Media & Learning Brussels 2010: Addressing a Changing View of Media Literacy and Developing Digital Media Skills in Education

This document summarises the presentations at the Media & Learning Brussels 2010 conference, November 25-26, Belgium, organised by the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training and the media company ATiT, Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics and Telecommunications, with the support of the European Commission Directorate General for Education and Culture. According to the document, the idea behind this conference was to help launch a real and ongoing community of practice of those interested in how best to harness the promise of traditional and new media in the service of learning.

The conference evolved around three main themes:

1. Digital and media skills and competences
2. Fostering the creation of media-based resources at all levels of education and training
3. Use and re-use of existing media resources in education and training

A total of 23 different sessions took place using a mix of formats. Networking was supported in various ways including an online conference community and the use of an SMS (mobile text) messaging service, which individuals could use to contact conference participants, as well as to pose questions and put forward points of view in the presentation and plenary sessions.

Sessions in the main auditorium were video streamed for online access to the proceedings. Two core themes emerged as being central to a changing view of media literacy and developing digital media skills in education. First, "society has evolved from a literacy culture to a media culture." Keynote speaker Paul Bottelberghs presented 3 levels of media literacy: the ability to:

• express yourself in a medium of your choice
• handle media in a critical and conscious way
• understand media-ecology, i.e.,  the extent to which different media provide access to different parts of the brain

The second main theme that emerged was that "the classroom, university lecture hall or training lab is the place where media needed to be contextualized and perfected." During the conference, the following issues were identified as crucial for supporting education in a media culture:

• Media literacy training for teachers is needed.
• More opportunities for creativity and participation in the classroom in new and pervasive ways are needed.
• Multimedia literacy: all media need to find their place in the classroom with the necessary support from the teacher
• A change is required in the way assessment is done: there is a mismatch between the kind of assessment that is needed for media literacy and the existing formal assessment requirements of teachers in the classroom.

The key skill, as described by presenter Allen Partridge, that is necessary in this new culture is "learning, unlearning, and relearning", in other words, adaptability. But the question remains - how can this be taught effectively? Conference participants made suggestions about how the situation can be improved:

• Autonomy and Ownership: giving students ownership over their own development and increased degrees of autonomy in pursuing their own development will encourage media literacy.
• Renewing the place of creativity in the classroom: the examples shown during the Media & Learning Conference often encourage a multi-dimensional view of the learner as producer, consumer, and evaluator of different types of media.
• Critical reflection on media and information: the projects presented encourage a critical use of media and information in their student participants.
• Citizenship and engagement in large societal issues can offer a way to introduce critical thinking and digital media in the classroom and the lecture hall.
• Different schooling systems across Europe allow for different degrees of freedom in using information and communication technology (ICT) in the classroom. This offers school systems and students an opportunity to learn from each other.

Policy was also put under the spotlight, and participants agreed that policy changes need to build on the fact that not all learners are equal in age or profile. This leads to differentiated skills and, thus, results in new digital divides. Policymakers need also to be mindful, according to participants, that research is not yet supportive of major cognitive changes happening through the use of digital media and that learners take a common sense in their approach to connectedness in education, expecting it to reduce effort and/or increase productivity.

Editor's note, January 17 2012: According to ATiT:

• The November 24-25 2011 conference evolved around 3 main themes: future trends and developments in media-supported learning; digital and media production skills and competences including media literacy; and the use and re-use of existing media resources in education and training at all levels including early and special needs education. Click here for the public report about the 2011 conference in PDF format.
• The 2012 will take place November 14-15 2012. This press release [PDF] provides information and links to details about the 2012 event.