The 21st century is associated with the rise of information and communication technologies, which have gradually become part of our daily lives. We use digital tools daily at work, at school and in leisure activities. Today's era can be described as digital, and this got more intense especially during the COVID 19 pandemic, during which even less digitally skilled individuals had to move their activities to the online environment.
As the world around us is constantly changing and education, whether formal or informal, is a very dynamic field. Digital or even social, economic, or cultural changes indirectly affect the education system of all countries and thus force a reassessment of education methods and tools. The system must keep pace with the times and be open to new opportunities, and most importantly, youth workers should be constantly educated in this regard. Only in this way can they do their job well and pass the right knowledge and skills effectively and engagingly to young people.
Digital youth work is a fast-growing area, and the media are an integral part of it. The rise of the Internet and the widespread use of social networks have led to a significant shift in the sharing and dissemination of information. A lot of new media has emerged, and the average consumer cannot face the huge amount of information he/she is exposed to on a daily basis. Insufficient media literacy - the inability to evaluate relevant information then causes a tendency to believe in misinformation and conspiracy theories. This polarises society and ultimately threatens the foundations of democracy.
Media and digital literacy as well as the ability to critically evaluate information are key competencies of today. It is therefore important especially for teachers, youth workers and representatives of youth organisations involved in educating young people to improve in this area. The whole Erasmus + gaMEfy project is built on this goal.
GaMEfy's partners therefore worked together to create several educational outcomes of the project. The first is the Curriculum containing a useful tool for understanding the education on the topics of digital and media literacy, both for youth and for youth workers and educators. It will help you to recognize the false news and different threats of the online world. In addition, you will find there many practical exercises of various levels of difficulty for young people. The second output of the project is a great interactive educational game, which gives the target groups the opportunity to learn in an easy, accessible way, and improve their digital skills and their knowledge about media and fake news.
After testing and improving the game, partners were piloting it in 5 full cycles, while the universities in 10. This means that they had to find up to 200 young people to play the game, then complete a questionnaire and participate in a focus group, which aimed to evaluate the game itself but mostly the state of media literacy and educational opportunities in this area in their country. The results of both quantitative and qualitative research can be found on the following pages of the Guidelines.
The partners also looked individually at the state of media literacy in their home countries and produced a report referring to educational opportunities in the field of media digital literacy. You can find the result of their desk research in our Guidelines. Based on the information and data collected, the partners were able to propose policy recommendations for the national as well as European level - recommendations on how to improve media and digital literacy education.