MILbox: what you can expect?

Welcome to the official platform of the Erasmus+ project MILbox – media and information literacy toolbox, aimed at helping to facilitate the learning of critical thinking skills effectively. The project, spanning the countries of Lithuania, Greece and Finland, was started in 2022 to create a toolbox with a twofold purpose: digital education engagement (including pedagogical material for teachers, best practices, etc. and also primary content for data privacy, effective communication with students, etc.) and media and information literacy (including online, offline and mixed material tailored to specific age group and their needs, integration with other subject guidance, ready syllabi for lessons, etc.) parts.

Project activities are built around co-creation exercises in which teachers will be involved in the creation, testing and improvement stages. The Toolbox will consist of three key components: 

1. Teacher needs-based tools, easily transferable and implemented in activities with children at school (engagement and media and information literacy); 

2. Training content to support teachers; 

3. A digital space for teachers to learn from one another and share their best practices or initiate joint activities and fields related to the project.

MILbox is designed by partners based in Lithuania, Greece and Finland: 

1. Knowledge Economy Forum (KEF) is a professional non-profit in Vilnius, Lithuania, with more than 50 members representing research, innovation and education areas. KEF brings together politicians, university representatives, NGOs, and the high-tech industry. It acts as a think-tank/debate platform for the country’s societal and economic progress in knowledge society, innovation and education. KEF has excellent regional cooperation with school authorities, the Lithuanian School Headmaster Association, the Lithuanian Pupil Union, and the most innovative teachers in Lithuania.  
2. Faktabaari service is run by a Finnish transparency NGO called Avoin yhteiskunta ry, acting as its legal body. Avoin yhteiskunta ry main fields of activity are: – fact-checking – media and information literacy education – related research, and projects. The NGO is committed to developing Faktabaari fact-checking and associated media and information literacy efforts as a civil society-driven meeting place for people concerned with fact-based public debate in the digital age. Avoin yhteiskunta ry is run by a voluntary staff of professional journalists, researchers, EU experts, teachers and technical staff with the help of a broader network of topical experts and information and media literacy specialists.
3. IDEC is a Greek training consulting company. Its activities include training, management consulting, quality assurance, evaluation & development of ICT solutions for the private & public sectors. Clients of IDEC are both SMEs & the more prominent Greek companies of a wide variety of industries. It co-operates with more than 800 institutes all over Europe & with about 300 experts in specific fields.
4. Visaginas “Verdenės” gymnasium is a national school of Lithuania which provides education from 1 to 12 grades. There are 436 students in it. The school staff consists of 90 people, which includes 52 teachers, 8 teacher assistants, service staff, and the administration – the headmaster and two deputy directors.

The project begins with partners mapping out existing experiences and teachers’ needs in each partner country. This task aims to gather resources on digital education engagement and teaching media and information literacy in primary education and identify good practices and tools already in use. Based on the results, partners will develop the initial version of tools (alpha version), ensuring it reflects teachers’ diverse needs. Then, partners will prototype an initial set of tools (minimum viable product) and try them out under actual conditions at a very early design stage to correct and adjust them progressively. After that, partners will expand the toolbox version – in accordance with the tools, the consortium will develop two guidelines. 

The guidelines for student engagement and the guidelines for teachers and school administrators. Thus, the Beta version will be ready to test. The consortium will also pilot this version in schools and, based on collected feedback, will develop the final version of the Toolbox. To support teachers, the consortium will create an online training module. Before setting the first version of the training module, partners will survey teacher needs. It will include an inspirational collection of best primary students’ engagement practices and material that explains the main aspects of media and information literacy enriched with primary students’ compatible examples. Then, based on the produced report, the initial version of the training module will be developed. Partners will test the relevance of the training content and format (digital training course). 

The consortium will select a diverse group of teachers with different experiences on the topic for testing. Based on collected feedback, partners will develop the final version of the online training module. Also, self-check tools for teachers to evaluate their engagement methods and for schools regarding media and information literacy learning and teaching will be developed. Moreover, a digital space for the learning community will be created. The community of teachers will be formed to foster the sharing of good practices for developing media and information literacy skills and encouraging cooperation with colleagues. Partners will organise media and information literacy and learning engagement (MILLiE) conventions to disseminate better and sustain project results.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters from Unsplash.com.