AdminTechCamp Malaysia – Philippines, an alumni initiative of Malaysian Media and Information Literacy (MIL) advocates and educators, has received second place in the UNESCO MIL Alliance’s Global Media and Information Literacy Award 2022.
The project, funded by the US Department of State, the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and the Penang Institute, focuses on training teachers and educators to identify false information found online and integrate MIL into instruction.
The TechCamp Malaysia 2020 project, entitled “Teaching Media and Information Literacy Skills in Everyday Life,” aims to deepen teachers’ and educators’ knowledge of the importance of MIL in a fast-moving, digital media ecosystem. The MIL for ASEAN Network organized the three-day TechCamp to train secondary school teachers and teacher educators in these two nations on integrating media and information literacy competencies into their lesson plans.
During the three-day event, teacher participants learned how to deconstruct media and information sources through fact-checking and verification. Resource speakers also shared best practices on internet safety, data privacy, and data protection. “One defence against disinformation is to ensure that our citizens acquire MIL competencies, the education of our future generation must be geared towards providing them with skills and competencies that will empower them to be media and information literate – critically evaluate information before using or sharing it,” said Wong Lai Cheng, Co-Founder of MIL for ASEAN Network.
Wong expressed hope that this prize will lead to greater partnerships with national and regional educational institutions, policymakers, and media practitioners to provide MIL competencies to teachers and educators. Wong also emphasised the urgency of imparting media and information literacy competencies in the classroom, as hate speech online is linked to an increase in violence toward people of colour and immigrants around the world and the spread of political misinformation that is misleading and dividing society.
The MIL for ASEAN Network aims to work with like-minded individuals who are passionate about championing responsible media practices, to curb the worrying phenomenon of sharing misleading and inaccurate information, create quality, non-biased content, and develop critical MIL skills and competencies among future generations.
The Global MIL Awards recognize information/library, media and technology specialists, educators, artists, activists, researchers, policymakers, NGOs, associations, and other groups integrating MIL in an innovative way in their work and related activities.
The International Steering Committee of UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Alliance, with the support of UNESCO, honoured six winners for the year 2022. The Economist Educational Foundation based in the United Kingdom (UK) and Alfamed Network in Spain won the first prize. MIL for ASEAN Network (Malaysia) and Chrysoula Lazou (Greece) won the 2nd prize.
The Global Media and Information Literacy Awards are presented every year at the UNESCO Global Media and Information Literacy Week Feature Conference.
For more details about TechCamp Malaysia – Philippines and MIL for ASEAN Network, visit: https://aseanmil.org/
For more information about the UNESCO Global MIL Awards, visit: https://en.unesco.org/themes/media-and-information-literacy/gapmil/awards
