IO4. Media Literacy
Work Area 5
Workshop 3: Getting your message across: drafting your communications plan
Name of the key competence:
Media Literacy
Name of the workshop:
Getting your message across: drafting your communications plan
Main learning outcomes:
5.4.1 Present and defend the (i) focus, (ii) format and (iii) platform especially in terms of the potential to reach your audience target group
5.4.2 Develop your online presence by setting up an online page on a chosen platform and produce a content plan for your launch publications
5.4.3 Publish content that will launch your initial content on (i) Civic Participation and (ii) Active Citizenship
5.4.4 Demonstrate how you have created a community that is responsive to your communications and publications
5.4.5 Present a Development Plan setting out how you can diversify your audience and extend reach
Work area{s):
W5: Media and Active Citizenship
Duration:
4 hours
AC entry level
3
Class room activity
Outward bound activity
E-learning activity
Min. training materials:
Online connection
Beamer and PC
White board
Paper/pencils, post its etc
Extra rooms
Others:
Special attention:
Involvement of third parties
Special arrangements needed
Prep work for participants required
Others:
Annexes
Part of workshop
Innovative didactical methodology used:
What it means:
1st part
2nd part
3rd part
1. Spaced learning
Highly condensed learning content is repeated three times, with two 10-minute breaks during which distractor activities such as physical activities are performed by the students
2. Cross Over learning
Learning in informal settings, such as museums and after-school clubs, can link educational content with issues that matter to learners in their lives
3. Learning through argumentation
Argumentation as means to attend to contrasting ideas, which can deepen their learning. Use of meaningful discussion in classrooms through open-ended questions, re-state of remarks in more scientific language, and develop and use models to construct explanations
4. Incidental learning
Incidental learning, unplanned or unintentional learning. It may occur while carrying out an activity that is seemingly unrelated to what is learned. It is not lead by a teacher
5. Context based learning
By interpreting new information in the context of where and when it occurs, and by relating it to what we already know, we come to understand its relevance and meaning
6. Computational thinking
Breaking large problems down into smaller ones (decomposition), recognizing how these relate to problems that have been solved in the past (pattern recognition), setting aside unimportant details (abstraction), identifying and developing the steps that will be necessary to reach a solution (algorithms) and refining these steps (debugging).
7. Learning by doing
A hands-on approach to learning, meaning students must interact with their environment in order to adapt and learn
8. Embodied Learning
Embodied learning involves self-awareness of the body interacting with a real or simulated world to support the learning process
9. Adaptive Teaching
Using data of learner’s previous and current learning to create a personalized path through educational content.
Data (f.e. time spent reading, scores) can form a basis for guiding each learner through educational materials. Adaptive teaching can either be applied to classroom activities or in online environments where learners control their own pace of study
10. Analytics of Emotions
Teachers responding to students’ emotions and dispositions, so that teaching can become more responsive to the whole learner
Type of activity
Part of workshop
1st part
2nd part
3rd part
1. Q-A session
2. Case studies
3. Small group discussions
4. Active summaries
5. Demonstrations
6. Real world learning / real life scenario
7. Apprenticeship
8. Story board teaching
9. Out of class activity
10. Problem-based learning activity / problem solving
11. Collaborative preparation
12. Discussion questions / group discussion
13. Group activity
14. Story telling
15. Mind mapping
16. Brainstorming
17. Instructional video
18. Role playing
19. Self-assessment
20. (Mentor) work shadowing
21. Instruction
22. Event organisation
23. Online training
24. Learning game
25. Reflection
26. Coaching
Duration: 1 hour and 15 min
Learning Outcomes:
5.4.1 Present and defend the (i) focus, (ii) format and (iii) platform, especially in terms of the potential to reach your target group
Process: outlining a Communications Plan
- The Facilitator explains the participants what a Communications Plan is, a strategic document that consists of defining different elements to get your messages across: one must identify their important target audiences / stakeholders, their image-forming messages to them, and the most relevant channels to spread their messages through.
- Then the Facilitator asks the participants to imagine that they want to start their own community media and need to create their communications plan. Alternatively, the participants can make a communications plan for any other organisation of their choice that they have any connection to, such as their place of work or an NGO they are a member of.
- Then the participants are supposed to outline their communications plans, using template from Annex 1. The Facilitator must explain the meaning of each element of the plan: from mission and vision of organisation to channels to be used. Tips for defining some of these elements are provided in Annex 2.
- Upon completion of their plans, 2-3 volunteers are asked to present their communication plans.
Annexes:
Annex 1, Annex 2
Video:
Duration: 1 hour and 30 min
Learning Outcomes:
5.4.2 Develop your online presence by setting up an online page on a chosen platform and produce a content plan for your launch publications
5.4.3 Publish content that will launch your initial content on (i) Civic Participation and (ii) Active Citizenship
5.4.4 Demonstrate how you have created a community that is responsive to your communications and publications
Process: creating posting schedule
- The Facilitator briefly explains what a content plan is and gives the participants 20 minutes to look through the materials, published at suggested links
- The Facilitator presents the content calendar template from Annex 3 and tells they are about to create one now
- To make sure the participants understand what content calendar is, the Facilitator runs a short group discussion.
- The participants are then asked to download the template to their PCs and start filling it in accordance to the communications plan they developed earlier at the first part of the workshop.
- In order to help the participants begin, the Facilitator displays the following questions to think about on the white board:
- Who are you trying to deliver your content to?
- Do they expect a formal or an informal content style?
- What format of the content would be best for your target group? Text, pictures, videos?
- What types of content should you create?
- Content on what topics would they be interested in?
- How will you engage your audience with your content?
- What can you do to create a community around your content on the chosen channel? What would make your subscribers more responsive to your communications?
- Upon completion of their calendars, 2-3 volunteers are asked to present and explain their work.
Annexes:
Annex 3
Video:
Duration: 1 hour and 15 min
Learning Outcomes:
5.4.5 Present a Development Plan setting out how you can diversify your audience and extend reach
Process: working on a development plan
- The Facilitator splits the participants into pairs (as they are sitting) and displays the following questions on the board:
- Think what other target audiences you can attract. Why will it be useful?
- How can you attract these new audiences? How can you attract more representatives of your previously defined target audiences?
- Working in pairs, each participant must give answers to these questions to the person they are working with.
- Then the Facilitator presents Annex 4 and briefly explains what each of the IMC tools is and how it works
- Looking at the Annex 4, the participants are then asked to create a development plan for their organisations / media. For that they should decide, which IMC tools it will make sense for them to use and in which sequence. After having 5 minutes on their own, the participants must present their plans to the other person they were paired with.
- The goal of the exercise is not to create a marketing-savvy development plans, but rather to demonstrate the participants that they can do many things and that it has to be done strategically; to inspire them to get their message across in multiple ways and channels.
Annexes:
Annex 4
Video: