Being a 21st century parent or professional educator is a challenge that had never been known before. People get over-flooded by conflicting opinions on the use of digital tools and constantly get the feeling of doing it all wrong. They often do not realise that the best way of building up resilience for the children in this field is through letting them develop in their own time through playing alone, with their families and with their peers, in order to feel and experience the real world before getting into the virtual one.

Looking at the child’s own development is paramount to find this balance. Just as a child needs continuous development to learn to walk and talk, the same can be said for their development in media maturity and the use of digital technology. As educators, our task is to create an environment in which the child can develop holistically, but not to force their development.

Thus in the case of media education, both teachers and parents need to be thoroughly informed and skilled enough to provide the necessary support for the child to thrive in the (digital) media environment of today and tomorrow. The HERMMES partnership is dedicated to create different levels of training courses for teachers and parents. Training courses will:

1. Offer knowledge and thorough insights. 

2. Support teachers and parents to embody the knowledge and to ‘walk their talk’ in their daily practice. 

3. Empowering teachers to coach others in the field of media education and media use, in their own language and educational circumstances.

Training sessions will be offered live, blended or fully digital. The basic language of the trainings will be English. However, using the emerging better and better possibilities for translations, we will look into these means and if possible, use them to reach those teachers and parentswho do not speak English.

Opportunities to join the pilot trainings will be shared here by November 2024.

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