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BonJour – new Project on Journalism & Fake News

PeterMaz BonJour, Project
BonJour – new Project on Journalism & Fake News

EBI is proud to be a partner in the BonJour Project, coordinated by EduVita (from Lecce, Italy). The objective of the project is to enhance media literacy among older individuals by focusing on journalism and digital skill improvement. This effort aims to foster social activism among seniors and bridge the generation gap in digital proficiency. A key aspect of the plan involves establishing a pool of Media Educators for the Elderly, a role that is currently lacking despite its pressing need. The target groups include adult educators, senior educators, media educators, as well as individuals aged 55+ and senior learners.

Aims in this Media Literacy Project

BonJour - two elderly people reading news in a coffee shop.
This project targets elderly people and will create a new kind of educator: The “Media Educator for Adults”, supporting this group to handle news without problems.

The implementation strategy includes conducting a learning needs analysis for seniors in media education, providing training for Media Educators for the Elderly, and offering courses for seniors to enhance critical thinking and ICT skills through media literacy and journalism. Additionally, the plan involves creating a handbook and guidelines for Media Educators, developing a curriculum for seniors, and launching a pilot program where elderly individuals actively contribute to media and digital content creation.

Expected Results at the End of the Project

Expected outcomes include the establishment of a methodology for Media Literacy for the Elderly centered on journalism, the identification of the Media Educator profile, and the creation of a pool of Media Educators for the elderly. Furthermore, the initiative aims to produce a guide for Media Educators, an e-learning platform tailored to seniors’ needs, and tangible learning materials for elderly individuals.

The kick-off meeting of the project took place March 13th, 2024, in Lecce. [read more]

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The project’s number is 2023-1-IT02-KA220-ADU-00016032, the complete title “BonJour! Enhancing the Critical Media Literacy of the Elderly through Digital Education and Journalism”. We appreciate the funding of the European Commission for this project.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

BonJour: Kick-Off in Lecce

PeterMaz BonJour, Project, Technology Enhanced Teaching
BonJour: Kick-Off in Lecce
We are excited to convene the Kick-off Meeting at the EduVita Intergenerational Centre in Lecce, marking the beginning of our collaborative endeavour in the frame of the BonJour Project, an adult education media literacy cooperation. This meeting is a critical first step in launching our project, bringing together a diverse group of experts and professionals.

The partners in this Media Literacy Adult Education Project

EduVita is the coordinator in this project. It is an educational and cultural center in Southern Italy founded in 2019 to improve the quality of life for all ages through intergenerational learning. They focus on social activities for elderly people and innovative teaching methods. Currently, Hanna Urbanovich, Damiano Verri, and Teresa Voce are in the project team.

  • Associação MY MADEIRA ISLAND, represented by Anastasia Mazur, and Andreia Jesus is a non-profit that supports Madeira Island’s cultural and social development through educational events and activities. They focus on helping young people gain digital skills and find online work due to the island’s limited job market.
  • Foundation Pro Scientia Publica (Poland), represented by Aleksander Kobylarek and Martyna Madej, is a non-profit organization focused on adult education, especially for elderly people. They provide workshops and seminars on various topics to help seniors stay socially engaged and develop new skills.
  • Our organisation, the European Initiative for Education (EIE), a non-profit organization in Austria, promotes innovative education and training methods for adult learners and educators. They focus on technology-enhanced learning and developing new teaching techniques. Peter Mazohl participated in the meeting.
  • Fundacja Imienia Juliusza Mieroszewskiego (Foundation of Juliusz Mieroszewskiego), established in 2013, focuses on strengthening ties between Central and Eastern European countries through educational and cultural initiatives. They promote lifelong learning, especially for older adults, by offering virtual courses, training educators, and supporting programs like the Golden Age University in Belarus. From this organisation, Lana Rudnik, Vitaut Rudnik participated in the meeting.
  • Nazilli Hayat Boyu Öğrenme Derneği (Nazhayat) is an association founded in 2015 by educators to bridge generations and cultures. They focus on re-invigorating adults over 50 after retirement and offer courses for teenagers and adults. Their main goal is to integrate retired people back into society and promote active ageing through various activities. With a core group of 30 active members, mostly volunteers, Nazhayat benefits numerous participants both in Nazilli and online. Participants: Hasan Yuce, Emin Masalcı.
Each partner brings a wealth of knowledge and experience vital to the project’s success.

During the Meeting

A session designed to welcome participants, aimed at fostering camaraderie and collaboration among all partners. Each partner provided a brief introduction, detailing their organization’s role and contributions.
Kick-Off meeting BonJour Project Lecce
The Kick-Off meeting of the BonJour Project took place in Lecce, in the rooms of EduVita.
The meeting featured a comprehensive outline of the project, including detailed descriptions of the work packages, with a focus on the specifics, responsibilities, and forthcoming steps of WP2. There will be a discussion on project management strategies, communication methods, financial rules, and the partnership agreement to ensure clarity and cohesion in our collective effort. Additionally, the meeting will focus on establishing quality benchmarks, evaluation plans, and risk mitigation strategies to guide us on our path to success.

Summary

This Kick-off Meeting promises to be a milestone event, setting the foundation for our collaborative work on media literacy. It’s an opportunity to align our goals, understand our roles, and embark on this journey with a shared vision and enthusiasm. We look forward to a productive meeting that paves the way for our project’s success.
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The project’s number is 2023-1-IT02-KA220-ADU-00016032, the complete title “BonJour! Enhancing the Critical Media Literacy of the Elderly through Digital Education and Journalism”. We appreciate the funding of the European Commission for this project.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

CONNECT – results available

PeterMaz CONNECT, Miscellaneous
CONNECT – results available

Objectives of the Project

Objective 1: Develop an innovative multidisciplinary and cross-sectional curriculum for students from the computer and information, health, and social sciences background, with the main focus on cooperation between sectors for strengthening the existing knowledge, skills, and entrepreneurship, in the first ten months of the project, by an international team of eHealth informal and formal educational providers within partner institutions.

CONNECT-<Course
CONNECT Project: eLearning course module (Click on the image opens the course)

Objective 2: Provide one Intensive Study Programme (ISP) to 42 students from computer and information, healthcare, and social sciences backgrounds in mixed working groups in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in September 2022 in order to facilitate student’s challenge-based learning collaborations by having students develop eHealth applications in the form of a project with real implication in the field of eHealth.

Objective 3: Develop a transnational network of key actors from academia, industry, and NGOs to establish collaborations, exchange best practices and facilitate long-distance mentorship for students who graduated from the Intensive Study Programme through an online platform “eHealth Community of Practice” through the end of the project.

Further Information about the CONNECT Project

The sustainability of the project will be ensured firstly by integrating the open-source Curriculum that will be developed by the partners into the course of eHealth at the Department of Public Health, from BBU, as part of their educational program at the Bachelor’s and Masters’s level. Therefore, one of the intellectual outputs of the project will be transferred to them and other interested higher education institutions in order to create a long-term use for our product.

The “eHealth Community of Practice” online platform will be available for at least three years after the project completion period, constituting a transnational network of members from academia, industry, and healthcare and as a mentorship platform for future health innovators.

CONNECT-COP-Platform
CONNECT Project: CoP Platform

 

 

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsi­ble for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Flipped Learning 3.0 for adults – in a cross-generational setting

PeterMaz E4ALL, Flipped Adult Education, Flipped Learning, Miscellaneous
Flipped Learning 3.0 for adults – in a cross-generational setting

This is the new challenge for  the EBI/EIE!

In the frame of the E4All (Education for All) project we will develop a special learning experience to convey flipped learning to educators inexperienced in this learning and training framework. The course will take place in Wiener Neustadt (in 2022).

Trainers from the staff of fife European Adult Training organizations will take part. The age distribution is fascinating: The participants will be between 20 and 65+ years old and thus offer the opportunity to plan, carry out and evaluate cross-generational learning within the framework of a flipped learning 3.0 setting.

Implementing Virtual Group Space

The frame conditions of the course force to implement both a virtual group space and an f2f group space for the final training. Here is the structure of the training:

Venue

The training will take place in Wiener Neustadt, Austria in Spring next year.

Participation

If you are interested to participate in this training please contact the organizer, Mr. Peter →  Mazohl. He can agree individual trainings or – if there are free places – even a participation in the training provided in the frame of the E4All project!

Which devices do your students/learners use?

Europaeische Bildungsinitiative Flipped Adult Education, Miscellaneous, Project
Which devices do your students/learners use?

To use multimedia and interactivity learners must be equipped with modern devices that enable to display the content. In addition, it must be possible to work with this content, which includes not only viewing and reading but also saving, changing or creating new content.

The extent to which these activities are carried out often depends on the type of training. Language learning, for example, might be structured differently than learning scientific content.

The first step in our project is to get an overview about the used devices in modern, technology-enhanced learning. Therefore, we did a small survey among trainers, friends and former or current project partners.

You still may contribute to the brainstorming survey. Use the QR-Code and enter your prefered device in this AnswerGarden form.

Do we need books in technology enhanced learning (TEL)?

Europaeische Bildungsinitiative Miscellaneous, Technology Enhanced Teaching
Do we need books in technology enhanced learning (TEL)?

In the last three years I met many people mentioning that they use eLearning in their teaching and books are outdated. But – is this true?

Technology in learning

First of all, it would be necessary to clear the term “eLearning”. This term says nothing and expresses everything – from an objective point of view it is more or less meaningless.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines e-Learning[1]

learning done by studying at home using computers and courses provided on the internet

This definition is highly influenced form Marc J Rosenberg[2] who mentions three columns for eLearning:

  1. E-learning is networked making it capable of updating, storage and retrieval, distribution and sharing of instruction or information.
  2. It is delivered to the end-user via a computer using standard internet technology.
  3. eLearning is more than eTraining.

A modern description is done by the North Carolina Education Cabinet (as one example taken from the USA) and defines “eLearning is learning utilizing electronic technologies to access educational curriculum outside of a traditional classroom”.

Rosenberg’s descriptions are approx. 20 years old. The modern version also does not match with the reality. The term eLearning must be replaced by the new expression technology enhanced learning (TEL).

Technology enhanced learning is used to refer to technology enhanced classrooms and learning with technology (and not through technology), which means a learner centered approach using the technology for the learning.

Where is the place for “traditional” books?

Books are still available – Amazon started the business success by selling books (and still sells them), libraries are still used intensively by people borrowing books there. Masses of books – in small quantities – are published and printed as “book on demand”.

Books are transferred to the digital age as eBooks. The reader used an eBook reader (like Kindle, Kobo, or Tolino) or read the book by a viewer on their digital device (laptop, tablet).

Printed books provide all the advantages of technology enhanced learning: you can read them at any time, everywhere, and in your own pace. An advantage is the use of books without energy (you must not recharge your book).

Another big advantage is that you can share the book easily (this is more or less impossible with eBook readers) and that books have page numbers. Did you ever try to cite a text correctly from a eBook without any page information (pure PDF documents often have page numbers but do not supply the advantages of eBook readers like enlarging the fonts).

 

[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/e-learning

[2] Rosenberg, Marc Jeffrey (2001): E-learning. Strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Image source: © Peter Mazohl

 

Official Erasmus+ Project Partner

Europaeische Bildungsinitiative Flipped Adult Education, Project
Official Erasmus+ Project Partner

We got the official Erasmus+ Partner Plate for our new project “Flipped Adult Education”.

The project will start with November 1, 2018 and run until October 31, 2020. The “Flipped Adult Education” project FADE-in takes a look at the horizon of educational developments and takes in account the innovation of the last ten years. This causes to shift the training methods and training activities. Simple onsite teaching courses or technology enhanced blended learning courses must be brought to the state of the art.
Thought to its very end this should be active teaching, a heutagogical approach with self-determining learners, the use of multimedia and a change of the roles of trainer and learner. The trainer will act more as a facilitator of the learning, the learners will use technology to create self-directed learning. The consortium calls this a flipping of learning following the ideas on Jon Bergmann, published in his book Flipped Learning 2.0 (addressing Vocational Education and Training).
For Adult Education (EA) flipped concepts do not exist and are not yet published. Therefore, the consortium of 4 completely different AE providers is going to develop these concepts in a versatile way and to publish the findings in an eBook (as OER to contribute to open education).
The objectives of the FADE-in project are to develop a course concepts to adult learning using a flipped approach. This means active and self-directed learning, to “flip” the roles (Trainer => Facilitater, Learner => Self-determining adult with self-responsibility for their learning (heutagogical approach). The Global Flipped Learning Initiative (GFLI) with Jon Bergman (the developer of Flipped
Learning) will be an associated partner in the project and impact with the state-of-the-art knowledge and experience of “flipping the learning”.

eLearning and Blended Learning Materials

PeterMaz Blended Learning, Miscellaneous, Technology Enhanced Teaching
eLearning and Blended Learning Materials
Books were a source for learning hundreds of years. Today, they still play a role – but often in an electronical version (ebook)

To plan and develop an eLearning course covers many aspects. To ensure the necessary quality you have to consider the institutional mission, the organizational structure and the available resources. Furthermore, you have to care for a well-fitting curriculum and design, the support from faculty (or similar internal structure) as well as the students’ support and to define the competence oriented learning outcomes.

Create the content

For the content of such a well-designed course, you have to develop the best-fitting material. Content in eLearning should cover different activities and learning content in a well-defined mixture (that depends in most cases from the taught subject). The following issues must be included:

  • Content to gain knowledge
  • Activities to interact with other learners. To promote group work and to develop the skills defined in the competence oriented learning outcomes
  • Content to develop the learners’ attitudes (as defined in the learning outcomes)
  • Assessments and test environment to check the learning progress

Reuse the content

The created content should be reusable – that means, that – as a start developed – content can be used easily also in other courses. The costs of content development for one single course ar too high to create high quality eLearning courses economically.

Where to take content?

There are different types of content based on the used media. Specialists in the subject can do writing a text easily. To provide the necessary graphics or high-quality multimedia material is more difficult and in the most cases cost extensive: You have to buy the material from companies specialized in that field of multimedia or expansive internal or external specialist create it.

Images and graphics

In spite of paying a lot of money for external specialists or image agencies, you may use content from sources under the Creative Commons (or similar environments).

This chapter of the webpage will supply you with information about “open resources”.

Animations

The same situation as mentioned above is in the field animations. There are many applications available either to create animations or ready-to-use animations that can be used without copyright violation.

You will also find here some information about free material and the legal conditions for their use.