Our flagship project can't be any less straightforward than this: #OOTB Media Literacy Workshops (MLW) is our staple day-long educational program covering wide-ranging yet structured topics on media literacy. It combines
eye-opening informative presentations, brainstorming and role-playing activities.
These workshops equip young men and women with concrete tools to understand representations of gender, identity and social class in the media, among others. With a localized approach, we also cover issues of local media ownership, the Philippine press, and social media trends. These are valuable information we see relevant in the development of the students' critical-thinking skills.
In the past MLW's we have invited resource speakers coming from the industry itself like film critic-blogger Oggs Cruz, news producer Joseph Cataan, and news writer Mario Urrutia. Media education experts from the University of the Philippines Professors Randy Solis, Danny Arao, and Evelyn Katigbak have also graced our workshops. OOTB also trains its members in facilitating the sessions.
OOTB's educational modules are an ongoing project.
Through our MLW School Tour program under the UNESCO grant, we have so far held workshops in Colegio San Juan De Letran (CSJL), University of Santo Tomas (UST), and Polytechnic University of the Philippines - Sta. Mesa (PUP).
Media Literacy Workshops
The first-ever Media Literacy Bootcamp was held May 9 at the UP College of Mass Communication. It was a gathering of over 50 young media literacy advocates, college students coming from multiple disciplines. They participated in interactive and informative lecture-workshop sessions in a day-long program.
One of the highlights of the event was the Skype lecture given by NAMLE (National Association for Media Literacy Education) executive director Michelle Lipkin. Aside from re-introducing the basic concepts of media literacy, Ms. Lipkin shared about the trends and best practices in media literacy education in the United States.
Senior news reporter Bam Alegre (GMA-7), civic journalism advocate and columnist JB Baylon (Malaya), documentary filmmaker Chantal Eco (Tudla Productions), screenwriter Hyro Aguinaldo (Star Cinema), and media professor Kaya Valila (PUP Sta. Mesa) lead the talks on special topics like the
news-making process, the language of documentaries, and
the romance-comedy genre in the Philippine Cinema.
Trainees also enjoyed a fun (and loud) workshop session with voice actors from CreatiVoices Productions.
Capping off the event was the Spoof Ads competition, a creative exercise combining critical analysis and creation of alternative advertisements. Learn more about Spoof Ads.
OOTB plans to make the ML Bootcamp an annual event, gathering even more participants in its future installments.