magazines. The project preferred the following media education skills: - ability to think critically, - recognition of misinformation and lies, - evaluation of media reports on the basis of one's own experience and values, - creating and distributing your own media reports. The tasks set out in the project have been completed. While working on project tasks, its participants encountered various genres and types of media products. Teachers / schools exchanged experiences in teaching media education, made available their own procedures, forms of work and exchanged methods of good practice. Teachers took part in open lessons, where colleagues showed how they engage in media education, what forms of work they use. During the educational and teaching activities, students created newspapers about the partnership. The children worked in groups and wrote an editorial, reports on impressions from the country visited, articles about school activities, blogs about their school, took photos, learned to work with photography, edited them, did interviews, collaborated on the graphic design of newspapers, made short film shots. In their next activity, they dealt with advertising, talked to advertising professionals, learned about its role in the media, created their own advertising items and wrote advertising slogans. they talked about internet portals for young people. The students also created a joint page on Instagram, where they published topics of interest to them, photographs, art and documentaries. They discussed important topics, such as ethics in the media, manipulation, hoax, hatred, cyberbullying They sought out and presented their experience with fake reports. The work with the creation of an animated film about a national hero was very stimulating and interesting. The countries presented their national hero on the website of a joint online newspaper, about which they then made a short animated film and presented it in a short article in an online magazine. Participants in project activities visited television and radio studios, newspaper publishers. They discussed with journalists about their work, the topics they deal with. They discussed with investigative journalists about their way of working, how they obtain information, etc. They had the opportunity to present this project to the audience. The project was positively perceived by the local community. The regions were informed about the activities in the periodical regional press, resp. parents and other interested parties took part in Erasmus + festivals, where the results of project meetings with partners and many school activities of the project were presented. We have fulfilled the tasks set out in the project. With a project about media and media education, we opened the door to students for a large media space.