Back from Youth Media Summit

Here I do not tell all the story of the International Youth Media Summit in Belgrade, where I was present only a few days (and I liked it much), but I would like to bring attention on two points, for a reflection and possible concrete actions.

Scrivo in inglese, perché è soprattutto a quelli che erano là che mi rivolgo (e di italiano – misteri anche nella media education internazionale a due passi da casa nostra - c'ero solo io!)

First, a confirmation: nowadays there is not so great a distance between generations, and communication can be much easier – for example – than in the Seventies. Actually, when 20 years old, we had not so much to share with people aged 40 or 50. Maybe a little politics, culture at the university, but with music and beer I do remember we were always on our own.

Today, maybe also the digital devices and the web help people of different ages to stay connected, especially when grown up enjoy them. And actually, facebook is a perfect place for grand fathers!

Second. According to my experience with children, I notice that in using video language, though with their genuine inventions and freshness, adolescents are as inevitably attracted towards the "adult way" of managing the tools. They follow their masters and, if required, they begin to think in a “professional” way, so that some weird and new possibilities of very recent machines, some possible intuitions, mainly cannot be adequately explored. That's what happens instead when we simply let the children play with video, taking advantage of the possibilities that today machines have and that yesterday ones did not. So, for example, playing with digital effects while watching themselves “live” in the screen, or using cameras to look very close at small animals in the school garden.

I think we should do something like to build a bridge between the new possibilities of media played with children, on “the same side” of body, visual, and tactile experience, and the “old grammars” of traditional media education. And I hope we could also take to the next Youth Media Summit, as a result of shared projects, some common produces made both by the young that partake in the event, and by some groups of children that can't be there in presence, but have exchanged, even from far, ideas, experiences and information.