Media literacy conference 2013

Cinekid for ProfessionalsMedia Literacy Conference

1Cinekid for Professionals 2013

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Media Literacy Conference


2Cinekid for Professionals 2013www.cinekid.com

Monday 21st October at Cinekid

Media Creativity in the Life of the Modern Child

CINEKID, according to Androulla Vassiliou, the largest media festival in the world – ‘stimulates children’s curiosity about the media. It encourages them to become both creative and media literate’. And we know that in the digital era, media literacy and creativity are essential assets.

The importance of media literacy was highlighted in Cinekid Director Sannet-te Naeyé’s opening statement. “It makes children happy, it provides them with essential skills, it makes them better citizens because they can find out what’s going on in the world and develop a critical attitude towards information, it creates a stronger economy and it makes children more creative.”

Naeyé pointed to a fundamental difference distinguishing today’s youth from the generations that came before. “When you sit down at the dinner table in the evening and ask a child how their day was, they can say something like ‘I played a game with two other children’. And you realise they could have played that game anywhere in the world. Or in a completely different world. This is a new concept. Media literacy is the ability to access and use these virtual worlds.”

Androulla Vassiliou‘Media literacy is at the heart of a modern democracy’

Media literacy is at the heart of a modern democracy, European Commissi-oner Androulla Vassiliou firmly stated. But more needs to be done to encou-rage children to develop the skills to access and use media. “I am determined to increase awareness of this.”

In the digital age media literacy is a crucial resource for personal growth and social economic growth”, said the Commissioner for Education, Culture, Mul-tilingualism, Sport, Media and Youth. She saw ample examples of this at Cine-kid’s MediaLab where “children access an impressive variety of media content in an interactive way.”Starting next January the EU will invest in its digital future through the Cre-ative Europe program, offering 1.46 billion euro until 202, a 9% increase com-pared with current funding levels.



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“One of our priorities will be to help finance the development and distribution of films aimed at children. We will also support excellent media and film literacy pro-jects. Interactive audio-visual media which are part of children’s daily life, such as educational video games, will be included in our support policy,” said Commissioner Vassiliou.

Particularly she highlighted three key abilities. 1) the ability to access to the media through technical and digital skills2) the ability to critically evaluate media content. This is fundamental for the ability to make informed choices 3) the ability to use media in a creative way

Teaching these abilities has to start in schools in cooperation with the creative in-dustry and cross border cooperation is a necessary part of this development. When I go to Cannes people complain that US films dominate the market. So we must stimu-late children to appreciate European audiovisual works.Vassiliou ended with a quote by director Wim Wenders. ‘We need to equip our child-ren with the skills to decode images so they can develop a taste of their own.’



Jet Bussemaker‘Teach children the meaning, effects and power of media’

Providing new generations with the media skills to be economically competitive and fulfil individual potential will require the creative industry to collaborate with schools and cultural institutions, said Jet Bussemaker, Dutch minister for Education, Culture and Science.

The media will increasingly shape and influence our actions, said Bussemaker. She mentioned Douglas Kellner, an early theorist in the field of critical media literacy, who said in 1995 that “a media culture has emerged, in which images, sounds and spectacles help produce the fabric of everyday life, dominating leisure time, shaping political views and social behavior and providing the materials out of which people forge their very identities.” Since then, the media landscape has grown exponential-ly complex and diverse. One of the consequences, said Bussemaker, is the rise of the app generation, for who YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the internet have become an integral part of daily life.

This development brings new obligations. “Precisely because the media are such a pervasive and normal part of children’s lives, we must teach them to consider its meaning, effects and power. Understanding these things is where true media wis-dom begins.”

But media literacy concerns not only personal growth, according to the minister. Complex questions with regard to ageing, urban development, migration and sustai-nability require creative and innovative answers in the years to come. In an increa-singly virtual and connected world only a new set of skills will allow children to find these answers.

As an example she mentioned Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde. Educated at art school Roosegaarde together with a construction company is now working on the first electronic ‘smart highway’ in the Netherlands, that can produce electric power. The energy generated by road traffic provides street lighting and can power char-ging stations for electric vehicles.

This, according to Bussemaker, is “the kind of lateral thinking – creative, innovative, critical and analytical – that we will desperately need in the years to come. And we can encourage this in our children by exposing them to media and culture.”

She cautioned that media education is not just about YouTube and iPads in the class-room but in “developing a creative, inquisitive attitude” and appealed to the creative industry to collaborate with schools and cultural institutions to make this happen.



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Best Practices

MediaMasters

Mediawijzer.net’s aim is to provide clarity about media literacy and the integration of it in primary schools. The game Media Masters is one of its tools, said Mary Berk-hout, Programme Director at Mediawijzer.net. The goal is to make the children true media masters. Media Masters is a game played in class on a digital smartboard. Teachers, children and parents join in. Berkhout emphasized it’s an awareness tool, not an educational tool. In 2012 Mediawijzer reached 50.000 children. Expectations are to reach 70.000 children in 2013 and the organization aims for 80.000 children in 2015.

FilmClubhttp://www.filmnationuk.org/

An astonishing 7.000 UK schools join in every week by screening a film from Film Nation’s database of over 4.000 titles, according to consultant Mark Higham. Film Nation is a relatively new organization, formed by the merger of film education cha-rities Filmclub and First Light. The new program of film education will be available to every 5-19 year old across the UK. Industry guest are invited to the classroom regularly, in order to let children acquire first hand knowledge of the film industry and the art of filmmaking. In addition there is a very active online community where children can review films and exchange experiences. “For many children”, Higham said, “this is the first time they write out of choice.” The roll-out in parts of the UK is financed sometimes by the local, regional or national culture and education depart-ments. Asked whether any new media are integrated, Higham responded the essence of the program lies in watching films and understanding storytelling, “as has been the essence of education for millennia.”

Scratchhttp://scratch.mit.edu/

Scratch is a free and open source programming environment for creative projects, developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT. Through it, children can learn to create stories, animations and games. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century. And it’s not just a tool but also a community that let’s you see other users ideas. To date almost 4 million projects have been shared. The target audience is the 8-16 age group, but everyone can join in. It is a best practice of the strength of tools and of scaling, important for collaboration in Europe. It can be used in many different types of Education and in many languages. Scratch is used in 150 countries and in 40 languages.



Panel discussion‘The story keeps changing’

Which media literacy competencies do children need to become creative, innova-tive, and active citizens?

Marinka Copier, Professor in Play Design and director of the School for Games and Interaction emphasized the role of play in understanding complexity. “Play is always interactive, it allows you to create. In terms of the competencies I would say all the competencies you need in order to deal with complexity. Additionally through play children want to reach goals.” Copier distinguished the importance of different form of play. Not only is there a linear format with clear goals but children also need to be able to engage in unstructured, chaotic play. “For designers this is important to realize.”

According to Jan Müller, Director of The Institute for Beeld en Geluid and Chairman of Mediawijzer.net, media literacy is “a continuum that never stops.” This means adults should never stop educating themselves, said Müller. “This requires conti-nuous investment because the story keeps changing. We want to keep everyone con-nected.”

Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou in her opening statement mentioned Creative Eu-rope’s focus on children’s films and was asked why this was important. Besides the obvious element of cultural education and children learning about the rest of Europe, Vassiliou said resolving the inequality of media access throughout the continent was also a crucial goal of the program.Doreen Boonekamp, director of the Dutch Filmfund, emphasized the importance of “good content” in order tot achieve these goals and said Holland is discussing the possibility of establishing a coproduction fund for children’s films with German and Nordic organizations. “We have to help develop children’s tastes by providing quality cinema.”

Firdroze Bulbulia, South African President of the Worldwide Children’s Film Organi-zation, reminded the audience that in South Africa access to all the digital media for every child at the moment is a bridge to far. “In my world just offering the same basic media access is ambitious enough.”

Carla Fisher Game designer and founder of No Crust InteractivePresentation‘An opportunity to create socially’

“The thing about media literacy is that new media don’t mean one set of eyeballs per screen. In other words, it’s an opportunity to create socially. They say everyone is a producer and while it seems sometimes that children come to the tools naturally, they still need to be educated. But how does a parent find the good stuff? So also the parent need to be educated.”



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Fisher referred to the principle of dialogic reading in which you engage in storytel-ling together, by asking children feedback on what they’re read, thereby deepening the reading experience. The same opportunity exists with TV and new media, said Fisher. “You can guide the child’s thinking and it helps establishing a healthy, balan-ced media diet.” Specifically parents should try to have developmentally appropriate conversations with children and express their emotions and motivations. At a young age, you can teach practical stuff like how to frame a photo on the screen, skills that they will have to learn anyway. From age 6 and up they will make their own media decisions, Fisher said, but they need guidance. “One reason is that children at this age “are very sus-ceptible to advertising. Parents need to discuss this.Their teenage years are all about self-expression and this also relates to media. They express themselves through their choice and use of media.”

Panel discussion‘Establishing clear learning goals should be primary concern’

What is the importance of creativity and proficiency in using media in the matura-tion of children’s talents in the age group 7-12? How can creativity & media liter-acy be increased and what is the role of private companies in this process?

Harry van Dorenmalen, Country General Manager IBM The Netherlands & Chair-man IBM Europe was quite clear on this: “First and foremost we need people that dare to do something different. We don’t need people that think traditionally. Look at the kids in the MediaLab here at Cinekid: they don’t see barriers, they are not restricted in their thinking. Culture is what you do when nobody is looking.” “What we’re missing is the right classroom”, said Eduard Beck, Sector Manager Education at Microsoft. “We have classes for books, we have classes for the physique, but not for this. Each school would actually have his own MediaLab”

What are the companies themselves doing about this? IBM invites girls age 10-12 each summer to stay for a week and develop a robot together. In total the program reaches 300-400 children per year. Microsoft has been investing through its Part-ners in Learning program for years now, said Beck, on a government level as well as in classrooms. “But what we really need is policy supporting innovation in schools. This is not being discussed deep enough at all levels.”

Jan Jaap Knol, Director of The Cultural Participation Fund, agreed that “it is a joined responsibility to make clear how media can be used”, but he also said most of the real innovation seen at the MediaLab comes from small companies. On the other hand, schools themselves insufficiently realize that for young children formal and informal learning exists on a continuum. We value Cultural Education very much in the Ne-therlands, but I must admit that the field of media literacy is not yet sucured. “There are still huge gaps to be overcome.”



Closing PanelVassiliou ‘We have antiquated models of education’

How can media literacy be promoted at a local level? Martien Kuitenbrouwer, Chair-man of Amsterdam-West District Council (youth, education, sport, culture) explained that the city of Amsterdam and the districts have set a common goal by agreeing to bring cultural education to every child in Amsterdam, with a special focus on music. However media education should be an integral part of this, Kuitenbrouwer said. And this is not the case. Moreover, the technical infrastructure to provide children with equal access is not yet in place.

For Commissioner Vassiliou this underlines the necessity of national, regional and local cooperation between concerned parties. “We have antiquated models of educa-tion. We need classrooms of the future but also teachers of the future because skills wear out faster than ever. We need to provide opportunities to retrain teacher’s skills. And we need to realize learning does not end in schools.”

The opportunity for informal training was there for children, through the European network of children’s film festivals. Why than did the EU cut their funding? “We want to promote festivals”, Vassiliou responded, “by giving them extra points when they focus on children’s films and media literacy. We give the broad vision, but you have to be creative. For instance, by establishing partnerships between companies and cultural organizations.”

Documents

Media literacy conference 2013