Digital Citizenship & Media Literacy — Making Connections

Purpose & objective

Purpose:
This poster session will focus on the project «Digital Citizenship Education for Democratic Participation» (2015-2018), which centers on empowering children (aged 3 to 9) in three related contexts: family, school and community with digital citizenship/media literacy. We began training 25 Preschool and Primary school teachers who developed digital media literacy activities involving 366 of their students. Activities focused on producing and discussing on media, online news analysis, communicating and learning through media and advertisement critical analysis. In March 2016, we began a longitudinal action research involving eight out of the 25 teachers who agreed to develop digital citizenship activities with their students. Parents and their children were interviewed on digital literacy practices and mediation, as well as the boards of local community entities dealing with children. Results showed that through professional development training, teachers were able to develop digital literacy activities without deviating from their previous pedagogical plans.

As part of the educational process, several resources were produced including an online school newspaper production platform and a support manual. As a part of the implementation process, professional opportunities were given to teachers involved in the project in the form of a training course in Media Education to Digital Citizenship. The findings of this project showed that the teachers developed effective media education activities, often with an interdisciplinary basis. The students became more autonomous in these productions, more critical in their analysis of media messages and gave more consideration to what they produced resulting in quality newspaper production. The project details the use of school newspapers and their production in schools.

Objectives:
1. A lack of research in actual schools in Portugal where there is collaboration between researchers, teachers, representatives from the media and political decision-makers.
2. The existence of educational resources which are valid for specialists, teachers and students.
3. The introductory and continuing training of teachers.
4. The insufficient curricular development. Despite these facts, the four main difficulties identified for the purpose of this study are:
1. A lack of research in actual schools where there is collaboration between researchers, teachers, representatives from the media and political decision-makers.
2. The non-existence of educational resources which are valid for specialists, teachers and students.
3. The weak or non-existent introductory and continuing training of teachers.
4. The curricular development of online resources.

Supporting research

-De Abreu, B. and Tomé, V. (2017). Mobile Learning Through Digital Media Literacy. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

-Frau-Meigs, D. & Torrent, J. (2009). Media Education Policy: Towards A Global Rationalle”, in “Mapping Media Education Policies in the World – Visions, Programmes and Challenges, 2009, New York: UN – Alliance of Civilizations, p.15-25.

-Rivoltella, P. (2007). Realidad y desafíos de la educación en medios en Italia. Comunicar, 28, 17-24.

-Tomé, V. and De Abreu, B. (2016). “Developing Digital Citizenship in Children Aged from 3 to 9—A Pilot Project in the Portuguese Region of Odivelas.” Media Education – Studi, ricerche, buone pratiche, Volume 7, Number 2, pp. 215-233.

-UNESCO (2007). Agenda de Paris ou 12 recommandations pour l’Éducation aux Médias.http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/IMG/pdf/AgendaParisFinal_fr.pdf (acceded December 17th 2007).