All posts by Angela Rees

Blog

SMaRT-EU Intergenerational Project

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Former partners from MIA, Mind over Media and other great media literacy initiatives have teamed up to produce a Social Media Resilience Toolkit.  SMaRT-EU is an intergenerational project lead by COFAC providing tools, suggestions and resources to train young people, older people and also the intermediaries and educators who work with them.

The tools will provide support in:

  • how to read media – particularly social media;
  • how to navigate with critical consciousness in the saturated and instantaneous informational social media environment;
  • How to use digital media for civic engagement.

SMaRT-EU will work across these two generations and across five European countries  (Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Belgium, and Estonia) and seven languages (English, Portuguese,  Spanish, Croatian, Dutch, Estonian and French) to develop media literacy as a form of resilience against fake news  and disinformation.

In order to do this the project will produce the following outputs:

  • Tools for social media resilience;
  • Participative  activities with local intergenerational community groups;
  • Online platform;
  • Blended-learning activities and reflection;
  • “YouTube news” video resource.

For more info head to http://smart-toolkit.eu

Blog, Event

MIA training in Wales

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During the first two weeks in December a group of educators took part in MIA workshops in Pontypridd. The training was split into two sections; Media Literacy theory for educators and Practical workshops in digital content creation.

There have been a number of requests for follow up sessions or a repeat of the workshops for those who were unable to attend. Pontydysgu plans to run more workshops in Wales in the Spring of 2019.

Join the MIA Network mailing list to be kept up to date with future events.

Educator Resources, UK Resources

Make a GIF

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GIFs are halfway between an image and video, they can relay more information than a static picture without the time investment of a video.  In journalism they can be used to focus on a particular moment in an event such as in Sports. Or they can add explanation or illustration to a story.

 

Watch the short screencast below to see how to turn a video into a GIF using https://imgflip.com/gif-maker  

Share your GIFs with us on Twitter with #MIA_eu or @MediaInAction_

The following resources explain some more ways to use GIFs in the classroom

Mr Ps ICT blog

Maths GIFs 

 

Educator Resources, UK Resources

Class activity – “Nutritional Labels” for News

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Background Reading https://misinfocon.com/nutrition-labels-for-the-news-a-way-to-support-vibrant-public-discussion-20c64225637c

This is a lesson activity designed to encourage critical thinking and analysis of news articles. It is adapted from a workshop at MisInfoCon.  There are no right or wrong answers, the activity provides a lens through which students must analyse the stories rather than merely consume them.

Materials;

  • Printouts news articles from a variety of sources
  • Example food labels
  • (Optional – multimedia such as a news video or podcast)

How to do it;

Introduce the activity by showing some example food labels, ask how do we know if a food is good for us?

Briefly discuss or recap what sort of things you would look for to determine how reliable and accurate a news story or piece of media is.

(You could use the cheat sheet from the theory presentation)

Ask students to work in pairs to create their own labelling system for news. They should aim to choose 4 or 5 key ingredients. Give each group one story to work with. Once they have produced their ‘tool’ give them a different story and ask them if their tool still works.

Each pair should then present back their ideas to the group.

 

Created in conjunction with Rula Awad and MisInfoCon