KEYNOTE 2 Kjell Sundstedt: "There cannot be more humans like you"

This one is in Swedish so bear with me as some of the terms and concepts may be translated by impromptu and inspiration :)

It is about forced sterilisations (against the will OR knowledge of the person in question) of the type of people that were not wished to breed and multiply in society. He wants this story to be out in the open, on film, in school books as a reminder, a warning that these kind of things cannot and should not happen in civilised societies.

Everyone in the public was asked to write two things about which they have or have had a profound internal conflict. No therapy sessions, just a word or two. This is where we all our stories have their beginning. But it does not end on the personal level, we have to reach out to the environment (in i det stora). That is what KS has done with his films and stories. He has done a lot of background research to find about the themes he has talked about, he has dug through loads of archives, documents, private diaries to gain a better picture of the events and to find the people he wants to include in his stories. Making the film about sterlisations was painful as he was talking about something that had with his own family and history to do. But the story had to be told.

A thought from the audience: is this what media education is about: to encourage young people to tell their stories, be active initiators of discussion of other than the usual and generally accepted topics. What do you think?

Presents for keynotes
I just thought that you might want to know that all the keynotes receive a beautiful lantern. The conference manager Sol-Britt just told us that in the past women used this lantern during a church service to dry up their skirts that have become wet on their way to the chruch :) (The picture is from Loftet where these lanterns are sold, http://www.loftet.fi)

KEYNOTE 1
Birgitte Tufte: Media Culture - School Culture - Partners or comptetitors?

Birgitte Tufte opened her speech by giving us short history of media education as follows:

• from moral panic to active participation
• to teach about the bad influence of the media
• film, tv entered the schools (60's and 70's) -> high culture separated from local culture, school representing the first one
• popular media in a broader sense acknowledged in school
• fourth phase (2000-), focus on computers, the Internet

She said that two trends can be distinguished and these trends also affect the way in which schools in the various countries approach the area of media education. A) a top-down trend - moralistic approach and b) a bottom-up trend = a democratic approach. (Tufte, 1999.)

Since the conference takes place in Finland, Birgitte Tufte wanted to mention a Finnish pioneer of media education, Sirkka Minkkinen whose writings in 1980's have influenced the way we look at media education today.

She showed us statistics from various studies showing the intensity of Internet and mobile phone use of young people and highlighted the fact that the school practices are drifting further away from the day to day lives of their students. Many of the students say that they would like to learn more about media use in school and there is a need for better awareness of the need of crititical literacy skills. But the students feel that they are not getting this in schools. As one 13-year-old Danish boy puts it: " The teachers do not know very much... most of them are old"

In her speech Tufte then moved away from the school environment and raised another issue concerning young children as consumers. She talked about a research project "Tweens between media and consumption". Tweens are a group of "in betweens", in between childhood and adolecence. She said that these "split personalities" toggle between behaviours and attitudes of teenagers. Marketers are increasingly orienting themselves towards tweens as a consumer group. She also predicted online shopping to increase tremendously in the future.

She returned back to the school and talked about two school-based research projects. In the first project they tried to map the problematic areas where there is a void in respect to media education and one conclusion can be said to be that the teachers are quite clueless when it comes to media. The second project was about peer learning amongst teachers, using peer mentoring to exchange experiences and learn more about pedagogically sensible ways for media education

I think this is it, time to give the floor to you. What do you think? Are schools lagging behind? And if so, is it because the teachers are "out", or why is it so? Any other thoughts inspired byTufte's speech?

The conference is now officially open!

The conference was opened with the Åbo Akademi student choir's two beutiful songs. After that the Finnish minister for culture and sports, Stefan Wallin joined us by video link. In his greeting, he emphasised that even if there are many good on going projects in the area of media education, there is still a lot of work to be done. This work requires the cooperation and networking of the various players (as he called them :) in the field. According to him the conference theme fits very well within the goals of the Finnish presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministry. An investment in the youth is always worth while.

O-N-E Day left!

Everything is ready. The conference folders piled up on the registration desk, all procedures checked once more, the air filled with eager anticipation.

Well, what is there to say other than WELCOME TO VAASA!
Let's make this conference a special one!

2 days to go!

Time to start packing: semi-warm clothes, umbrella (just in case), laptop (for blogging), and the Best of Eurovision song contest cd (to tune in with the finals on Saturday).

Countdown for Vaasa has started - 3 days left!

Vasa is claimed to be the sunniest city in Finland. Let's see what the weather has in store for us:

(Source: http://www.fmi.fi - The Finnish Meteorological Institute)

Looks good, no snow :)