Educational E-escape Room as an Educational Method of Media Literacy Training for Future Teachers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

TLDR: In this paper, the authors apply participatory observation as part of virtual ethnography and analysis of audio-visual works in the form of digital designs of escape rooms made by students of various faculties.

Abstract: In the face of the global crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, the training of future teachers, just like the whole formal education, has mostly moved to e-learning or blended-learning. This also applies to increasing media literacy knowledge, skills and competences. Media education - understood as developing an informed, critical, selective and comprehensive approach to media, information and digital competences with regard to the multilateral creation of messages and the use of technological tools - has become an even clearer necessity in the age of the Covid-19 pandemic. The global situation calls for new innovative methods and techniques that can be implemented in distance learning. The article presents studies on the use of a digital escape room in the distance training of future teachers in the field of media competences. The studies apply participatory observation as part of virtual ethnography and analysis of audio-visual works in the form of digital designs of escape rooms made by students of various faculties. The main problem comprises three specific research problems: 1. What thematic content dominated in the escape room designs and how did it relate to the media competence category in the Catalogue of Media, Information and Digital Competences? 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of designing a digital escape room in media education as perceived by the active creators/authors of such rooms? 3. How do passive players rate the potential of the escape room method in extending media literacy? The results of the exploration and analyses indicate that the educational digital escape room has a great potential for effective increase in media literacy among young people and young adults.