Teachers in the three partner-schools have commonly noticed that their pupils are frequent users of social media and most of the time they are looking for information on internet but they never question the reliability of their sources. What matters to us, as teachers, is to show them how to cross information (national information and international information) to be fairly informed and to make up their mind. Young people nowadays are more and more dealing with media of all kinds, the news are spreading rapidly and teenagers feel like they’re having a fast-pace and easy access to information thanks to these media. However they’ve got to understand that the same news is not treated the same way according to the country where it is dealt with. Thus to see and compare the differences in the way the news is treated according to the different international media will allow the pupils to recognize /spot the cultural aspect behind each national media. They will also learn, by the way, to be accustomed to the way the other nations “think” and to their ways and means. In case they travel they will better adapt themselves thanks to this knowledge of the other countries and will also better understand foreign mentalities. In the end, not only will they improve their linguistic skills (in English and German) but they will also be more open-minded and will certainly long to travel all over Europe. The common project whose goal is to make our pupils act in a responsible way when they are dealing with the media (and make sure they will become autonomous and efficient) will enable them to realize that among Europe and despite the cultural differences, many countries share common values. At the end of the project, the pupils from the three partner-schools will have to create a “good user guide on how to efficiently use the media to be fairly informed”. This guide will be available in each school participating at the project, in German and in English, in the form of a “paper-guide” available in every school library but also in the form of an “e-guide” broadcast on every school website. This guide will give useful tips to efficiently unmask fake news and to check the sources of the information provided. The activities and school meetings common to the three partner-schools aim at making pupils get accustomed to the way they can efficiently deal with any kind of media. Every two months they will create a newsletter dealing with what’s going on at school and in their towns or regions. This newsletter will be broadcast on the Twinspace platform. Based on a group work, they will also create a tv news bulletin in which will be included reliable and fake news to train them to be an efficient audience. That will also be a way to understand how news are broadcast or how they can sometimes be fabricated. All the pupils, the teachers participating at the project will learn how to use softwares like Photoshop and other video-editing softwares. They will be taught as well to analyze algorithms which can influence the broadcasting / spreading of fake news. During the school exchanges, the pupils hosted will attend lessons in French, German or Turkish schools. During the school exchange in France, they will visit the European parliament in Strasbourg. The “good user guide on how to efficiently use the media to be fairly informed” will be created gathering the results of all the scheduled activities (e-activities and “real activities” while visiting the partner countries). After that two-year project, all the participants (pupils and teachers included) will be perfectly trained to unmask fake news and will be able to teach that method. They will be reliable peers to explain how the different kinds of media operate and will know more about the jobs of the media sector. They will efficiently check the sources of the information they’ve found. In the end, they will be autonomous and responsible users of media. What’s more they will be good at collaborating with foreign partners communicating in English or German. This project will strongly impact on the lives of the students participating at the project : they will have the opportunity to get acquainted with students from other countries, they will discover new cultures and will travel in foreign countries. The exchanges will allow them to get accustomed to the ways and means of other European countries. Thus they will certainly be motivated to keep on traveling and improving their speaking skills in foreign languages. What’s more the project will enable all the pupils from the three partner-schools to become responsible and autonomous users of media. The parents of the students attending the three partner-schools and the local community of each school, will also have the chance to learn more about media in general and the way information is treated differently in every country thanks to conferences, exhibitions and school websites presenting the students’ activities dealing with the project.
After noticing that many young people do not know how to use media and social networks in a responsible way, we decided to work on the subject of “fake news” and looked for potential partners on the E-twinning platform. The Turkish high school named Namik Karamanci Fen Liesi located in Manavgat near Antalya and the German high school named Städtisches Gymnasium Ahlen from Ahlen were interested in the project right from the start and together we applied for a validation of our project entitled “Unmask fake news to be a fairly informed citizen” on the Erasmus+ platform. The first goal of that project was to help students to be fairly informed so as to avoid the trap of “fake news”. Thanks to this project, pupils could become aware of their responsibility when looking for and sharing information. They would also become aware of their status of European citizens. Not only would pupils improve their language skills while communicating for real or online but they would also improve their digital skills using special apps and Word processing software. The three schools participating in the exchange are all dedicated to international exchanges. The three countries organizing the project aimed at opening their students to the realm of European citizenship and at promoting a coherent approach of education. They also wanted to promote foreign language learning. Activities implemented : From the very beginning different workshops were implemented to publicize the project and to introduce the participants. All along the implementation of the project, pupils were able to edit “newsletters” helped by their teachers to take stock of the health situation in every country and to compare the way the same information was dealt with in different international media. Beforehand the pupils had launched a survey on media to publish reliable statistics in the first newsletter. During the mobilities in France and in Turkey, encounters and discussions with professionals of the media sector were organized, as well as visits of radio stations or news magazine premises, to work on the implementation of the final product of this project which was the creation of the guide of the good user of media. This guide is available in English in digital format on the Erasmus+ results platform and on the different school websites. Pupils have made much progress in terms of methods to analyze information, their knowledge newly acquired has allowed them to create the guide of the good media user in paper format and in digital format. This project has also been a way to improve their digital skills like managing collaborative apps, dealing with a virtual conference room etc… Communicating in English all along the project helped the pupils realize they had improved their level in English and had acquired precise vocabulary specialized in the field of media. Impacts on participants : The students have become more confident after all the progress made in various fields like : speaking in public, communicating in English and using digital softwares. As for the teachers participating in the project, they have acquired new organizational skills and they feel better at managing international projects while improving their digital skills. They are eager to start new European partnerships as soon as possible. The encounters with professionals of the media have enriched the knowledge pupils had of that working sector. What’s more, thanks to the implementation of the project, pupils have learnt new methods to process and analyze information. These methods newly acquired will help them in their future studies at the university next year. Both schools have built strong partnership with local and international partners specialized in the sector of media, which represents a “pool” of professionals ready to participate in school workshops dealing with media and communication. In France and in Turkey, city councils, parent association committees, local information networks have collaborated to help the Erasmus+ project flourish. This collaboration has allowed representatives of different working sectors to work together on a common project beneficial for local communities.