Open your eyes

Fake news for dummies


Open Your Eyes – face to face training

A three-day training event in the framework of the Erasmus+ Open Your Eyes project took place at the Adult Education Centre in Žalec, Slovenia, from January 14 to January 16, 2020. It gathered 14 participants from Spain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia, all playing an important part in the dissemination process of the project results. It is to note that the Adult Education Centre in Žalec is one of the partners in the project, contributing their know-how and expertise in the field of adult education and learning.

Day 1 was held by Executive Director of EU DisinfoLab, Alexandre Alaphilippe, who first presented the conceptual background of »disinformation«, advising on how to identify disinformation and informing the participants about the way disinformation networks work. All participants, therefore, got a clearer insight on the importance of combating the challenges we are facing with disinformation and thus understood the necessity to share relevant information and tools with as many people as possible. Secondly, Mr Alaphilippe presented some practical case studies of disinformation campaigns around the world, explaining the details, backgrounds and reasons for them.

The opening session of the second day of the training event was held by Head of Non-formal Educational Programmes at Adult Education Centre Žalec, Biserka Neuholt Hlastec, who highlighted the importance of a well-organized learning environment. The main objective of her session was to equip the participants with the knowledge on what an impact a well-organized learning environment may have on the entire learning process. As a result, all participants prepared their first structures of the “Check IT Out” Labs, which will be held by well-trained adult educators in the months to come. The Labs will target groups of 10+ adult learners in partner countries to develop their critical and digital skills, bringing them closer to the concept of fake news and ultimately spreading awareness about the topic within their network.

The first part of day 2 was followed by NERDA, presenting the concept of (digital) literacy. The aim of the presentation was to define the concept of media literacy (also in relation to other literacies), to present some literacy and digital literacy figures worldwide according to UNESCO and OECD statistics. Further, some challenged were presented and tips to overcome them. All in all, participants gained a basic insight into digital literacy and some of its most

The last day of the training was firstly dedicated to ICT tool kit for education, presented by the representatives of Nikanor from Bulgaria, and secondly to the content development and structure of the »Check It Out« Handbook, led by Aleida López Giménez from OpenEurope. In the first part, the participants learned more about the ICT Power for adult education, adult learning and media in general, mis and disinformation in adult education, using ICT tools, and lastly about practical ICT tools for verification.

In the end, we would like to thank all participants from partner countries who were part of our training event. We are grateful for all the contributions and hope all have gathered some useful ideas.


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2019 Open your eyes