Improvment and dissemination of media literacy education via virtual learning

“The competence to live and work in an increasingly diverse society and active Citizenship” identified under the framework European Priorities of Leonardo Da Vinci is closely related to European Union vision of media literacy education: Active Citizenship and Political Awareness. Therefore, it’s significant that efforts towards media literacy education are endorsed with the convenient nature of “practices relevant to the acquisition of key competences”. Discussions about media literacy education are followed by the initiative of RTUK and MEB in Turkey. According to Ministry of Education data, media literacy lesson is provided for more than 1 million primary school students each year and implemented by teachers involved. Therefore, some studies have been conducted by RTUK and MEB for teacher training to equip those teachers with necessary information and skills on media literacy. These studies bear most limitations of classical in-service training: they can only reach to a limited number of teachers, they provide an accelerated training for several days, it’s hard to maintain them on a sustainable basis and above all, necessary educational materials cannot be updated. Academic studies on the subject state that it became necessary to meet educational demands of teachers in an effective and sustainable way in order to eliminate the failures of the program. Media Literacy Education Project is of vital importance and an innovative initiative in Turkey in the field of media literacy, the necessity of which is acknowledged by relevant public authorities and which contains concrete solutions. But, this initiative should be periodically evaluated and training programs should be improved and disseminated. The professional improvement and education services provided in the field of media literacy is of crucial importance for Vocational Schools of Communication which raise qualified interim workforce demanded by the industry: Media literacy education mainly deals with “reading” and “writing” in relation to media. That said, it becomes more important that the students produce media themselves. The project embarks upon this problem; seeks to improve professional standards of teachers who give media/media literacy courses and to provide their educational requirements through an online virtual environment on a sustainable basis along with the organization of professional improvement and educational resource services through modern means. The virtual learning environment which will be established under the project aims to submit the multimedia and links databases along with interrelated subjects to the access of all users simultaneously, and to provide sustainable training through online training modules, as well as necessary facilities and technological infrastructure for accurate and complete learning. The project is planned on an 18 months basis and seeks to transfer European Centre for Media Literacy Project outcomes through partnership of same institutions.

Team:

• Dipl.-M.b. Sylvana Kroop (project leader)

Section: Technology and Knowledge

Partners:

• Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
• Medya ve Kültür Araştırmaları Derneği
• Ministry of National Education General Directorate of Teacher Training and Education of Turkey
• Erciyes Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi (Coordinator)