Decoding the Feed:
Media Literacy, Critical Thinking & Digital Storytelling for Teachers
Duration: 5-days / 30h
Location: Nicosia, Cyprus
Language: English
* Eligible for Erasmus+ KA1 funding
ABOUT THIS TRAINING
This 5-day training equips teachers with the conceptual frameworks, hands-on fact-checking skills, and creative production methods to bring media literacy and digital storytelling into their classrooms with confidence, whatever subject they teach.
The course is informed by WAVES' Erasmus+ HATE-LESS project (on hate speech, disinformation, and media literacy), the Erasmus+ POP-Ed project (on pop culture and global citizenship education), and the most current European thinking on pre-bunking, inoculation theory, and source evaluation.
The course works in two halves that strengthen each other. The first half builds critical reading: how to recognise the tactics of information disorder, how to fact-check across multiple sources, how to handle hate speech in the classroom. The second half builds critical making: how to support students to author their own short multimedia pieces, because students who know how to make media intentionally read it more carefully.
Target group: Primary and secondary teachers (especially humanities, social sciences, languages, arts, civics, ICT); school leaders; youth and adult educators
Format: Face-to-face, hands-on, lab-based
WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE DIFFERENT?
Most media literacy courses for teachers are either too theoretical (frameworks without tools) or too tool-focused (fact-checking websites without the deeper analytical work).
Our approach is different in four concrete ways:
Evidence-based methods, not opinions. The signature methodologies are drawn from published academic research and well-established practice: the Wardle and Derakhshan information disorder framework (Council of Europe), prebunking and inoculation theory (William McGuire; Roozenbeek and van der Linden at Cambridge), Mike Caulfield's SIFT method, and Joe Lambert's digital storytelling tradition. Teachers leave with methods they can defend to their head of department.
Critical reading and critical making, together. The course is built on the principle that students who know how to make media intentionally read it more carefully. Day 4 is a full digital storytelling production lab in which each participant produces their own 90-second multimedia piece. This is not decoration — it is where the analytical work of the first three days lands.
Hands-on, low-tech, classroom-ready. All software used is free and works on any device. The methodologies (memes, role cards, fact-checking jigsaws, story circles) can be run in any classroom with a smartphone and a piece of paper. No expensive subscriptions, no school-IT-department battles.
AI in education, handled directly. Generative AI is no longer a future topic. The course teaches teachers to recognise AI-generated text, image, audio, and video, to talk with students about ethical use, and to fact-check in a world where content can be fabricated in seconds.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
Knowledge
Define and distinguish misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation using the Wardle and Derakhshan framework.
Explain hate speech using the Council of Europe definition, and identify the relationship between hate speech and information disorder.
Locate media literacy within DigComp 2.2, the EU Digital Education Action Plan, the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation, the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy competencies, and the Council of Europe RFCDC.
Explain how algorithms, recommender systems, and engagement-driven design shape what students see online.
Recognise the six core tactics of information disorder (impersonation, emotion, polarization, conspiracy, discredit, trolling) and the prebunking / inoculation approach to counter them.
Skills
Run the four signature methodologies (Meme Mirror, Three-Letter Map, Agents of Information Disorder Game, SIFT Studio + Story Circle) with their own classes.
Apply the SIFT method to evaluate online content using free tools (reverse image search, InVID, archived pages, metadata checks).
Recognise AI-generated text, image, audio, and video, and teach students to do the same.
Design and produce a short multimedia piece (audio story, voiced photo essay, short video, or digital comic) using free software.
Design a 4-to-8-lesson media literacy and digital storytelling teaching sequence for their own subject.
Build classroom digital safety, accessibility, and inclusion routines.
Attitudes
Promote critical digital citizenship values: scepticism without cynicism, curiosity, and respect for evidence.
Model ethical use of media, copyright respect, and data-conscious decision-making for students.
Encourage student creativity, autonomy, and collaboration in digital tasks.
Approach AI in the classroom with neither panic nor naivety.
SIGNATURE METHODOLOGIES
The course is structured around four classroom-ready signature methodologies that are introduced, practised and adapted with participants during the week:
The Meme Mirror — a deceptively simple opening exercise in which participants choose a meme that captures something about their teaching practice, share their caption with peers, and discover how the same image carries radically different meanings for different people. The basis for the rest of the week, and a method that lands beautifully with students from upper primary upwards.
The Three-Letter Map (Mis / Dis / Mal) — a tangible mapping exercise built on the Wardle and Derakhshan framework developed for the Council of Europe. Participants categorise real examples of information disorder on a wall-sized map, including historical cases and current local examples, and learn to identify which type they are dealing with as the first step in any response.
The Agents of Information Disorder Game — the course's signature embodied exercise: a 90-minute role-play built on prebunking and inoculation theory (William McGuire, 1960s; currently developed by Roozenbeek and van der Linden at the University of Cambridge). Participants take role cards (Impersonation, Emotion, Polarization, Conspiracy, Discredit, Trolling) and spread a seed story through the room according to their assigned tactic, then design misleading posts and identify each other's tactics in a structured gallery walk. One of the most memorable activities on the course — and one teachers tell us they remember years later.
The SIFT Studio + Story Circle — the course's bridge from critical reading to critical making. In the morning, participants learn and practise Mike Caulfield's SIFT method (Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace claims) on real social media posts using free fact-checking tools, including for AI-generated content. The Story Circle (drawn from Joe Lambert's Center for Digital Storytelling tradition) is then used to find the seed of an ethically grounded story before any technology is opened in the production lab on Day 4.
Alongside these signature methods, participants work with:
Lateral reading and source evaluation routines
Reverse image search and basic video verification with InVID
AI-content recognition (text, image, audio, video)
Storytelling ethics, consent, and copyright in the classroom
Free digital storytelling tools (Canva, CapCut, Audacity, Adobe Express, open-source alternatives)
Whole-school media literacy and digital safety planning tools
DELIVERABLES
Each participant leaves the course with:
A completed digital story (90-second multimedia piece) of their own
A 4-to-8-lesson media literacy and digital storytelling teaching sequence for their own subject
Classroom digital safety, ethics, and AI-use guidelines
A full toolkit containing the four signature exercises with role cards, mapping templates, SIFT handouts, and Story Circle prompts ready to print and use
A curated list of free, school-safe digital storytelling and fact-checking tools
A personal reflective journal and post-course implementation plan
A Europass Mobility certificate of attendance and a WAVES Certificate, both indicating learning outcomes and contact hours
WHY CYPRUS?
Cyprus offers a set of conditions that you cannot find together anywhere else in Europe:
A live multilingual information ecosystem, where teachers can see how the same news story is told differently in Greek, Turkish, English, and Russian media on the same day — a working laboratory for the Three-Letter Map and the SIFT method.
A divided capital in which information disorder has been an everyday lived reality for fifty years, long before TikTok or X, and where teachers on both sides of the line have developed real expertise in helping students hold multiple perspectives.
An active fact-checking and digital safety community, including Fact Check Cyprus, the Cyprus Safer Internet Centre, and academic media literacy programmes that course participants can engage with during the week.
A receiving society for migrants and refugees, which makes the hate-speech and information-disorder dimensions of the course immediately tangible, with real impact on real children.
WAVES' own EU project portfolio in this field, including HATE-LESS and POP-Ed, both directly informing the course content and giving participants access to current European thinking on media literacy and counter-narratives.
Cyprus is a small European country that takes media literacy seriously... because it has to.
Add to this a Mediterranean climate, easy direct flights from across Europe to Larnaca, English widely spoken, the euro, and an active cultural life in Nicosia — and Cyprus becomes one of the most relevant destinations in Europe for a course on media literacy and digital storytelling.
This training is aligned with:
DigComp 2.2 (European Digital Competence Framework for Citizens), the EU Digital Education Action Plan 2021–2027, the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation, the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy competencies, the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC), the EU Youth Strategy, and SDGs 4, 5, 10, 16, 17.