Breaking news @ school Erasmus Project

Project Title

Breaking news @ school

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

The project ‘Breaking news @school’ is aimed at setting up a school news platform as a way to increase coherence and school identity and as a way to work on media literacy and language competence in authentic situations. It is a project involving 6 different secondary schools, situated in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Sweden.
Never before did students have such an easy access to so much information. Online (social) media are an important part of how our students look at the world. It is a challenge for us as teachers to teach them to process this information critically. We experience that most students lack media literacy skills, autonomy in using information resources, knowledge on how to safely use the internet in general and social media in particular. As teachers we have also experienced a drop in students’ literacy skills. It has become increasingly difficult for them to write or present a clear report in a correct style and form. All the partners involved in this project want to counter these tendencies and work on increasing the core skills of their students, to help them develop these key competences for our knowledge based society.
Moreover, at a school level we feel that young adults are struggling to define how they can identify with the society and the school that surrounds them. We want to work on our school identity and increase the coherence at school.
With this project we want to establish a school news platform. This will be a vital element in creating a stronger involvement at school. Through experimenting with different types of media, we will also work on media literacy and writing comprehension skills. At the end of this project we will have set up a student news room where the different members of the editorial staff have learned new skills and knowledge that they can apply and share with other students. As teachers we will develope new teaching materials on media literacy (fake news, cyberbullying…) and on writing comprehension. On a school level we will have created a SWOT-analysis on our school identity and a strategy to tackle the challenges and threats identified in this analysis.
In the first year of this project activities will focus on school identity and the working and impact of different types of news media. Through surveys, workshops with professional journalists, discussion fora etc. we want to recruit students to be part of an editorial team and to establish guidelines for them. In year two we want to experiment with different types of media and start with the first publications on our school news platform. We will also work on joint international publications during exchange weeks. During these experiments we will develop a writing competence manual that includes all the building blocks that the editorial team needs in the future. Through the development of a school news platform we will encourage our students to participate in the school community. These activities will take place at 4 different levels: activities in our own schools, on eTwinning, during short term teacher mobilities and during short term student mobilities.
We aim at involving as many students as we can in internal actions and on eTwinning. Their ages will range from 15 to 18 years old and at least 10 students of every school will travel abroad every year.
The exchanges will be organized in such a way that schools will have the opportunity to visit 2 other schools with their students during the project and host visits from 2 other schools. This way each school will be in contact with every other school of the project to maximise exchange of expertise and the intercultural dialogue. In these exchange weeks, students will work together in mixed groups to reflect on news, media, school identity and to work on a joint publication.
This project will enable close cooperation between students and teachers online and face to face, but it will also result in a number of products that will be longer lasting. Students will develop a school news platform that can be used in years to follow. They will have reflected on their school identity and have created strategies to improve this for a new generation of students. They will have broadened their knowledge and awareness of the similarities and differences between different European countries. During this project our students will create an international network and benefit from all the advantages of an intercultural experience. But most of all our students will be more equipped to find their way in the jungle that is modern mass and social media. Because, as journalist Linda Ellerbee said it: “Media literacy is not just important, it’s absolutely critical. It’s going to make the difference between whether kids are a tool of the mass media or whether the mass media is a tool for kids to use.”

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 164374 Eur

Project Coordinator

Heilig Hartinstituut Pedagogische Humaniora & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas de Santa Maria Maior
• LICEO ARTISTICO STATALE CATALANO
• Birger Sjöberggymnasiet
• Heilig-Hartinstituut Lyceum
• Nelson-Mandela-Gesamtschule Greven