Creative learning with "Medien in die Schule"

The FSM (Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation of Digital Media Service Providers) is a publicly accredited self-regulatory body in the field of online child protection in Germany. The association is dedicated to the protection of minors from harmful media - in particular the fight against illegal, youth-endangering and development-impairing content in online media. To this end, the FSM operates an internet hotline to which anyone can turn free of charge in order to report online content harmful to minors. The FSM hotline belongs to the founding hotlines of the INHOPE network. The extensive educational work and promotion of media literacy of children, young people and adults are further tasks of the FSM.

Date 2018-09-27 Author FSM Section awareness, hotlines Topic media literacy/education Audience teachers, educators and professionals

In this respect, FSM's "Medien in die Schule" (Media goes to School, www.medien-in-die-schule.de) project has offered high-quality, free-of-charge teaching material on diverse topics of media education and online safety since 2013. Inspiring online and print resources, as well as a digital tool collections, aim to support teachers in school - as well as those in extracurricular contexts - who want to strengthen media literacy of children and teenagers.

The open educational resources in the German language can easily be adapted to individual teaching environments. They address various topics of different media genre and formats with high topicality, such as democracy and hate speech, youth media protection, news and fiction in the media, mobile online usage, privacy issues, risk of online communication and interaction, tools for online collaboration, apps for educational contexts and many more.

Many of the topics bring issues and content which are dealt with in through the hotline work into a school and educational context. The material "Youth Media Protection" explains the German system of media protection of minors to pupils and highlights possibilities to report illegal online content to hotlines such as the FSM. Current issues such as hate speech online and fake news are addressed in recent teaching materials. Content and methods offer a balanced approach from both a legal as well as a media educational point of view for the target group of young people.

The teaching units target teachers and educators who work in a secondary school context and enable them to address various age groups with current online safety issues, while opening up opportunities to creatively use their favorite media and platforms at the same time. Each teaching unit and tool collection is accompanied by additional material such as interactive videos, images and web resources.

Next to the in-depth teaching units, the so called "tool collections" (Werkzeugkästen) focus on various examples to actively and creatively integrate digital media into school lessons. Teachers and educators can use these compilations of digital applications and tools to develop presentations, graphics, audio and video content, or to organise their curriculum. The four existing tool collections focus on collaborative learning, educational apps, DIY and making, as well as open source and free software.

Since the project started in 2013, seven teaching units and four tool collections have been developed and published together with relevant experts. They have been downloaded more than 200,000 times since the start of the non-profit project. "Medien in die Schule" is published by the FSM as a collaborative partner project together with Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Fernsehen (FSF, organisation for the voluntary self-regulation of television) and Google Germany.

Visit the Medien in die Schule website.

Visit the FSM website.

Find out more about the work of the German Safer Internet Centre (SIC), including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline and youth participation.

Find out more about the work of INHOPE (the International Association of Internet Hotlines).

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