Media Messengers – learning by doing

Abstract

Southwest Finland’s Media Messengers was a training project, where 21 librarians in the regions public libraries were trained to be experts in children’s and young people’s media education. Media messengers form a network that supports also other libraries in media education.

Library patrons need skills to understand and use media in changing information environment. Researchers speak of “participatory culture” in context of digital culture, meaning that even children act as authors of media texts and participate in producing information. This is why training is best based on learning-by-doing and mentoring. Media messengers planned and carried out media literacy sessions for groups of children in their own library. They were supported by a mentor, who is a librarian with previous experience in such groups.

Both in librarians’ and children’s training the same principles apply: people learn best by doing things themselves. As its best, media literacy combines skills in using new technologies and skills in interpreting media contents, as in filming book trailers and learning video editing, or searching for a book in library database and deciding what mood the book cover expresses.