Paris Declaration on Media and Information Literacy released

The Paris Declaration on Media and Information Literacy has been released. I haven't the time today to read it properly and see whether my suggested amendments were taken into account ;-) so I will most likely produce another post looking at the declaration in more depth.
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/In_Focus/paris_mil_declaration_final.pdf
Photo by Sheila Webber: moorhen (I erroneously said this was a coot earlier!), Lyon, France, August 2014

Paris declaration on Media and Information Literacy: final draft #emilforum

The draft of a Paris Declaration on MIL in the Digital Era was presented at the end of the European Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Forum, which I reported on when I attended it at the end of May. There is now a revised draft of teh Declaration online, which participants (who attended the conference in Paris) can comment on by July 5th (this Saturday). I was a participant, so if anyone reads it and has some specific comments (bearing in mind that at this stage there is not going to be any wholesale redrafting) feel free to pass them on to me, s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk.
The information is at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/resources/news-and-in-focus-articles/in-focus-articles/2014/paris-declaration-on-media-and-information-literacy-adopted/
Photo by Sheila Webber: hydrangea (photoshopped), June 2014

Report on the #emilforum, in Second Life on 4 June

I will give a personal report from the First European Media and Information Literacy Forum (held in Paris, France, 27-28 May) in the virtual world, Second Life.
Time: 4 June 2014, 12 noon Second Life time (which is 8pm UK time, see http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20140604T12&p1=234 for times elsewhere)
Venue: Infolit iSchool, our island in the virtual world, Second Life (SL). You need a SL avatar (signup free on the SL website http://secondlife.com) and the free SL browser (not the normal web browser) installed on your computer in order to participate. Email me s.webber@sheffield.ac.uk if you want any help with this. The direct SLURL (once you have your avatar and browser) is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/136/239/22
What: Sheila Webber (i.e. me, my name is Sheila Yoshikawa in SL) will give a report on the Media and Information Literacy Forum http://www.europeanmedialiteracyforum.org/. I already liveblogged some of this (see http://information-literacy.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/emilforum) I will be highlighting some of the projects and resources, and also giving my personal perspective on the issues and challenges: including the issue of getting the "Information Literacy" part of "Media and Information Literacy" better understood ;-)

Informal Education, Social inclusion and Media and Information Literacy #emilforum

Next at the European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France a session is focusing on Media and Information Literacy (MIL) and information/social contexts. As with other sessions, the focus is more on media literacy than information literacy, and I will pick out some of the contributions. Firstly, Francine Cunningham talked about an initiative of the European Newspaper Publishers Association, What’s your news. The website for this is at http://www.enpa.be/en/publications/whats-your-news-_62.aspx

Abdel Jalil Alami (Doha Centre for Media Freedom, Qatar) talked about the important issue of children who are outside schooling. He felt that media literacy should be linked to literacy, and was concerned about how we could form initiatives to get children into schooling. I was not sure whether Alami was meaning this specifically, but I know there is a serious problem of, for example, Syrian refugees, who do not have access to schooling.
Olli Vesterinen (Finnish Society on Media Education) talked about initiatives in Finland. I will save my effort by linking to a recent report http://ppemi.ens-cachan.fr/data/media/colloque140528/rapports/FINLAND_2014.pdf and his slides are here http://t.co/31aEfh4IEy. He also showed a video about young people making "how to" videos for each other, using quotations from research with young people who make these videos: there is a prezi about this here. Pleasingly, he also mentioned libraries as partners in media literacy education.
Manuel Pinto talked about a Portuguese group on media literacy which has an interestingly broad membership. Unfortunately I can't find it by Googling ... so I may add the name/link later. He identified the benefits of working with different kinds of organisations to further the media literacy agenda. One project he mentioned was "7 days with the media" - which challenges citizens to think about the role that media has in their lives. There is some information about it here
Photo by Sheila Webber (as are the others blogged from the conference, as usual): spot the delegate: she might have been rehearsing a speech, or perhaps she was just on the phone, in the UNESCO gardens.

Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy #emilforum

This afternoon's session at the European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014 (at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France) started with a focus on the Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy. Carolyn Wilson (University of Toronto, Canada) introduced the strategic goals for GAPMIL and its priorities for the short term. Its terms of reference are being finalised currently. The website for GAPMIL is at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/media-development/media-literacy/global-alliance-for-partnerships-on-media-and-information-literacy/
Maria Torras Carme (representing the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions - including the information literacy section) talked about the importance of partnerships. She also identified that the information literacy and media literacy needed to identify their common ground and work together to support Media and Information Literacy worldwide. Common themes in the ML and IL included the inclusion and intergration of MIL into the curriculum, the concern that MIL should not just be seen as a technical issue, and the critical thinking aspect of ML and IL. Maria stressed that the interpersonal and physical aspects of MIL are important. She called for a cross professional intercultural dialogue: dialogue between ML and IL experts. Finally Maria mentioned areas were there could be active collaboration e.g. working with librarians to develop teachers' MIL.
Following this Alan Rosenblatt (Turner 4D, USA) mainly advocated active use of social media to promote awareness of MIL. He urged us all to tweet why we though Media and Information Literacy was important (so obviously I did - see https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=%23milit&src=typd). The last of the speakers to provide their perspective on GAPMIL was Chido Onumah (GAPMIL) who stressed the important of identifying key partners in the African context, including ones concerned with particular issues such as journalists' freedom. He also mentioned the need for a national platform on MIL in Nigeria (a project I think they are working on with UNESCO), the need to create discussion on the intergration of MIL curriculum, and the need for world market in media. Ismail Abdel Ghafar (Arab Academy, Egypt) chaired the session and made a nice summing up of the presentations before the session was opened to the audience.

Family media literacy: report from #emilforum

A further report from the European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France. As the first session this morning I chose one on the family and media literacy. There were presentations on media literacy initiatives from different countries.
Marco Ricceri started with a challenge to look beyond an individual perspective on Media Literacy (ML), and to consider ML in the family and community. There was then a presentation from Carmen Garcia Galera on IC-Media Spain http://www.icmedianet.org/, which it seemed had a strong focus on "harmful" media content, so teaching children and families about safe use of media, and pressing complaints about media. They were concerned about a generation gap, with parents apparently “lost” as regards their children’s media habits, and they organised training for those. They worked a lot with school teachers.
Lusine Grigoryan (Media Initiatives Center http://www.mediainitiatives.am/) talked about Media Literacy in Armenia. She described it as being in the early stages. Initiatives include a handbook for teachers, including an online game for children, a mobile media museum (travelling installation) and a regional TV project for young people
Sirkku Kotilainen talked about Towards parental consciousness of media education, presenting on research from her research group the University of Tampere, Finland. They found that the change in media relationship (with/within their children) could seem confusing for parents. They have done a couple of studies “Children’s mediabarometer 2010 and 2013”. Amongst other things they characteristed “babies online in parent’s arms” developing “genderlike taste” from the age of 3 or 4. They also discovered “girl-like habits” (with more social activity) and “boy-like habits” (with more gaming, publishing). Interestingly, they adopted the Freirian concept of concienzacion, for familial concienzacion of media education (awareness of themselves and their children as users of media and information). There is a website at http://www.mediaeducation.fi/.
There was a further interesting presentation which I'll blog later.

European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014: 2nd report #emilforum

Continuing my reports from the European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France. The second session this afternoon is New action lines: European Project's recommendations. Ola Erstad (Norway & European Science Foundation) had done a review of ML, and saw ML rather broadly as "the way we read and write" including social practices with media. Erstad also reported briefly on views from a project of the ESF "Forward Look", identifying four key areas. I think this is the report Media in Europe: New Questions for Research and Policy which has been distributed to research bodies and policy makers.
Mihaela Banek Zorica (Organising Committee, ECIL) highlighted the lack of IL at the conference, and stressed the need for ML and IL experts to work together. Divina Frau-Meigs (Universite Sorbonne Nouvelle, France) talked about the COST project. She also mentioned the translit http://www.translit.fr/ website and various other strategic and advocacy issues which I have not been quick enough to capture.
Jose Manuel Perez Tomero (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain and director of the Emedus media literacy project) gave an interesting discourse on the need for new literacies and for change, to empower people as citizens and not just consumers.

European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014: 1st report

I am attending the European Media and Information Literacy Forum 2014 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France. Despite the title, the focus is mainly on media literacy, influenced by the fact that this is also the final conference for the EMEDUS project (http://www.eumedus.com). However it also reflects the fact that media literacy has more of a hold on national and international agenda (something that information literacy people have to take action on...)

In the session at the moment ("Formal Education: New Curriculum"), the focus is on Media Literacy in the curriculum, with contributions from different countries. Firstly Sara Pareira (University of Minho, Portugal) has highlighted the lack of ML in the curriculum in Portugal, hwoever now there are being introduced ML guidelines for several levels of education. Other important documents include the Braga Manifesto on Media Literacy (2011) and National Educational Council's (2011) recommendations for ML. However these have had relatively little impact, and more is expected of the new Guidelines.
Next, Lazslo Hartai (Hungarian Institute of Educational Research and Development) has explained that media literacy only becomes a separate option at upper secondary level (before that it was, I think, seen to be part of visual literacy).

Unfortunately I have just lost some of my blogging (connection problem, grrr), but I will try to remember what I blogged! Carmen Campos (Spain) stressed the importance of having media literacy as a subject, but also intergrated into the curriculum transversally, and she saw teacher education as vitally important (teachers being supported to teach all forms of literacy). Ditemar Schipek (Austria) felt that ML was well intergrated in Austrian school curricula. He cited the work of the Austrian national library, broadcasters etc. in developing children's ML and also mentioned a conference on gaming aimed at young people. He identified "doing" as important - e.g. children learning how to be broadcasters. He also talked about ways of assessing whether schools are dealing adequately with ML (a "minimum standard"). Patrick Verniers (Belgium) pinpointed ways in which ML might be in the curriculum, but felt that at the moment it was rather reliant on the teacher's individual enthusiasm/ initiative. He proposed a framework for media literacy education (I took photos of those slides, so I may blog that later).

At the moment in the session, the speakers are coming forward again to consider ML education in Europe, as opposed to in their specific country. Interestingly, some speakers see things as having got a worse, posibly due to the Bologna Process of harmonisation of education in Europe. Frequent themes are the lack of requirements for media literacy education as part of teacher education, and the lack of a clear policy framework. Laszlo Hartai mentioned the lack of substantial data on what is going on in classrooms around Europe and some confusion around the concepts of ML, information literacy and digital literacy. The contribution from Natasa Slavikova (Slovakia) included mentioning translating the UNESCO MIL curriculum for teachers into Slovak.