EpDLAB, or how to experiment with ICT for social change.

It’s been a while since we don’t sit down to write a post, but sometimes is not easy to find some minutes to stop and look backwards. Today is the day.

One of the projects we are investing more time lately is EpDLab. It’s being carried out in 5 schools of Galicia where we work with 12-16 years old students in two main areas: media literacy and education for development.

EpDLab it’s a project thought for secondary schools.. It will take place from September to June and is posed as a laboratory where we will mix different elements. We want to play in the classroom and doing experiments in form of memes, gifs, vines, dubbing. The expressivity of the students is the main ingredient for each session, lasting 100 minutes each. The contents are developes as a timeline in which, through games and social interactions, we build a collective vision regarding a thematic. Afterwards, by groups, we reflect this vision in contents produced by each group. And we always publish stuff.

ICT tools are a fundamental element to achieve motivation. We use laptops, mobile and different apps in each workshop. All of them for free and very simple to use, because the important is not the technique, but what can be done with it. These apps introduce a gamification element that makes sense as backbone of a complex speech, squeezing simple messages from complex realities becomes a challenge, and challenges are appealing.

Besides, we want each session to be a time for reflection and analysis on the language of media. We thought that youngsters were very far from current affairs and daily news, but after three months it also come that it is not like this, or at least not that much. They identify easily the topics que speak about: refugees, immigration, sexism or islamophoby. However, and this can be something inherited from the society we live in, they are trustfully in the of the press and do not give credit when, for example, compare 4 journal covers of the same even day and they see that reflect different realities (General Strike of the 2012 in El País, El MUndo, Publico and ABC)

They make lot of questions in the classroom during the workshops. We make a lot of questions. Some are answered. Others remain unanswered. Because the project wants to travel with the students into the complexity of the world where we live. Where simplistic analyses do not give us the clues, and a deep insight is needed in the search of reality, where the representations or the prejudices appear as faking elements of the world.

Because at the end it’s all about this, to learn together on tne understanding of the world and to share our own perspective. To have a point of view, a more critical attitude towards what is said to us.

More info about this project: epdlab.gal