UNESCO has been actively involved in developing foundations for media and information literacy to assist Member States in pursuing the achievement of the objectives of the Grünwald Declaration (1982), the Alexandria Declaration (2005) and the UNESCO Paris Agenda (2007) related to MIL.
The UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education commissioned this Handbook, which is intended to become a useful tool that would equip teacher training institutions and facilitate teaching media and information literacy in teacher training, to the Finnish Society on Media Education. This Handbook should help teachers to enhance their media and information literacy and encourage them to take up media education in the classroom. The main target group is teachers of secondary schools who are either in training or in service. The Handbook provides teachers with basic knowledge on media and information literacy, and the way these skills can be taught.
The Finnish Society on Media Education (www.mediaeducation.fi – FSME), founded in 2005 by Finnish researchers and practitioners in media education, is an association operating nation-wide in two main languages (Finnish and Swedish). The goal of FSME activities is to support and develop the field of research and practices concerning media education, contribute to the public debate and provide opportunities to share media educational experiences online and offline.