Training for teachers and librarians

👉 Are you a teacher or librarian and do you want to make young people more resilient against disinformation?

👉 Are you concerned about the lack of spaces for democratic education and critical thinking?

👉 Do you want to train new generations in the fight against disinformation?

If your answer is YES!, we invite you to join the international media literacy project SMILES. Through this project, librarians and teachers will acquire tools, skills and knowledge to recognise and combat disinformation, and transfer this knowledge to young people between 12 and 15 years old through specialised workshops. This process is carried out in schools and libraries in the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.

About SMILES

SMILES is a media literacy project that is all about helping young people learn how to combat fake information. The project, funded by the European Union, brings together partners in the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium who work in libraries, media literacy organisations and research institutes to develop and test an innovative approach to combating the spread of disinformation.

Phases of the project

The first phase of the project, preliminary investigation, has been completed. Take a look at the baseline reports here: https://smiles.platoniq.net/processes/output1.

In the follow-up process, workshops on fake news and training courses for workshop providers will be developed according to the train-the-trainer method.

Train the Trainers

The training is aimed at teachers and librarians working with secondary education, with basic skills around digital learning and digital literacy.

Teachers and librarians will be trained to become workshop providers in a two-day training course. With the acquired knowledge and skills, they will be able to provide workshops on disinformation at their own school.

Teachers and librarians will work together in the training and implementation of these workshops. As additional support, a manual and digital toolkit will be provided. The training is expected to take place in September 2022. 

Workshops

In the workshops, young people will learn to critically reflect on the news that is presented to them, in order to recognise and refute disinformation. This also includes the results and recommendations from the preliminary study.

The workshops are aimed at young people from 12 to 15 years old, with extra attention for vulnerable pupils. The workshops will be conducted at least twice in the period October-November 2022 in a group of at least 20 students at 5 schools. The wish is that libraries and schools will continue to work together in this area after these workshops. 

Impact measurement 

The effects of the workshops will be extensively measured and analysed. Attention is also paid to possible differences between education systems and cultures in the participating countries. Teachers, librarians and students will participate in this impact measurement, whose permission for the use of their data will be requested. 

Would you like to get involved?

The call to participate is open until mid-May 2022. 10 positions have been opened for teachers and 10 positions for library staff in each of the participating countries.

If you are interested in participating, fill out the following form: https://smiles.platoniq.net/processes/training/f/181/.

Contribution from SMILES

The training, workshops, manual for trainers, digital toolkit and impact measurement are available free of charge to the participating schools and libraries.

At the end of the project, the material will be available for other groups of students at their own school and also outside it. The results of the impact measurement at the institutional level will be shared with the participating teachers, librarians, students and partners within SMILES.