UNESCO MIL CLICKS provides multiple platforms to engage young people in becoming Media and Information Literate. Through MIL CLICKS social media innovation, young people can learn how to engage critically with information, media, and technologyandbecome peer educators.
My wife, knowing how passionate I am about MIL shared a lovely message with me via social media. Yes, it took me only 15 years to be “Friends” with my wife on social media. We have only been married for 17 Years – shhhhhh! – It was an attempt at being PRIVATE! Do you get it? PRIVACY ONLINE for which MIL is an important defense! It is not possible to detail the entire post in this brief message, but it was essentially about whether technology steals time from us being with families and friends. The creativity of it was the reflection on when Window was related only to buildings; Application, associated with a business process; Keyboard, to typewriter; Mouse, a form of animal; File, to an office; and Hard drive, to a difficult road journey. One can imagine many others: Cut and Paste, Web, Virus, and when Apple and Berries were just fruits.
MIL CLICKS, thinking critically and clicking wisely is about embracing the change that technologies bring without getting lost in these changes. It is mind-boggling to think of what happens on the Internet in a MINUTE: 156 million emails, 16 million text messages, and 3.5 million search queries. This is the population of several countries mediated in a minute. We are truly in a mediated world.
We are in the era of “mediatization.” The era of CLICKING AND PRESSING! But are people CLICKING THEIR MINDS EFFECTIVELY – online and offline? Thinking critically and clicking wisely is what the social media innovation MIL CLICKS exemplifies.
These days, everybody is talking about MIL or are we actually talking about misinformation, radicalization, extremism, and climate change. Suddenly MIL is beginning to appear on the development agenda again. People are asking many of the right and important questions, but at the same time, innovative MIL projects are dying.
MIL CLICKS – the acronym – stands for Media and Information Literacy, Critical Thinking/Creativity, Literacy, Intercultural, Citizenship (all peoples), Knowledge, and Sustainability.
According to ITU, ICTS Facts and Figures for 2017, 70% of youth World are online. Social media has become the new continent! A place where much learning takes place. MIL CLICKS intends to reach more young people online. MIL CLICKS is a way for people to acquire MIL competencies in their normal day-to-day use of the Internet and social media in an atmosphere of play, connecting and socializing. It is about social learning and connectivity, organically just as the Internet and social media work, grow and flourish.
What if we could get posts with engaging micro-learning content on people social media feeds. Of course, some of this is already happening, but I am talking about a more systematic, frequent, and sustained manner in multiple languages.
The MIL CLICKS channels now exist in English, Serbian, Portuguese. French is coming soon. MIL CLICKS is now on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Our perennial challenge as a community is to stand together around initiatives like this one and others. We are offering two opportunities. One is MIL CLICKS Space; we call on all partners to declare their website and even physical spaces a MIL CLICKS Spaces, in other words as spaces of critical thinking and wise clicking. Banners are available for download and printing from the MIL CLICKS website. In a conversation about this, a very smart young man asked, “How do people click wisely offline?” I answered, “they CLICK their minds.”
A second opportunity is the MIL CLICKER PACT where individuals self-commit to certain critical thinking behaviour based on some established principles and actively engage in disseminating MIL CLICKS related content online and offline.
Let us CLICK our minds and encourage others to do the same through social media. MIL CLICKS, Your Faithful Social Media Learning Companion.
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