Boomering – Breaking fake news by self-critical mind Erasmus Project

Project Title

Boomering – Breaking fake news by self-critical mind

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

An innovative project, mixing differents fields of education players interventions, BOOMERING-project is carried by five partners, designed by family and social associations with the support of two universities, various associated organizations and seasoned experts experienced in fake-news, right-of-way phenomena and the development of appropriate digital tools. Its ambition is to provide for Educator (generic term covering professional or volunteer educators and parents) – as part of a high-quality learning offer – with interactive and collaborative digital tools designed to fight the growing attraction of teenagers aged 10 to 19, and sometimes their elders, to infoxes and conspiracy or obscurantist theories (e.g. scientific, historical, religious or political) conveyed by the Internet and social networks.

This attraction for infox occurs in a global context of crisis of values transmissions, in a period of a loss of meaning in life, a lack of reference points, a feeling of downgrading, and sometimes a sense of identity, victimization and/or social withdrawal, likely to pose a threat to the establishment of critical thinking among adolescents, but also to endanger democratic values by distancing young people from active and constructive citizenship.
The construction of critical and complex thinking is a key skill to adjust the level of confidence given to information according to the reliability of the source, the argumentation, etc… It is therefore crucial, but not sufficient. In addition to strengthening critical thinking, Boomering-project also intends to support the Educator in developing the spirit of self-criticism as intellectual self-defence, using appropriate training tools (MOOC and BLENDED LEARNING).

Accompanying the Adolescent in the process of thinking for himself, learning to consider complexity, and giving him leads to understand how he thinks, how he agrees to certain assertions, why he gives more or less confidence in the credibility of the considered information…, is essential to preserve his social inclusion by providing him with skills against propaganda, racism and lead him to protect himself from radical approaches from all sides.

Such learning can only be based on concrete experiences, which are meaningful for all and share common values, and which are part of the socio-cultural heritage of the European Union. This learning must be corroborated by an elaborated and shared ethic, based on innovative tools allowing a media education, integrating the new digital information environments which differ according to the socio-demographic characteristics of the public. These tools adapt to this diversity and develop a better information literacy on the Net.
Achieving these objectives presupposes that the project partners forge lasting links between all the stakeholders in Education (from university research and innovation to formal and non-formal education structures), and Society (civil society including NGOs and groups of parents in schools; political and economic actors; local authorities, etc.).

The tools we propose aims therefore to be efficient, reliable and fun, but also favour an experiential approach by being attractive enough to involve parents (or educators) and teenagers, and make them want to use them. They must also be visible and well referenced to appear in good place on the net and on social networks.
TALOS, a conversational digital robot, opens up a primary dialog (front desk) between young people and adults at any time. It can retrieve (non-private) data and offer personalised information adapted to each person. PAREIDOLOIA favours an experiential approach, knowing that the truth perceived by one is not necessarily the truth perceived by the other, depending on the angle of view chosen.
Most European countries are concerned about the same drifts concerning the attraction of adolescents to infox, with a retreat of critical thinking and withdrawal into oneself. However, there are differences between the infoxes in force in each country, depending on psycho-social and especially geopolitical specificities. Hence the interest in developing a statistical, census and cartographic referencing tool, MAPPING of the different infox themes, in order to study their evolution in real time and over time. As an information and educational tool for educators, this collection of usable data will be available to European researchers and experts. The interest of proposing transnational collaboration is also to promote European coherence and competence in the field of digital and youth values and policy.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 379216 Eur

Project Coordinator

Union Départementale des Associations Familiales de Tarn et Garonne & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Fundació Campus Arnau d’Escala
• Cooperativa sociale GLOCAL FACTORY
• Centre d’Accompagnement Familial Face à l’Emprise Sectaire (CAFFES)
• UNIVERZA V LJUBLJANI