Brussels, 28 June 2021

ECSWE applies for Erasmus+ partnership on digital literacy

The project will result in five tangible results: a website, a framework curriculum, school policy guidelines, trainings for teachers and webinars for parents.

On 14th June 2021, ECSWE sub­mit­ted an Eras­mus+ project pro­pos­al on media edu­ca­tion to the Euro­pean Edu­ca­tion and Cul­ture Exec­u­tive Agency. HERMMES, the title of the project, stands for “Holis­tic Edu­ca­tion, Resilience and Media Matu­ri­ty in Edu­ca­tion­al Set­tings: Par­ents, teach­ers and researchers work­ing towards a devel­op­ment-ori­ent­ed and age-appro­pri­ate approach to ICT and media education”.

Project Summary

One of the great­est chal­lenges of our time is to help chil­dren and young peo­ple in the devel­op­ment of their media matu­ri­ty and dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy. Tech­nol­o­gy is evolv­ing every day. Par­ents and (pre-school) teach­ers are con­front­ed with the fact that the chil­dren and young peo­ple in their care are using tech­nol­o­gy and are mov­ing in vir­tu­al worlds that the adults respon­si­ble for them can hard­ly com­pre­hend. How­ev­er, the ques­tion aris­es HOW they are using it, whether they are able to digest the con­tents, and whether they are aware of the dan­gers and pit­falls lurk­ing in the dig­i­tal world and how to deal with these at dif­fer­ent age levels.

In its res­o­lu­tion “Shap­ing dig­i­tal edu­ca­tion pol­i­cy“of 25 March 2021, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment sug­gests to “intro­duce dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies in a learn­er-focused, age-appro­pri­ate and devel­op­ment-ori­ent­ed way” insist­ing that “dig­i­tal learn­ing strate­gies need to take into account research on the effects that ear­ly use of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy may have on the devel­op­ment of young children”.

This strong­ly res­onates with val­ues and beliefs shared among all part­ners in this project. At the end of their school career, all pupils should be able to use the full range of ana­logue and dig­i­tal media prop­er­ly for their own edu­ca­tion, par­tic­i­pa­tion in civ­il soci­ety and the labour mar­ket, where­as the tim­ing and form of using dig­i­tal media in edu­ca­tion should be close­ly aligned with the devel­op­men­tal phas­es of children.Therefore, par­ents, teach­ers and researchers have joined their resources, and aim to work towards help­ing chil­dren and young peo­ple become resilient and media mature cit­i­zens who can make their own informed choic­es on HOW they use dig­i­tal technology.

Expected Outputs

If accept­ed, the project will result in five tan­gi­ble results: a web­site, a frame­work cur­ricu­lum, school pol­i­cy guide­lines, train­ings for teach­ers and webi­na­rs for parents.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact the coor­di­na­tor and author of this project, Már­ti Domokos on [email protected]u.