Media Education Center  provides media and information literacy resources and tools for secondary and high schools in Armenia,  carries out public awareness campaigns, researches on young peoples’ media and Internet use.

 

Media Education and Citizenship

The EU-funded 'Speaking for Myself' project has been aimed to facilitate children's participation in decision making and advocacy from local to international platforms and across different media forms. Children gained experience about grassroots democracy, active citizenship and conflict resolution, they participated in hands-on trainings in media and Internet literacy, public speaking, advocacy campaigning, disability rights. The action included children with disabilities as they are often marginalized in mainstream activities. Media Education Center partnered with Mission East, Bridge of Hope and Internews Armenia.

In frames of the project Media Education Center conducted Media and Internet Literacy trainings for teachers and students of secondary schools in the capital city and regions.  Trainees learnt how to access sources, interact, search, use WEB-2 networks: blog and video blog networks, news sources, wiki systems, social networks and homepages.   Media trainings focusing on journalism, digital photography, writing, filming, self-editing, radio and television were designed to help children gain essential knowledge and skills to speak for themselves, protect and promote their rights, and voice their opinions on issues related to them and their lives.   Along with the study trainees contributed to the development of educational e-content.   Speaking for Myself, a unified multi-user web platform for 31 School Councils (http://immasin.am) was established and web-sites for 31 Schools have been built.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Media Education and Internet Safety

 

The Media Education Center works towards improving citizens' safety in relation to digital media, raising awareness about on-line risks and promoting the protection and education of children using the Internet and new online technologies. MEC is an associate member of eNACSO - The European NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online. Since 2009 Media Education Center has coordinated Safer Internet Armenia initiative aimed to empower citizens to use the Internet and mobile technologies safely and creatively and to educate children and parents, youths and teachers to avoid risks while using digital and mobile technologies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Media Education Center produced web resource with links to teaching materials on e-safety and social networking; localized the Council of Europe's Internet Literacy Handbook and European Schoolnet’s INSAFE e-Safety Kit.
• Internet Safety Guide for Teachers, Parents and Children;
• Disseminated teaching materials on safe use of the Internet and mobile technologies among school children, teachers and parents;
• Announced competitions and encouraged children to prepare their own electronic materials dedicated to their on-line experiences;
• Carried out information campaigns at the country level;
• Supported the pan-European communication campaigns of 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and actively participated in delivering the messages to the target group of teenagers.
• Conducted surveys and polls, the results from the recent survey on e-safety was highlighted by Insafe.
• Media Education Center analyzed more than 10 000 web-sites and created an Internet Safety Zone for parents and schools (collection of links to 3000 safe educational web-resources free of offensive and commercial content) to use in teaching and learning purposes.
• Media Education Center and Public Radio of Armenia organize on a regular basis 45-minute-radio program to highlight Internet related issues to general public and particularly to parents, teachers and teenagers.
• Organized workshops for school teachers, children and parents;
• Organized high level round tables, conferences and other media events, attended by officials, NGOs, media and industry management.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our round tables were attended by senior management of Public Radio of Armenia, PanARMENIAN.Net, Noyan Tapan Media Holding, ArmenTel/Beeline telecommunication company, iCon ISP, Synopsys Armenia, Enterprise Incubator Foundation, Union of IT Enterprises, Public Council of Armenia, National Center of Educational Technologies of the Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Diaspora, CAPS/USAID, British Council, WB Armenian Office, World Vision Armenia, American University of Armenia, Bridge of Hope NGO, municipality representatives and principals of secondary schools from Armenian capital and regions. Public Radio of Armenia, ARMENIA TV, Armenian Second TV Channel H-2, ALM TV, SHANT TV, PanARMENIAN.Net, Noyan Tapan Media Holding provided coverage of safer internet events in Armenia.

 

Media Education and e-Learning

 

Media Education Center is committed to introduction of media literacy education in the state secondary and university curriculum.  Media Education Center is a signatory of the European Charter for Media Literacy, part of EuroMeduc network.    

 In August 2007 MEC organized a first conference on media literacy in Armenia, which was attended by professors of the Communication and Journalism Department of the US University of St. Thomas. 

 

With advice of professors of the Journalism and Communication Department of the University of St. Thomas Media Education Center developed new curricular materials for teaching news reporting and film making in 7-12 Grades of secondary school.

 

The “Universal Journalism Course” for the high school was developed. Research project on pop-culture, hybrid media and youth, was implemented in partnership with the U.S. University of St. Thomas.

We established a media school, where students of 7th to 12th grades were taught news-reporting and film-making.

 

 

Example of the resources produced in the framework of “On-line magazine as a teaching tool” project can be found here... .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since September of 2007 MEC has initiated projects aimed at introduction of new media into teaching and learning process. We focused on students’ and teachers participation in the process of creation of teaching electronic materials, making the process of media production an indispensable part of classroom activity.

As a part of "Cooperative Learning in a Media Environment" program" Media Education Center organized trainings for students and teachers (PowerPoint, Photoshop, HTML) aimed at development of ICT skills (usage of multimedia software, audio visual equipment).
More than 300 educational electronic materials in different subjects (Mathematics, Science, Literature, English, Geography, and History) were created for all levels: from basic school to education college.   We started introducing new software, which will enable middle and high school students to create electronic materials meeting SCORM standards. Resource produced in frames of “Media Production in English language classroom” can be found here....

eLibrary, an Electronic Scientific Library, comprising of 30 000 electronic books in Physics, Mathematics, Information Technology, Chemistry, Biology, Science in English, Russian and Armenian, is ready to be launched in local networks of schools and institutions of higher education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“e-Mathematics”, electronic collection of 400 mathematical tasks and solutions has been created.  Students of 9th to 10th grades participated. Theoretical materials from different areas of mathematics: theorems, definitions, have been gathered. The web-site assists students and teachers to develop their logical reasoning. "eMathematics" is a first stage of a larger “Development of Mathematical Capabilities” program aimed at creation of digital classes completed with programming tools.