In the Light of the Midnight Sun

Abstract

Media Education Conference (MEC 2015) “In the Light of the Midnight Sun” was organized in Sallatunturi, Finland in 15-17 of June 2015. Selected papers submitted by the conference participants are published in this special issue of seminar.net.

MEC (former NBE) is an informal and friendly conference which participants attend to exchange ideas and information dealing with media education, educational use of ICTs and learning environments. MEC is organized by the Centre for Media Pedagogy at the University of Lapland.

Themes and topics of the sixth MEC conference were as follows: Playful and Game-based Learning; Media and Code Literacies; Empowerment through Media; Media and ICT in Teaching and Learning; Digital Story Telling; 3D, Virtual and Simulation-based Learning; and Internet and Social Media in Everyday Life.

In the first article, Tuulikki Keskitalo and Heli Ruokamo of the University of Lapland present “A model for simulation-based learning in healthcare”. Simulations and virtual reality do have a major focus in current healthcare education. The authors designed the study in order to fill a gap about our knowledge the pedagogical models that underpin the present activities. They studied several cases involving facilitators and students, in order to find out when and how simulations should and could be used for the benefit of the students and their learning. They describe how a refined pedagogical was developed, a model that will provide a more holistic and meaningful approach to teaching and learning in health care.

The second article is written by a group pf researchers from the university of Eastern Finland, Teemu Valtonen, Erkko T. Sointu and Jari Kukkonen of the department situated in Joensuu, while Kati Mäkitalo-Siegl is based in Savonlinna. The title of their paper is “Developing a TPACK measurement instrument for 21st century pre-service teachers”. The investigate how terms, such as “Future skills”, “21st century skills” and other, emphasise collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and especially ICT skills. Their concern is that teachers have to be able to use various pedagogical approaches and ICT in order to support the development of their students’ 21st century skills. They present a particular model, namely the “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge” as their theoretical framework for designing the instrument. Based on this framework they have taken the challenge to measure the various elements and variables of the model, and explain how they have gone about to improve their research instrument.

Lauri Palsa , who works at the Department for Media Education and Audiovisual Media at the National Audiovisual Institute KAVI, in Finland has written the third article ins this issue together with Heli Ruokamo of the University of Lapland. Their concern is that there are so many interpretations of what it means to be literate when it comes to media. In the coming revision of the Finnish core curriculum, the term “multiliteracies” has been introduced as a transversal competence. The article contain a review of how research articles define the two phenomena “media literacy” and “multiliteracies”. The article argues that significant differences exist between the concepts of media literacy and multiliteracies and, further, that the new Finnish core curriculum defines multiliteracies differently than the research literature defines the term. They propose a new approach to sort the different analytical levels the various definitions work at and outline new opportunities to carry out research on this conceptual field.

Alessandra Carenzio, Simona Ferrari, Lorenzo De Cani, Sara Lo Jacono and Pier Cesare Rivoltella, all representing CREMIT, Research Centre on Media, Information and Technology Education, Department of Education of the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, have jointly produced the article “Body, identity and images of the self among adolescents. From research to action through Peer&Media Education”. Their main topic is “sexting” and how adolescents can be trained to reflect and use their own contributions to social media more cautiously. They have developed the concept of “Peer&Media Education”. They also present and discuss their research on their centre Cremit which has produced significant results for the strategies and methods of “Peer&Media Education”.

Katriina Heljakka, who works at the School of History, Culture and Arts Studies, University of Turku, presents her article “Toys as Tools for Skill-building and Creativity in Adult Life”. Her point of departure is that previous understandings of adult use of toys generally see toy activities as ideas of collecting and hobbying, not playing. This study aims to address toys as play objects employed in imaginative scenarios and as learning devices. The main focus is the Blythe doll, and the article show us how this toy functions as a socially shared tools for skill-building and learning in adult life. The interviews with Finnish doll players and analyses of examples of their productive, toy-related play patterns showcased in both offline and digital playscapes reveal how toy play leads to skill-building and creativity at a mature age.

Päivi Rasi and Arja Kilpeläinen, both of the University of Lapland, have written the paper «The Digital Competences and Agency of Older People Living in Rural Villages in Finnish Lapland”. Their point of departure is that older people run a great risk of being excluded from vital functions of the society, because they fall short of digital competencies. They find it very important to strengthen the research in this field. The paper examines the digital competences and agency of older people who live in remote rural villages in Finnish Lapland and the authors argue that older people’s agency is the key factor that keeps them included in contemporary society. They found that the respondents’ digital competencies were diverse. They suggest that digital competence is very much a distributed competence of elderly dyads, families with three generations and informal networks of villagers and that it should not, therefore, be assessed solely as an individual characteristic.

Heli Ruokamu (guest editor) and Yngve Nordkvelle (chief editor)