Media education in schools owes its current high level of public attention not least to the fact that the so-called "new media" - today often abbreviated to "multimedia" or "Internet" - require important educational measures.
In the public discussion, shortcuts in content are the order of the day: when "media competence" is mentioned, it often only conceals an "Internet driving licence". This observation annoys not only media educators but also representatives of information technology education1, since justified pedagogical claims of both groups receive little attention. In the meantime, there are a number of recommendations from the BLK and KMK on this topic, which also clearly point out the mutual references.
The growing importance of the computer as a medium and the increasing digitalisation of traditional media require both media education and computer literacy to further develop their goals and content. In 1999, the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.) published its recommendation "Informatische Bildung und Medienerziehung" (Informatics Education and Media Education), outlining the tasks that media education has to fulfil if information and communication technologies and computer-based media are to be addressed in an appropriate form.
Initial practical approaches to deliberately combine content from both areas, even under a common subject or course title, are often additive and - despite existing overlaps - are oriented towards established media education or information technology teaching principles.
In the present thematic issue, the question is posed from an overarching, media pedagogical perspective as to how a consistent further development of media education can look like with appropriate consideration of the informatics perspective. The present contributions explore this question from different perspectives. The contributions by Herzig, Schulte and Wagner show a systematic approach:
Bardo Herzig develops an interdisciplinary approach to a common concept of media with a sign-oriented approach. Through semiotics, a theoretical basis is created that makes it possible to combine media education and information technology perspectives in the field of information and communication technologies.
Carsten Schulte examines the views of computer science and computer didactics that touch on the media aspects of the computer, develops task areas of "informational media education" from this and proves that they can be used to fulfil the requirements of the "media education task areas" related to computer-based media.
From a more media pedagogical perspective, Wolf-Rüdiger Wagner describes requirements that arise from specific dangers of information technologies: media competence as the ability to protect oneself requires (in)security awareness, the right to informational self-determination, a basic understanding of technology and appropriate communication behaviour. Incidentally, Klaus Brunnstein also came to comparable conclusions in his lecture at the symposium "Informatics Instruction and Media Education", which took place in September 2001. He pleaded for a drastic revision of computer science curricula: instead of in-depth programming knowledge, the focus should be on mastering insecure information technologies. Responsible use of these technologies means controlled use, understanding of the performance and limits of products as well as knowledge of the economic and legal framework2.
The other contributions are to be understood more as a pragmatic approach to the topic.
Michael Weigend presents concrete teaching suggestions. His media-related project topics, which require a combination of the subjects computer science and educational science, contain interesting suggestions. The upcoming practical trials will provide information about the pedagogical yield with regard to the various subject-specific and interdisciplinary target areas, feasibility and acceptance by learners and teachers.
In her study, Irene Langner shows how - as a result of the nationwide recommendations mentioned at the beginning - a convergence between the approaches of information and communication technology basic education, media education and computer science is gradually taking place in some federal states on the subject of the Internet and compares this development with the information-oriented concept available in Japan.
If new goals and contents are to be implemented, anchoring them in teacher training is an important step. One approach to this is the minimum curriculum presented by Olaf Kos and Dieter Schaale for teaching computer science education to student teachers. The authors also refer to more comprehensive study programmes offered by other universities, which are designated as additional qualifications and in which courses from the field of educational science, subject didactics partly with a focus on the didactics of computer science are offered, as well as to the university network "Teacher Training and New Media" (http://www.lehrerbildung-medien.de).
In this context, supporting and accompanying measures should also be mentioned in order to motivate higher education institutions and study seminars to provide corresponding offers on these topics and to make these offers attractive for customers. One example is the "Portfolio: Medien.Lehrerbildung" (Media.Teacher Education), with which training and further training activities in the area of "media pedagogical competence" can be documented, work results collected and presented.
Overall, the thematic booklet is intended to provide an insight into the current discussions on the topic and the available (interim) results. It will be interesting to read the individual contributions also according to the question to what extent the individual - theoretical and practical - approaches are "compatible" with each other. It is worthwhile to follow the development further.
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