On air. European project on media education

The most essential change of the society of the XXI century is the feature of a newly formed digital medium; the youth can no longer image their lives, studies and the future without information and media technologies. It is possible to claim that new requirements for education and preparation to work in a new digital society appear, and, therefore, new and tremendous changes are felt in the system of education that has to ensure the acquisition of new knowledge and skills related with the information and media technologies. That is why it becomes rather important to develop a positive altitude of young people towards the usage of technologies as well as teach them to select the appropriate information since early school years and with the help of the technologies to develop critical thinking in order the technologies would not cause threat and produce negative impact by consuming all leisure, but would make learning and leisure efficient and providing positive benefits as the learning process constantly takes place in educational establishments and outside them. First, the relation of the youth with the digital media gives back more obviously the distance of the adults respect to these same media: a difference cognitive or psychological, beyond that emotional and relate. The adult do not seem to establish especially emotional connections/emotional with the media or with some special technology, and do not perceive the capacity of the different medial languages like indispensable in the interactive and communicative process; contrary thick negative factors consider them, in the measure in which weaken, until to cancel, the communication "archaic", done not intermediate Moreover, the meeting of the youth with the medium results in this way to be directed and swift that, if from one side it improves the development of shapes of individualism and self expression, on the other hand there is a risk to reduce the comparison or the exchange with other cultural and social dimensions concerning the trial of growth and development of the young: ex. the comparison with the adults, with their universes, their experiences and cultures, or the crash with point of view and sights of the different reality, educational because analyzes the world across parameters and other interpretive filters. The relation with the media, therefore, risks leading in slow second also the educational valence of other experiences done not intermediated, like that the group of the equal, the associationism, the simple comparison with the social context outside, etc. Seeing information and media technologies importance in daily life, new requirements for education and work in new digital society, new and tremendous changes in the system of education, becomes rather important to develop a positive altitude of young people towards the usage of technologies as well as teach them to select the appropriate information since early school years, to acknowledge them with positive impact of the use of technologies, to show its efficiency. For this reason On-Air, an European research on media education that involves six European countries: Italy, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Belgium, Bulgaria, was initiated. The research involves secondary schools in a common effort to make media a tool for the development of students’ literacy skills and for the building of their critical approach to the understanding of reality. The project intends to train teachers in order to be able to exploit the attractive potential that media have on young generations and raise their attention and motivation to discover the importance of media literacy skills and critical media awareness. Article “On Air. European project on Media education” presents the Lifelong Learning Comenius project “On Air: Effective use of Media for School Education” and provides the review of the results of Italian and Lithuanian National Analysis on how students and teachers use media.