Final Conference on Human Education: Media Education at Alanus University
27/05/2023 -
Rethinking media education – how can it become more critical, more sustainable, and above all more oriented toward autonomy? These questions were at the heart of the research conducted in the project Media Education & Reform Pedagogy, which is coming to an end after five years. The project team led by Prof. Dr. Paula Bleckmann, together with ECHT DABEI and VDW as co-organizers, invited a transdisciplinary audience to the final and networking conference on 5 and 6 May 2023.
With high-profile plenary lectures by external experts, presentations and discussions of key project findings, information tables hosted by cooperation partners, a networking dinner, and much more, the conference was fully geared toward exchange and networking. The project places great emphasis on linking basic research with practice-oriented research.
All final reports on the MünDig study, which examined media education at Montessori, nature-based, and Waldorf educational institutions throughout Germany, have now been published. Numerous strengths as well as some weaknesses were identified. The MB360 certificate course for training national and international multipliers has been completed, a dozen lesson plans from Analog-Digidactics have passed the practical test, and the richly illustrated practical handbook will be published in autumn 2023.
At the final conference, true to the motto “Producing comes before consuming,” there were few attendees who only listened. More than 40 people from academia and practice contributed with presentations of their own. The lectures were recorded and, where the speakers have given their consent, are available further down on this website under “Plenary Lectures” as video links. The full conference programme, a detailed press report, materials from the workshops, comments from participant interviews, and a photo gallery are also available below.
Alanus professor and project leader Paula Bleckmann: “For me, the final conference confirmed that a critical, autonomy-oriented countermovement to the digital hype, with its demands for ‘earlier-faster-more,’ is not a niche phenomenon: representatives of reform-pedagogical approaches such as experiential education, Waldorf education, and Montessori education met here with the SCAVIS project on preventing digital addictions, Unblackthebox, SMASCH, GAIMH, the Center for Neuroscience and Learning, BB3, and initiatives from early childhood support services, exchanged ideas, and realized: We have a great deal in common!”
Press release on the conference, full version
Conference programme
Plenary lectures: Videos/Presentations
Workshops: Manuscripts/Materials
Comments from conference participants
More photos
