Iberikas new project on media education
QYourself: Question what you get. Media education to combat disinformation

QYourself is our newest innovative European project co-financed by the Erasmus+ program that sets out to address disinformation by providing teachers and educators working in a wide range of different educational contexts with knowledge, tools and ready-to-use materials on media and
information literacy. This 250,000€, two-year project–running from November 2023 to October 2025—arises from the need to combat the phenomenon of disinformation which has become a serious problem democracies across Europe and around the world.

The project aims to increase the awareness among European citizens of the need to validate information before sharing it by:
– Promoting the professional development of trainers and educators to expand and develop their digital and media literacy skills for teaching.
– Building on the digital competence frameworks published by the European Commission and the recently published guidelines for teachers and educators on tackling disinformation.
– Improving the quality of current and future learning opportunities in European educational systems to employ digital media literacy skills training as a regular part of the teaching program across five different education fields and countries.

Media and Information Literacy Upskilling Toolkits and Interventions

The project will adapt educational content and approaches provided in journalism faculties to other educational contexts so that a broader diversity of educators are better prepared to promote the capacities of their learners to verify messages, check sources and prevent the spread of disinformation.

QYourself will elaborate practical open digital educational resources—the
QYourself Toolkit—tailored to educators across Europe so that they can address the phenomenon of disinformation in their diverse teaching contexts, awakening critical thinking among their students.

The digital toolkit will be grounded in comprehensive field research, translating academic journalistic knowledge into non-academic educational tools to foster critical thinking and information verification skills among European citizens. They will consist of a complete teachers’ manual on media and information literacy with teaching strategies and activities for trainers
along with an additional program on informed and effective digital content creation.

The toolkit will promote the DigCompEdu Framework and the newly published EC’s Guidelines on tackling Disinformation.

These resources will then be piloted and adapted through a series of tests in wide-ranging real world educational settings in collaboration with educators and teachers across five European countries—Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, and Spain. Mobilising the QYourself toolkit, collaborating educators will participate in a series of upskilling training sessions and then put their
newly acquired knowledge into practice. Through these sessions, they will create and implement their own lesson plans and materials for their specific learners which will subsequently be incorporated into the QYourself toolkit as additional resources.