RadioActive Europe: promoting engagement, informal learning and employability of at risk and  excluded people across Europe through internet radio and social media

Project Websites:
http://radioactive101.eu
http://uk2.radioactive101.eu

With the support of the European Commission within the framework of LLP.

Sub-programme:
DEVELOPMENT OF INNOVATIVE ICT-BASED CONTENT, SERVICES, PEDAGOGIES AND PRACTICE FOR LIFELONG LEARNING (KEY ACTIVITY 3)
Action:
KA3 Multilateral projects
Contract Number:
531245-LLP-1-2012-1-UK-KA3-KA3MP

Start Date: 01 January 2013
Project Duration: 2 years

This project will develop and implement a pan-European Internet Radio platform, incorporating Web 2.0 functionality, linked to innovative community based pedagogies to address themes of employability, inclusion and active citizenship in an original and exciting way. The Internet Radio will provide an innovative way to engage, retain and develop those who are excluded or at risk of exclusion, and its low-cost, extensibility and sustainability, compared with fm radio for example, is a key dimension in ensuring the success of this project.

Through actively developing, implementing and running the RadioActive station and its national channels, the target groups – of older schoolchildren, young people and other older people – will develop digital competencies and employability skills ‘in vivo’ that are relevant to the 21C workplace. These competencies and skills will be accredited to provide a platform to further education or employment related to the knowledge and creative and digital industries. To quote one of the UK Youth workers who will be involved in this project: ‘I can’t think of one young person who I work with who would not want to be involved’.

It has been a whirlwind couple of months with bid writing and project work and I’m slowly getting back on top of it all, which means I can finally announce a new media literacy project – Social Media Resilience Toolkit or SMaRT-eu which seems particularly timely in this age of conflicting and confusing health advice,…

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Exciting things are always happening at Pontydysgu but this one I’m particularly looking forward to. From January 2018 I will be working with, COFAC in Portugal, Cooperativa Nuova Dimensione in Italy, Grupo Comunicar Andalusia and KIC Malta on a Media Literacy for all pilot project funded by DG Connect Media in Action is a project in […]

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All too often projects fail to prove sustainable. Quite simply without external funding the products and practices developed do not survive. But sometimes they take off and resonate in new ways even without a financial stimulus. So it is with RadioActive. RadioActive was a project funded under the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning project to develop the use of internet radio with unemployed people and socially disadvantaged groups. And although the funding finished over a year ago, projects partners in three countries – Germany, Portugal and the Uk are still producing radio programmes.

Today is London’s turn. At 1400 UK time, 1500 CET the Univeristy of East London present a show entitled “DJ showdown: older DJs and today’s crop of Turntablists trade blows.” Is DJing an art form? With digital tech so easily available and virtually unlimited access to MP3s via a laptop, is everyone now a DJ? And if so does that mean older people who learnt their craft through hard graft have wasted their time? Don’t all the years of physically carrying lbs of vinyl to clubs and then actually mixing records live amount to something? We examine what does it mean to be a DJ in 2016 and how it has changed over the last three decades.

We compare the different styles of mixing music ranging from Geoff Humphries who DJ’d in the house music scene of Ibiza, Rhythm Vandals (mostly playing the clubs in Leeds in the 90s) right up to newest wave of teenage Turntablists where Abrakadaniel beat mixes for us. Tracks include the Sex Pistols, Madonna/Abba, the late Lemmy from Motörhead through to Soulwax. What influence have new techniques and digital accuracy that take account of key and time signatures actually had on mixing? We hear the likes of Titancube, RiFF RAFF, Skrillex, Datsik, Brillz & LAXX and more.

You can listen live at http://listenlive.radioactive101.eu/ . And if you can’t tune in live catch up afterwards with the recording of this and other programmes at http://uk2.radioactive101.eu/broadcast/

The RadioActive project has produced a Funding Guide with lots of great ideas to raise money to get your internet radio show up and running.

We’re not saying you’ll need the money but it’s always nice to have a helping hand with the overheads and new equipment.

Check it out here

Filed under: RadioActive

The European funding for the RadioActive project may have ended but the activity continues. Just to remind you – and according tot he blurb – “RadioActive101 is a highly innovative educational intervention that is being implemented across Europe. It uses primarily internet radio and also social media to promote inclusion, informal learning, employability and active citizenship in an original and exciting way!” RadioActive was financed between 2012 and 2104 by the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Program  The project is led by the University of East London in the UK, with partners from Wales, Germany, Portugal, Malta and Romania.

RadioActive was awarded in Portugal by FCT, the national funding agency for science, technology and innovation. The prize acknowledges the good results of RadioActive and supports the expansion of the project in Portugal during 2015.  In Portugal, the project is implemented by CIMJ – Research Centre for Media and Journalism. The Portuguese team, coordinated by Maria José Brites, is composed by Sílvio Correia Santos, Ana Jorge, Daniel Catalão, Catarina Navio and António Granado. This award will support the expansion of the project in Portugal in cooperation with the governmental program Escolhas during 2015.

And for International Radio Day on 13 February of this year,  the German RadioActive partner, the University of Koblenz, were interviewed by the local newspaper here in their region called Rheinzeitung. The interview took a closer look on the Radioactive-Project and – thats where, says Andreas Auwaerter “I am proud of the Deichstadtradio RadioMakingPeople. We’ve had an 1.5 hour interview with the vice-editorial leading person. This is IMHPO very long and in deph. What I kept in mind from this interview: “I am a bit of jealous, because you had the chance to dig into your topics without all that all day business”. That’s so seldom that we’ve got that opportunity. Based on that business pressure I can understand her. ”

Not to be left behind, the University of East London broadcast a programme on Mental Health and Young People: Experiences and Perspectives. The show explored what different groups of young people in the UK think about mental health, discussing their experiences and giving their perspectives on perceived differences in help and support for mental health issues at school and college.

The EU funded RadioActive project is in its final days but that doesn’t mean we are suffering from RadioActive decay! Shows are set to continue with our prize winning Portuguese partners securing funding for another year, UEL funded Post grad courses, DragonHall and co.in the UK have made the RadioActive system their usual way of working and there’s no stopping the teams at Deichstadt Radio and KO-N-RAD in Germany.

Along with the great radio shows and podcasts we have produced a number of useful products;

• Future Facilitators’ Guide – Online, offline and audio guides for anyone wishing to join in.
• ePub and pdf versions of RadioActive Practices – a report containing many of the common practices developed and refined by participants and RadioActive researchers across this European partnership over the last two years.  And there are several examples of the significant impact felt by some of the individuals who became ‘radio-activists’ along the way.
• The Training Suite with Technical, Journalism and Organisational hints tips and tutorials.
• A Moodle course explaining the digital badge system and curriculum
• A RadioActive curriculum which details many of the activities completed whilst making Internet Radio and cross matches them with the EU Lifelong Learning Key Competecies.

For more information and a wealth of other resources, check out radioactive101.eu or follow @RadioActive101 or like us on Facebook

Filed under: RadioActive Tagged: internet radio, RadioActive

Live show 7PM, Friday 30 Jan 2015
radioactive101.org
RadioActive101: Learning through radio, learning for life!

RadioActive 101 presents ‘Mental Health and Young People: Experiences and Perspectives’. In this show we explore what different groups of young people in the UK think about mental health, discussing their experiences and giving their perspectives on perceived differences in help and support for mental health issues at school and college.
The show is hosted by Tom Gerken from the University of East London (UEL) and goes out to you, live at 7pm on Friday 30 Jan 2015.

Go to the website radioactive101.org and click ‘Listen Live’

http://listenlive.radioactive101.eu

Connect with us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RadioActive101
Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/RadioActive101

Filed under: RadioActive Tagged: RadioActive

In what by now has become an annual event, we will be presenting Sounds of the Bazaar, the official online radio from Online Educa Berlin, on Thursday 4 and Friday 5 of December this week. The broadcasts will be from 1115 to 1145 CET and will be live from the lead ramp to the Marlene Bar at the InterContinental Hotel. If you are lucky enough to be at the conference and  are willing to come on the programme could you email Graham Attwell – graham10 [at] mac [dot] com – saying which day is most convenient for you and what time in the half hour programme suits you best. In general each slot lasts around 5 minutes.

And if you would like to catch up in person we will be preparing the shows in the Marlene Bar from about 1500 onwards tomorrow afternoon.

If you can’t make to to Online Educa in person, don’t despair. You can listen to all the best of the conference in our live radio shows. Just tune in at 1115 CET on Thursday and Friday by pointing your internet browser to SoB Online EDUCA 2014 LIVE Radio and the live stream will open up in the MP3 player of your choice.

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The RadioActive team are in Tallinn this week for PLE 2014, we are running a workshop and will be broadcasting a short live show.

Meanwhile in the UK the young people at Dragon Hall youth organisation  have been busy preparing  the second part of the fascinating feature ‘Tracks of my Years’ that documents the journey through life of a musician and producer, David ‘Zorro’ Caplin, who gives us a personal perspective on issues such as homelessness and drug addiction. This use of ‘music as storytelling’ is the vehicle for an honest, emotional and typically cautionary tale that exposes the human reality of issues that are often treated trivially or questionably glamorised within the music industry. We think you’ll agree ‘it’s been emotional’.

The Music is The Message – Part 4
Live show 7PM UK time Thursday 17th July 2014
radioactive101.org
Contact us on info [at] radioactive101 [dot] org [dot] uk
Connect with us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RadioActive101
Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/RadioActive101

“RadioActive101 is an innovative pan-European educational intervention, using internet radio and also social media to promote inclusion, informal learning, employability and active citizenship in an original and exciting way.”

That is the official project blurb for Radioactive which is funded by The European Commission. But it doesn’t really tell the full story. Radioactive is working with different groups of people, from youth clubs, organisations of unemployed adults etc. to develop and produce internet radio programmes.  Hopefully along the way they are having lots of fun. And we know they are learning many different skills – including designi9ng content, interviewing, presenting, directing, production as well as technical skills and skills in post production. Radioactive has developed a set of badges, using the Mozilla badges schema.

For me the attraction is that learning is taking place in an informal setting. Learning  by doing and learning through using social media. Anyway you can judge for yourself. This week there are three programmes being broadcast.

We have a show going out from Germany later this evening:
http://de.radioactive101.eu/news/

Tomorrow from Portugal Wednesday, 25, at 4pm (CEST) with their newest partner, EntrEscolhas Geração D’Ouro E5G.
Listen on RadioActive101, on the 25th, at 4 pm,
http://pt.radioactive101.eu/2014/06/23/primeira-emissao-do-entrescolhas-geracao-douro-e5g/

And on Friday sees the second airing of a really interesting show from the UK on ‘Body Image, Media and Music’ http://uk2.radioactive101.eu/event/details/on-air-20th-june-body-image-and-the-media/