Today, December 12, a media literacy workshop was held at the “Mladost” High School in Petrovac na Mlavi as part of the “Lie Detector” project.
20 students of this school and two teachers participated in the workshop.
Dušan Radovanović, a biology teacher at Požarevac High School, “Sveti Sava” Elementary School and Polytechnic School in Požarevac, and Marko Tadić, an expert in social networks, worked with the students.
Through the conversation, the students were reminded of what the media are, why media literacy is important, and what misinformation is.
Marko Tadić presented them with data on how much information we get daily from social networks, but also why the content that appears to one student is not the same as the content that appears to another, that is, he explained to them what algorithms are.
Then, through interesting examples of news that actually appeared in different media, the students analyzed whether it was true information or fake news.
At the same time as the students, the teachers, Radiša Vujčić, teacher of philosophy and civic education, and Irena Janković, teacher of physics and civic education, had training. Petar Pantić, a history teacher at “Sveti Sava” Primary School, through a conversation with the teachers, also went through examples of fake news and explained to them how they can bring it closer to the students.
After these workshops, all participants came together and a practical task followed. Namely, the students, divided into five groups, were supposed to create a news story based on the acquired knowledge. Then one group at a time presented their news, while the others analyzed whether it was true or false news.
After the workshop, we spoke with students Dušan Štrpce, Vukašin Palević and Borinka Stanojević, who attended the workshop, and asked them what they learned and how they use social networks.
Impressions after the workshop were shared with us by the teachers, whose observation, based on what they see in the classroom, is that students do not have a developed critical opinion about information from social networks, and that the most important thing for them when consuming content is to have fun.
The goal of such workshops is, on the one hand, to improve students’ media literacy skills, since social networks are an inseparable part of their lives, and on the other hand, to encourage teachers to integrate the processing of this important topic into educational work with children.
The “Lie Detector” project is jointly implemented by the Association for the Education of Youth and Adults from Požarevac and the Boom 93 portal, as part of the wider “Youth and Democratic Development” project. This project is implemented in partnership with the Belgrade Open School with the support of Sweden.
text & photo: Jelena Milenkovic
source: BOOM93
