Hello fellow peripheral-surfers ;)
In a few weeks I’ll take part in a week of active media learning in Madrid. Skills learned here will be collated and together will constitute a manual for further training for anyone intereseted after the event. Have a read below and perhaps, at some point further on down the road, we can share the fruits of this experience.
-- SUMMARY IN ENGLISH --
The training course “Be the Media” will take place from 17 to 22 June 2013 in Madrid and will attended 28 young people from Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
“Be the Media” is an international training course, focused on critical analysis of media and active use of digital communication tools. These contents and experiences will be collected to create a collaborative manual. So that, they are distributed and enhancing the multiplier effect of the course.
Our reasons for presenting this project stem from our experience as young people working in media and communications, focussing on the use of social networks for the creation and distribution of information. We firmly believe that this knowledge and these skills help us to become well-informed and, as a result, more responsible citizens. We have also found that these skills enable us to advance in our professional careers, find jobs, and initiate our own projects in media communications.
In the context of the current global economic crisis, which particularly affects young people, whose unemployment rates in many countries are around 30%. In the field of media added other facts that makes worst the situation: large companies trying to keep a obsolete business model and whose approach to digital technologies is not always successful. At this time also open new channels of information and business channels. For any young person who wants to develop a professional capacity in communicate, the knowledge and use of these new technologies and tools is essential.
Moreover, much of the traditional media (newspapers, radio and television) are controlled by few companies. Much of their information is not always truthful and objective. In this training course we will allows everyone to have a more aware to the information, becoming more responsible and committed citizens. Features essential to form a citizens more active, better informed, more aware and committed to the strengthening of democracy in Europe.
We believe in learning not as a passive reception of knowledge, but as a personal and group quest which implies dedication, organization, creativity, and responsibility. Effective learning not only requires intelligence, but also other factors such as emotional intelligence, motivation, personality, and values, and we will pay special attention to these aspects.
The constant practice in the use of new technologies will be a significant element of our methodology. All sessions will be broadcast through different communication platforms (blogs, social networks, video and audio, etc.).
Four sessions of the training course will be open to the public so more people can participate and learn about some of the actions taken by the Youth in Action program. In these sessions we will have a team of sign language interpretation; OjosQueOyen (http://ojosqueoyen.net/es/) in order to ensure greater inclusiveness.
Broadcasting tasks will be performed by the participants with the support and supervision of trainers. The direct daily contact allows us to evaluate the rate of learning and adapting the training course development, if it will be necessary. This methodology allows us to make continuous evaluation during the training course. This process will be complemented by an initial evaluation and a final one where analyzing the implementation.
Participants will be asked to respond to a detailed questionnaire, and the seminar methodology will take as its starting point their knowledge and interests. By means of programmed activities, we aim to create an atmosphere of trust which facilitates dialogue and participation so that everyone can express their concerns and queries.
The workshop is aimed at people between 20 and 40 years old (as a rough guideline) who: are familiar with using internet and social networks; can speak and write in English; are interested in promoting more active citizenship; and in building a European citizenship based on democratic values, which respects the diversity of European peoples, and seeks common ground among them. Specifically, the seminar may be of particular interest to young professionals working in the media, unemployed or not, who want to receive training and broaden their professional profile in the use of digital tools.
The diversity of knowledge and experience provided by participants and trainers will be reflected in a manual we will elaborate in a collaborative way through the course. This will facilitate the diffusion of this knowledge, and also the manual can be used as a guide for next workshops. The manual will be available for free download on the Internet under a 'public domain' license, so that anyone can access it, and use it to spread training in different cities and countries.
We will discuss the process and the conclusions reached in different universities to make visible the work of this training course. We are also negotiating with several publishers to print the manual, which would allow further visualize all this work.
Please find attached a complete time line/schedule of the workshop. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuBA8kC5tlq5dGJxZ1hmMnNyQmFrX3Q5NHdSRk84UFE#gid=0
Workshops:
- Mass-media analysis
- Create and manage blogs
- Social Networking
- Collaborative tools (N-1, titandpad, google docs, kune, mumble, skype ...)
- Live Streaming
- Share images and videos
- Deconstruction of audiovisual information
- Management Tools (multiply the impact)
- Licenses: copyright vs copyleft
- Technopolitics
- Democracy and Participation
- Citizen Journalism
