With 24/7 access to online information, the need for revised media literacy teaching methods became urgent. The project focused on equipping teachers with a teaching approach and ways to equip students with the skills to be responsible consumers and creators of media. It emphasised the use of digital tools and news literacy resources for engaging learning experiences. The project aimed to improve learners' skills and strengthen intercultural understanding. Participants exchanged ideas with peers from different countries and gained new perspectives. The different backgrounds of the partners enriched the project. The project aimed to improve media literacy by addressing pedagogical challenges and improving social-emotional skills as assessed by PISA. Objectives included teaching students to recognise media manipulation, promoting democratic values and increasing news literacy. Specific objectives were to create a curriculum, provide learning exercises, connect schools with the community and promote critical thinking through debates and workshops. Planned activities included thematic games, workshops on fake news and/or media and international debates to deepen understanding of media literacy and intercultural competence.
The situation in Europe, with a rising nationalist movement and another war, made us feel that we had to dedicate our next project round of European Future to this topic. The term "fake news", which was more or less widely used by former and new president of the United States, Donald Trump, is seen as an important issue in connection with these topics. Students and teachers are frequently exposed to the term in the media and in many cases teachers seem helpless to tackle the topic of fake news or disinformation. For this reason, we wanted to develop a curriculum in the form of a reader that would help teachers to address this issue. The role of the media, the dangers behind fake news and the intentions of the powers behind disinformation are discussed and unfolded so that students can find strategies to deal with the issue. On the other hand, we offer our colleagues a form of help to actively tackle this idea, rather than being afraid of this sensitive topic, including dimensions of the media that most (older) teachers sometimes don't even understand. With the result we want to help European citizens to support the idea of the EU and to strengthen the connections we have, rather than letting nationalistic forces destroy it.