THE INTERNET FARM’ AMONG THE INSPIRING MEDIA LITERACY PRACTICES IN EUROPE

The Greek Awareness Centre is proud to announce that the children’s book and homonymous project ‘The Internet Farm’ authored by Dr Veronica Samara, Greek Safer Internet Centre (SIC) coordinator, and Mr George Kormas, Helpline responsible, was among the 12 good practices included in the second edition of the ‘Media Literacy in Europe: the crucial role of parents in media education’ publication of the Evens Foundation, following its ‘Evens Foundation EU Grant for Media Literacy 2014’ distinction.

The media literacy publication focuses on the role that parents play in the media education of their children, a responsibility often outsourced to the teachers and or/media educators. In this framework, ‘The Internet Farm’ was chosen among the good and inspiring practices from all over Europe that raise parents’ interest in the media activities of their children. In particular, the project initiates children of kindergarten and primary school age into important rules of internet usage while supporting the very active role of (grand) parents and educators in empowering minors to use interactive media ethically, constructively and safely.

Through five engaging stories taking place on an animal farm, children become aware of important issues online, such as protecting personal data online, avoiding strangers online, stopping online hate speech and cyberbullying. Educators, parents and grandparents are invited to read these stories along with their children and discuss any issues that may have come up. In this way, they can sharpen their children’s capacity to recognise similar issues that arise in their online adventures, and evaluate their critical thinking and maturity concerning media use through a short “let’s see what we have learned from our story” section at the end of each book chapter.
Promoted along with 11 other European projects in the publication, the project entails active and participatory learning as a didactic method based on problem identification, solution analysis and knowledge evaluation using the most effective way whereby children have learnt throughout the centuries: fairytales.