Fostering Adolescents’ Knowledge and Empowerment in Outsmarting Fake Facts Erasmus Project

Project Title

Fostering Adolescents’ Knowledge and Empowerment in Outsmarting Fake Facts

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The project “Fostering Adolescents’ Knowledge and Empowerment in Outsmarting Fake Facts” (FAKE OFF) aimed at fostering young people’s internet literacy, creating awareness of intentional misinformation and enabling them to identify “fake news” to avoid them.

BACKGROUND
“Fake news” and “fake facts” have become not only fashionable keywords but actual threats to democratic values. Especially young people, who spend increasing amounts of time on the internet and with social media, are targeted by fake news for propaganda and/or profit reasons. Therefore, they need empowerment and knowledge to outsmart the flow of intentional misinformation through critical thinking and improved internet literacy (e.g. fact-checking abilities). Although initiatives to foster these competencies have been initiated by educators and corporations, adequate didactic means to foster digital literacy skills have been missing in the sphere of youth work until now.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES
To create an innovation in youth work on an international level, tackling the issue of fake news and provide solutions for the target groups of young people and youth workers, a GENERAL DIDACTIC CONCEPT, providing up-to-date information on the topic and state-of-the-art TRAINING MATERIAL, including a game-based approach for young people within an APP, have been developed. With these project results we aimed at:
– increasing the participation of young people in the critical debate of news and internet content
– developing young people’s capacity to evaluate published information and act accordingly
– allowing a systematic approach to digital literacy for young people and professionals working with them
– supporting the individual learning process of young people in the context of digital literacy

PROJECT OUTPUTS
• A tailor-made GENERAL DIDACTIC CONCEPT to foster media literacy in youth work, youth information centres and other educational settings
• An APP (for Android and iOS devices) for young people, containing game-based specialised quizzes concerning fake news, media literacy and how to detect them
• TRAINING MATERIAL concerning fake news, internet and media literacy for youth workers and teachers

PARTICPANTS
To create high quality outputs that can be used across Europe, the main target groups of teachers, trainers and youth workers and young people (from 13 to 19) as well as international experts have been actively involved in the development of the project results, e.g. in pilot tests, interviews and research. In total 30 youth workers, trainers and teachers gave feedback to IO1 and IO4 and 55 young people participated in the pilot testes of IO3. Additionally, LEARNING TEACHING TRAINING ACTIVITIES were conducted, planned and implemented with teacher, trainers and youth workers (15 people at C1) and young people (20 individuals between 13 and 19) and the participants have been involved in the project processes (review of the GENERAL DIDACTIC CONCEPT (IO1), development of the APP (IO3) and development of the TRAINING MATERIAL (IO4)), as well have been trained as multipliers for the topic, the results of the project and as fighters against fake news

ACTIVITIES
Besides the LEARNING TEACHING TRAINING ACTIVITIES, 5 multiplier events were conducted in the project partner countries (AT, DE, IT, ES, PT), presenting the project and its results, disseminating it and generating multipliers of the project. The multiplier events (E1-E5) attended in total 242 participants from 8 different countries.

IMPACT AND LONGER-TERM BENEFITS
The impact of the FAKE OFF project on all geographical levels are the following:
– usage of the Know-How, expertise and materials in the follow-up project: “MISS to young people: more information, safe surfing” (2019-3-IT03-KA105-017667) with its objective to improve youth work quality on the topic of media literacy via 5 full days of training course
– empowerment of young people with the skills of critical thinking and media literacy
– more responsible use of (online) media by young people
– better informed younger generation and stronger fundament for democracy
– public discourse about the accuracy and quality of news
– awareness of media education in the context of fake news in youth organisations
– a general democratization process through making young people less susceptible to intentional misinformation and propaganda
– a higher competence regarding digital forms of teaching by youth workers
– already used Training Material within the partner organizations and beyond
– strong relationship within the consortium for following projects
– establishment of local, regional and national networks with other educational institutions, youth workers and public authorities/municipalities

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 257776,99 Eur

Project Coordinator

bit Schulungscenter GmbH & Country: AT

Project Partners

• INTERNATIONALE AKADEMIE BERLIN FUR INNOVATIVE PADAGOGIK PSYCHOLOGIE UND OKONOMIE GGMBH (INA)
• ASOCIACION INTERCULTURAL EUROPEA GO EUROPE
• Jonathan Cooperativa Sociale
• OSTERREICHISCHES INSTITUT FUR ANGEWANDTE TELEKOMMUNIKATION
• LOGO jugendmanagement gmbh
• FUTURE BALLOONS UNIPESSOAL LDA