Nicosia welcomes NewsArcade@Classroom project kick-off meeting
The kick-off meeting for the NewsArcade Classroom – "Seriously Play the News in the Classroom!" project took place on January 22–23 in Nicosia, Cyprus. Hosted at the headquarters of DIAS PUBLISHING PUBLIC, the project coordinator, the meeting brought together consortium members, including:
🇩🇰 PORTAPLAY APS (Denmark)
🇩🇪 IN2 DIGITAL INNOVATIONS GMBH (Germany)
🇫🇷 Association Pour l'Éducation aux Médias (France)
🇩🇰 International People's College (Denmark)
🇵🇹 Universidade Lusófona (Portugal)
Building on the success of the original NewsArcade project, which introduced a gamified approach to news content to enhance young adults’ media literacy, NewsArcade Classroom takes this concept further. This new initiative shifts the focus entirely to education, adapting and optimizing both the format and its authoring tool specifically for classroom use.
The project, funded by Creative Europe – MEDIA, will run for 24 months, aiming to equip educators with innovative tools to engage students in critical news consumption through interactive gameplay.
Online gatherings of the Publics and Audiences working group return for 3rd season
The Online gatherings with the Publics and Audiences WG, co-coordinated by researcher Maria José Brites (Universidade Lusofona, CICANT) together with Marisa Torres da Silva (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, ICNOVA) returned this January 2025 for their 3rd series, after two ‘seasons’ full of sharing and interconnections.
The first session of the 3rd series sought to articulate themes associated with the Advertising and Media Policies, Regulation and Economics WGs with the dimension of Audiences and Publics.
The session featured interventions by Paulo Pinto Silva and Paula Dias Aguiar (respectively, professor at the Viseu School of Education and doctoral student at the University of Minho) and Mariana Lameiras (researcher at the United Nations University Operational Unit for Public Policy-Oriented Electronic Governance and co-coordinator of PolObs).
The session is now available on YouTube and can be rewatched here.
Perspectives on the Future of Film Education in Europe: New Article by Manuel José Damásio
Manuel José Damásio, coordinator of FilmEU, has published the article Perspectives on the Future of Film Education in Europe, exploring the evolving landscape of film education and the impact of the Samsara pedagogical framework within the FilmEU European University.
The article examines how emerging technological, social, and institutional transformations - including virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and shifting audience behaviors - are reshaping both the film industry and educational methodologies.
Manuel Damásio advocates for a shift from teaching about film to educating through film, emphasizing FilmEU as a trans-European and interdisciplinary model for creative arts education. The Samsara framework is presented as a project-driven approach that integrates technical training, media literacy, and critical thinking.
By discussing initiatives like FilmEU, the article provides insights into how film schools can adapt to the continuous changes within the cultural and creative industries.
To know more, read the full article here: https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/bsmr-2024-0006?tab=references.
Recommendations for Digital Wellbeing
The Directorate-General for Education (DGE) publicly announced the document ‘Recommendations for Digital Well-being’ on 29 January in Coimbra, at the Convento de São Francisco, at the ‘Learning More Now’ Seminar. This document is the result of an invitation to various experts on the subject in Portugal who were part of a working group led by the DGE during 2024. Maria José Brites and Teresa Sofia Castro, coordinators of the YouNDigital - Young News and Digital Citizenship project (DOI 10.54499/PTDC/COM-OUT/0243/2021), are part of this working group and also sign this document.
The ‘Learn More Now’ Seminar provided an opportunity to reflect on and discuss strategies centred on ‘Improving Learning’ and ‘Integration and Success of Migrant Students’ with heads of school groups and non-grouped schools, heads of school association training centres, education experts and representatives of the various bodies of the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation.
Among the topics discussed at the event were: the integration and success of migrant students, psycho-pedagogical tutoring and digital well-being in education.
