The portal medijskapismenost.hr (media literacy) was created in 2016 to empower parents and teachers in teaching children and young people how to critically consume media content and how to analyze, evaluate and critically reflect on media messages. That was said on the third day of Erasmus+ exchange (23 October 2019) in Croatia by Ana Dokler, the editor od portal medijskapismenost.hr

Dokler gave a lecture to members of the Erasmus+ teams and introduced them with the activities of her portal which are conducted to increase literacy among young people and she has also presented some materials useful in teaching. Besides the materials prepared by Croatian experts in the field of media literacy, she has also recommended the project BBC Young reporters. On the blog of that project https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/collections/youngreporter# there are available various workshops suitable for the teaching of media literacy and many advice for young reporters.

On the third day of the exchange, we also had a meeting with journalist Saša Drach. He was associate of once very popular kids magazine “Modra lasta”. He told us in short about the history of “Modra lasta”, the children’s magazine that is published since 1952 and described his experience as an editor of very popular column Lastan. Lastan was a character to whom children wrote for advice in various problems, very often love problems. The Lastan’s identity was kept in secret and it was revealed just a few years ago in the documentary “Dear Lastan” who were real Lastans over the years.

While looking at the old copies of “Modra lasta”, the Erasmus+ team members have talked about examples from their countries of how the number of printed magazines for children is decreasing. We have also exchanged our opinions with journalist Drach about possible topics for our digital school newspapers.

To give our partners better insight into the specificity of the Croatian educational system we have taken our partners in Croatian School Museum. Among other facts, there we have found out that the mandatory 4-year education in Croatia started in 1874. /Stojanka Lesički; translated by Vanja Vidaković; photo: Tijana Mamić; S.L./