Welcome to the CrAL Platform – a dedicated space for educators and school communities.

The platform has been developed by the DAISSY Research Group of the Hellenic Open University within the framework of the “Creative Audiovisual Lab for the Promotion of Critical Thinking and Visual Media Literacy (CrAL)” European project, undergoing by DAISSy as the Greek partner.

Here are three reasons why you should check out the platform and register right away!

1. Online training course for teachers and trainers

The platform offers a training course consisting of ten (10) modules covering technical, digital, and creative skills. The course is available in English, Italian, Spanish, Croatian, Lithuanian, and Greek. Through different modules you will get the opportunity to grasp the CrAL methodology and learn how to use it to enhance young people’s creative audiovisual literacy.

2. Showcase of audiovisual materials produced by young people

Young people and their teachers that participated in the implementation of the CrAL methodology in Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, and Spain created audiovisual materials. On the platform you will find a collection of these audiovisual materials, as well as the winning videos from each national context. Explore how they put the CrAL Methodology into action, how they addressed different social issues, and how they put their creativity into action: https://platform.cral-lab.eu/videos/

3. Online Community of Practice

Apart from the course and ready-to-use materials, the platform offers a space where you can share your thoughts, start discussions, and connect with like-minded teachers and trainers across Europe. Whether you’re seeking inspiration, advice, or a space to engage in meaningful conversations about education, this platform is a great place to start!

Curious to see more? Here’s your straightforward guide on how to register:

1. Head over to the registration page: https://platform.cral-lab.eu/registration/
2. Add you details
3. Once you’ve filled in the required fields, click on the ‘register’ button.

Voila! That’s it You’re now officially part of the CrAL community!

We invite you to join us today and share your thoughts about creative audiovisual media literacy in the CrAL forum!

For more information regarding CrAL project and news about other activities of DAISSy:

• Websites  : http://daissy.eap.gr,    http://daissy.eap.gr/en/projects/cral/
• Facebook : @DAISSyResearchGroup
• Linkedin   : https://www.linkedin.com/in/daissyresearchgroup/
• Twitter     : https://twitter.com/daissy_research
• Instagram: @daissy_researchgroup
• Email        : info@daissy.eap.gr

Η Ερευνητική Ομάδα DAISSy του  Ελληνικού Ανοικτού Πανεπιστημίου (ΕΑΠ), ανταποκρίθηκε πρόθυμα στην πρόσκληση του Πειραματικού Γυμνασίου του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών να ενημερώσει τους/τις εκπαιδευτικούς του Σχολείου για τo Ευρωπαϊκό Erasmus+ KA3 έργο CrAL- Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and Media Literacy. Η παρουσίαση του έργου CrAL πραγματοποιήθηκε με online σύνδεση (μέσω webex meetings) της ερευνητικής ομάδας DAISSy με το Σύλλογο Διδασκόντων του Σχολείου.

Κατά τη διάρκεια της παρουσίασης με τίτλο  “Γραμματισμός στα Μέσα Επικοινωνίας και Συμπεριληπτική εκπαίδευση στο πλαίσιο του έργου CrAL“  υπογραμμίστηκε η μεγάλη ανάγκη των νέων  14-19 ετών να αποκτήσουν οπτικοακουστική παιδεία καθώς τα μέσα επηρεάζουν την καθημερινή τους ζωή, τις απόψεις και τις σκέψεις τους.  Παρουσιάστηκαν ο σκοπός, οι στόχοι του έργου, τα αναμενόμενα αποτελέσματα και η καινοτόμος μεθοδολογία Οπτικοακουστική Δημιουργική Γραφή και Ανάγνωση. Έγινε επίσης αναφορά στην συμμετοχή του Ελληνικού Ανοικτού Πανεπιστημίου (ΕΑΠ) – Ερευνητική Ομάδα DAISSy στην δημιουργία της πλατφόρμας του έργου και των Κοινοτήτων Πρακτικής που θα αναπτυχθούν στο έργο.

Στην παρουσίαση, η οποία πραγματοποιήθηκε την Τετάρτη, 29 Ιουνίου 2022,  συμμετείχαν ο Διευθυντής του Σχολείου κ. Σχοινάς Βασίλειος και 17 ακόμη εκπαιδευτικοί οι οποίοι παρευρέθηκαν στο Γραφείο του Πειραματικού Γυμνασίου του Πανεπιστημίου. Το έργο προκάλεσε το ενδιαφέρον των εκπαιδευτικών οι οποίοι/-ες έθεσαν ερωτήσεις και εξέφρασαν θετικά σχόλια για το έργο, ενώ αρκετοί/-ές από τους/τις συμμετέχοντες/-ουσες εκδήλωσαν ενδιαφέρον για  να συμμετάσχουν στην εκπαίδευση και τη πιλοτική εφαρμογή που θα ακολουθήσει στο πλαίσιο του έργου.

Ενημερωθείτε και εσείς για το έργο CrAL!

Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες για το έργο CrAL και άλλες δράσεις της Eρευνητικής OμάδαςDAISSy:

• Website   :http://daissy.eap.gr, http://daissy.eap.gr/en/projects/cral/
• Facebook :@DAISSyResearchGroup
• Linkedin   :https://www.linkedin.com/in/daissyresearchgroup/
• Twitter      :https://twitter.com/daissy_research
• Instagram: @daissy_researchgroup
• Email        :info@daissy.eap.gr

The CrAL Tutors’ team of the DAISSy Reserach Group of the Hellenic Open University (HOU) participated at the Training of Tutors of the EU project Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy on May 23, 24 and 25th. DAISSy’s tutors were among the 25 tutors from Italy, Spain, Belgium, Greece, Croatia and Lithuania who were trained by the experts in audiovisual writing and reading Annio Gioacchino Stasi and Mery Tortolini. The three day Training of Trainers of CrAL project was a live event and was hosted by the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

The Training of Tutors of the CrAL project

During these three days, the 25 tutors of the partnership had the chance to familiarize with and better understand the audio-visual writing and reading methodology through the deeper analysis of the theoretical content and the narrative audiovisual content as well as their practical involvement in the creation of the educational material.

The tutors underlined the role of images as a means of providing experiences that help to better understand reality and culture. They pointed out the urgent need of the youngsters in secondary education to obtain media literacy education as media affects their daily lives, viewpoints and thoughts. They agreed that applying audiovisual media education through the innovative methodology of the Creative audiovisual writing and reading will help students to possess sufficient knowledge about the real world and the way the audiovisual content is given to the media, to analyze audiovisual content (Images, films), to make effective interpretations,  to critically evaluate it and develop the ability to create it.

After the Training of Tutors, the 25 European tutors will communicate the methodology developed by the two experts Annio Gioacchino Stasi and Mery Tortolini to teachers from all the countries participating in the project, and support them in implementing it in the classroom with their students. The teachers will encourage media literate youngsters and will help them become role models of their ideas and inclusivity perspectives all over the world!

So, the CrAL-Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy- is starting to create the CrAL European Communty of Practice!!

Will you join the CrAL Community of Practice?

This audiovisual experience will really meet all your expectations!

For more information on CrAL and other DAISSy projects and activities, you can visit:

• Website   : http://daissy.eap.gr/en/projects/cral/
  Facebook: @DAISSyResearchGroup
  Linkedin   : https://www.linkedin.com/in/daissyresearchgroup/
• Twitter     : https://twitter.com/daissy_research
• Instagram: @daissy_researchgroup
• Email        : info@daissy.eap.gr

The project “Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy” (CrAL) was presented at the event  “ALL DIGITAL weeks 2022“.

During the event (on 24th March), Gabriela Ruseva (ALL DIGITAL) presented the Italian best practice and made as well a significant reference to the CrAL methodology.  According to Annio Gioacchino Stasi, who is a screen writer, essayist and writer, this methodology “is trying to show the link between images and words. Working with images implies intellectual and above all human honesty. We see the effects of the images that confuse, lie, destroy, and unfortunately, at times convince”.

The innovative CrAL methodology is a result of the research which was carried out within the Laboratory of Image and Creative Writing of “La Sapienza” University of Rome by Annio Gioacchino Stasi, who has been teaching creative processes in writing for 30 years and Mery Tortolini, a painter, essayist and teacher.

CrAL is very close to delivering the innovative methodology to tutors of all participating countries at this stage of the project. A 3day Training of Tutors (ToT) event will take place in Barcelona on May 23-26. Greece will participate with the DAISSy Research Group of the Hellenic Open University (HOU).

For more information about the CrAL presentation: https://www.cral-lab.eu/cral-project-featured-at-the-all-digital-weeks-2022

For more information about the project CrAL and other activities of the DAISSy Reasearch Group:

• Website   : http://daissy.eap.gr, http://daissy.eap.gr/en/projects/cral/
• Facebook : @DAISSyResearchGroup
• Linkedin   : https://www.linkedin.com/in/daissyresearchgroup/
• Twitter      : https://twitter.com/daissy_research
• Instagram: @daissy_researchgroup
• Email        : info@daissy.eap.gr

The DAISSy Reserach Group of the Hellenic Open University (HOU) has already designed and developed the online interative CrAL platform of  the EU project Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy.

The innovative platform rises to the challenge of engaging the educational and local communities of the five participating countries (Belgium, Italy, Spain, Greece, Croatia and Lithuania) in an exciting, experimental learning experience aiming to foster critical thinking, active citizenship and media literacy among learners, parents and educational staff. The main objective of the platform is to support:

• An Online training Course for teachers and trainers: The modules of the massive Open Course (MOOC) have started being uploaded on the CrAL online platform. Thanks to the intensive cooperation of the project partners, all the educational content of the MOOC is translated into all languages of the participating countries.
• A Showcase of the audiovisual materials: The Showcase will be developed during the implementation phase of the project and it will contain the audiovisual material (videos, short films, interviews etc.) produced by young people during the pilot action.
• The establishment of the online Community of Practice. The Virtual International Community of Practice is technically supported by the platform. It will serve as a vehicle for offering teachers and tutors access to the educational material for media literacy; ensure their preparedness; manage training in the most suitable and effective way and enable professionals of all levels of education to promote collaborative learning and co-creation of content in a virtual environment.

The platform provides the following main services: (a) Online Training Course, (b) User registration and  profile management, (c) Showcase of the audiovisual materials/Upload  content, (d)  Collaboration/Community Space and finally (e)  Fora.  In this way, the platform  provides a virtual space for all those (students, teachers, tutors, parents, community) who share this common interest about media education and work towards the shared goal.

So, the CrAL Platform of the Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy is almost  ready to start up tutors training!!

Are you ready to launch into it with us? We are looking forward to it!

For more information on CrAL and other DAISSy projects and activities, you can visit:

• Website   : http://daissy.eap.gr/en/projects/cral/
• Facebook: @DAISSyResearchGroup
• Linkedin   : https://www.linkedin.com/in/daissyresearchgroup/
• Twitter     : https://twitter.com/daissy_research
• Instagram: @daissy_researchgroup
• Email        : info@daissy.eap.gr

The DAISSy Reserach Group of the Hellenic Open University (HOU) and the whole CrAL project team, working during this period on the localization of the innovative CrAL methodology, look forward to moving on to the next step. The CrAL MOOC will be soon available on the CrAL platform, which is developed by the DAISSy Research Group of HOU, the Greek partner of the project.

CrAL is aiming to promote media literacy, critical thinking and active citizenship among the teenagers (14-19 years old) of the participating European countries.

Nowadays, Media literacy is considered as one of the most important skills. The importance of media literacy was underlined by the Greek Pedagogical Institute since 1995-2004, when an initial focus on the Audiovisual Expression in a Laboratory by the well-known Program „MELINA – Education and culture“, resulted to a „Teacher’s Guide for Audiovisual Expression“. It was a Pedagogical Institute’s first initiative to form a Greek Curriculum included a series of suggestions for activities that step by step promotes audiovisual consciousness of those who practice them.

As we are waiting for the CrAL MOOC and the implementation of Creative Audiovisual Literacy methodology in Secondary schools, lets see what „media“ is and why „media literacy“ becomes an evident nessesity nowadays for the worldwide democracy.

McLuhan had predicticted long time ago that „media is the message“. He focused on analysing the form in which the content is delivered to us by the media. He argues that, since the „medium is the message“, if we don’t understand the medium we don’t understand the message either. The form informs our “identities”, the way we perceive ourselves, and as the form changes to the current digital media,  our perception of the world and of ourselves is also shaped by this fast growing shift. The following EAVI’s video presents McLuhan’s theory in a very thorough and descriptive way.

https://eavi.eu/marshall-mcluhan-digital-prophecies-the-medium-is-the-message/

In addition, the Following EAVI’s video clip „A Journey to Media Literacy“, a 7-minute cartoon, will also offer us, in a fun and simple way, what Media Literacy is all about, and why it is essential in order to live freely and participate fully in society.

The DAISSy Research Group of the Hellenic Open University (HOU), partner in Greece, presented the project “Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy” (CrAL) in the event DAISSy Days 2021. During a three-day event (October 14-16, 2021), organized in the context of the global celebration of Erasmus Days 2021, the panorama of the actions of the DAISSy research group of HOU took place. The CrAL project was presented at the first session of the event, entitled “ Digital media literacy and Inclusion enhancement “ on Friday October 14. During the session projects and specific tools aimed at teachers and related to areas such as networking in the media, online hate speech, etc. were presented.

During the event, extensive reference was made to the three-year and co-financed Erasmus + / KA3 / Social inclusion project. It was noted that the CrAL project is aimed at young people (aged 14-19) and seeks to strengthen them so that they can reinterpret and lead the production of audiovisual content on contemporary topics of interest.

In addition, the multiple benefits of the project implementation, both at the level of the educational community – teachers, students, parents, and the local community – as well as at the level of formulating a proposal for the reform of the educational policy of the youth audiovisual education were noted.

An emphasis was placed on the crucial contribution of the DAISSy Research Group of Hellenic Open University, which actively participates in all work packages of the project, while it has undertaken:

1. The development of the Online Platform of the CrAL project (Work Package 3) in which multilingual and multimedia educational content will be available for teachers training. A blended learning course will be provided to secondary school teachers and non-formal educators in order to teach to their students the audiovisual creative writing, reading and production. This will enhance active citizenship, audiovisual education and develop their critical thinking. It will also promote the social inclusion of disadvantaged groups. Thus facilitating the transfer of the innovative methodology of audiovisual creative reading and writing in five different educational systems of all the participating countries.
2. The development of the International Online Community of Practice which will be focused equally on the knowledge and information sharing aspect of the media literacy concept, as well as on critical thinking about the information and the knowledge creation and
3. the Creation of an Online Showcase for the posting of all the audiovisual contents (videos, short films, interviews) produced by young people during the implementation of the project. It will encourage  the generation for the social, democratic participation of the youngsters in the current issues of the society’s emerging discourse.

It was also pointed out that DAISSy Research Group also participates in the development of the Quality Assurance Plan, as a responsible body, in the development of the multilingual educational program, in the pilot implementation in Greece, as well as in the dissemination and utilization of all project results.  The pilot implementation of the project is going to start with the trainers training in June-July 2022.  The CrAL presentation aroused the interest and attention of the participants of the event and received positive feedback from the moderators of the session.

It is worth noting that the DAISSy days 2021 initiative was posted on the map of the 5th consecutive operation of the Erasmus+ days.

The DAISSy Reserach Group of the Hellenic Open University (HOU) presented the european project Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy (CrAL) at the multiplier event entitled “VOCATIONAL SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS go Erasmus+: Benefits for teachers and students II”. The event was co-organized by the Regional Centers for Educational Planning (PEKES) of Western Greece, Thessaly, Ipeiros and the 2nd PEKES of Attica.  It took place online on the 10th June 2021 attracting more than 80 representatives of educational and policy making sectors in Greece.

Following a series of presentations on projects’ benefits for teachers, students and the educational community, CrAL has been presented at the final part of the event as a newly initiated European project. Its main aim, i.e. to enhance the digital skills, creativity, critical thinking and media literacy of both teachers and students via audiovisual creative writing and reading, as well as the project’s partnership, funding, structure, target groups, benefits for the educational community and all other main elements have been analyzed.

CrAL’s presentation aroused the interest and received a really positive feedback from both the participants as well as the event’s facilitators. A number of teachers’ and key stakeholders expressed their interest to learn more about the trainings that will follow within the project’s context. 

DAISSy, the Greek partner of CrAL, will contibute to all project outputs; implement all actions in Greece, and is leading the project’s Quality Assurance actions as well as the Platform’s developmet.

The DAISSy Reserach Group of the Hellenic Open University (HOU), presented the european project Creative Audiovisual Lab for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy (CrAL) at the multiplier event entitled “European Curricula: Challenge and Innovation in Education”. The event was co-organized by the Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece and the HOU, and took place online on the 4th June 2021 attracting more than 50 representatives of educational, cultural and policy making sectors in Greece as well as a significant number of pupils (over 60) of all levels of education.

Following a series of presentations on projects’ results and general actions targeting the educational community, CrAL has been presented at the second part of the event as a newly initiated European project. Its main aim, i.e. to enhance the digital skills, creativity, critical thinking and media literacy of both teachers and students via audiovisual creative writing and reading, as well as the project’s partnership, funding, structure, target groups, benefits for the educational community and all other main elements have been analyzed.

CrAL’s presentation received a most positive feedback from both the participants as well as the event’s facilitators, with a number of teachers’ and key stakeholders even expressing their interest to learn more and participate at the trainings that will follow within the project’s context.

DAISSy, the Greek partner of CrAL, will contibute to all project outputs; implement all actions in Greece, and is leading the project’s Quality Assurance actions as well as the Platform’s developmet.