BECID x FACT HUB WEBINAR | Practical Approaches to Media Literacy Education
How can media literacy education move beyond theory and give young people practical tools to better understand the information environment around them?
On 28 September, 88 participants joined BECID and FACT Hub for the webinar “Practical Tools for Media Literacy Education”, led by Maria Cezar from Expert Forum (EFOR), Romania.
The webinar brought together an international audience, with the largest groups of participants joining from all over the world, mostly from Estonia, Ireland, Lithuania and Latvia. The event attracted professionals from both formal and non-formal learning environments, particularly the GLAM and education sectors, alongside researchers and academics, media and information literacy practitioners, and representatives of other organisations working with young people and information resilience.
From classroom observation to practical resources
During the webinar, Maria Cezar introduced Expert Forum’s approach to education for democracy and media literacy and shared practical lesson plans developed as part of their work in Romania.
A central part of EFOR’s approach is testing and improving educational resources together with the people who use them. Lesson plans are developed based on identified needs, piloted in classrooms and refined based on classroom observation and feedback before being made available more widely to educators.
The webinar offered a closer look at activities addressing topics such as the role of mass media in a democracy, distinguishing facts from opinions, social media, algorithms and young people’s own media habits.
Maria also shared observations from testing the materials with students. For example, while young people may already be familiar with the concepts of facts and opinions, applying that knowledge to real news and understanding information in context can be considerably more challenging. Classroom activities can therefore help students move from knowing definitions to critically engaging with actual media content.
Social media provides another useful entry point. Because it is already an important part of young people’s everyday lives, discussions about screen time, platform ownership and the way algorithms shape online experiences can help make abstract questions about the information environment much more tangible.
Resources that can travel beyond the classroom
Although the lesson plans have been developed and tested primarily in schools, the webinar also explored their potential beyond formal education. The methods and activities can provide inspiration for libraries, museums, youth organisations and other institutions working with communities and learners, adapting them to different audiences and learning environments.
Participants were also invited to access the lesson plans, try them in their own work and provide feedback to the Expert Forum team. This allows the resources to continue developing based on experiences from different educational contexts.
The presentation concluded with a Q&A session, giving participants an opportunity to discuss the materials and their practical application directly with Maria Cezar.
The webinar was organised jointly by the Baltic Engagement Centre for Combating Information Disorders (BECID) and FACT Hub, bringing together two hubs within the wider European Digital Media Observatory network.