IN-EDU – INclusive communities through Media literacy & Critical Thinking EDUcation

IN-EDU – INclusive communities through Media literacy & Critical Thinking EDUcation

IN-EDU is a 24 months ERASMUS + KA3 project, started on January 2019 and run by 7 European partners based in IT, BG, FR, HR and SI. FORMA.Azione, EfVET member from Italy, is the Leading organisation.

It focuses on developing good practice in media literacy and critical thinking education via inclusive, non-formal learning programmes which combine training and events at community level. The main aim of the project is to reinforce media literacy and critical thinking among students. The IN-EDU engagement programme does this through interactive activities at local level that encourage activism and participation from teachers, parents and families, and other stakeholders – thus increasing also their awareness, knowledge and competences on the subject.

By working at local level, the project intends to have an impact on the wider communities and play a part in preventing marginalisation and countering inequality. To this aim, 10 lesson plans on MIL – Media and Information Literacy have been developed and made available on the website in BG, IT, HR, EN, FR to support teachers in addressing topics such as information disorder, privacy, online hate speech and discrimination with their students.

The IN-EDU engagement programme is composed of the three following International events:

  1. Training for Trainers, aimed at equipping trainers with the necessary knowledge, competences and tools required to go on and run training sessions in media literacy and Training for teachers at country level in Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia;
  2. Civic Hackathons, taking place in IT, BG, HR and SI, involving diverse groups of students, parents and representatives from civil society, the media and public authorities, aimed at designing community campaigns/actions on critical thinking and media literacy.
  3. International Student Camp, the winners of the national hackathons will convene in Sofia, Bulgaria, for a 4-day student camp. The event includes learning activities, meetings with stakeholders and experts, visits.

IN-EDU represents an interesting practice for other EfVET members because it:

  • Provides ready-to-use lesson plans on media and information literacy which can be freely used by teachers across Europe by picking the most useful resources depending on their context;
  • Has enriched the learning offer for educators/teachers or directly students by adapting the materials and resources on MIL to be used for the training of teachers at national level; in this case the impact has been maximised by having worked to integrate the training into existing accredited channels at national level;
  • Sets a common understanding of media and information literacy, which goes beyond digital competences, thanks to the common methodology and approach developed, empowering the single organisations in taking actions and becoming proactive actors in their communities and internationally on the subject;
  • Has identified practices and approaches to better reach out to disadvantaged groups or groups at risk of social inclusion thanks to the expertise developed by partners with different categories of beneficiaries in schools, among adults and depending on the specificities of the national contexts;
  • Shows how to strengthen the cooperation among different stakeholders at local level to reach common objectives of social inclusion, digital citizenship and media and information literacy.

Some of the so far achieved results are:

  • allowed organisations who work in the same territory – above all schools – to know each other and start cooperating on the topic, overcoming usual distrust and parochialism;
  • paved the way for the capacity building and empowering of teachers, which in our IN-EDU project are considered as crucial enablers for media and information literate citizens/communities;
  • increased awareness on the concepts behind and the relevance of Media and Information Literacy, in the complex and continuously-evolving panorama of medias, for building more equal, non-discriminatory and respectful societies.

At European level, the project has been able to provide a consistent and expert-validated set of training materials and resources in English, Italian, Croatian, Bulgarian and Slovenian to be easily used by schools, educators, NGOs, etc. for strengthening future generations competences, participation and citizenship.

Due to the unpredictable COVID 19 emergency situation IN-EDU partners have re-designed some of the activities planned as in-person meetings and events, by scheduling online initiatives that will start at the end of May with some Short Animated videos explaining key terms, selected from the MIL glossary and will go ahead through the whole summer and beginning of fall, with Facebook live events, Webinars and Radio Interviews. Follow us on the website and check the project infographic.

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