Media, images and ICT in French-speaking Switzerland: an overview of the MITIC field

The MITIC domain, for Media, Images and Information and Communication Technologies, is part of the Plan d'études romand (PER), in Switzerland, which includes cross-disciplinary ICT skills. We present it to you today.

Jean-Claude Domenjoz is a specialist in media, image and information and communication technologies. He maintains a blog on the website of the Swiss magazine L'Hebdo in which he comments on the subject of education and the media. With his collaboration, we present to you today an overview of the MITIC field, the training framework bringing together ICT in French-speaking Switzerland (French-speaking portion).

"The Romand Study Plan (PER) includes a MITIC domain. It is one of the components of general training. This acronym stands for Media, Images and Information and Communication Technologies. MITIC teaching aims to develop students' ability to critically examine media and technological developments, to decode and produce various types of messages. Learning to use IT and multimedia tools is one of them. It is a transversal training, it means that all teachers are called upon to develop students' MITIC skills in a concrete and practical way in their lessons. "

“In French-speaking Switzerland, this name refers in the school field to everything relating to teaching and learning in connection with the media and digital tools. Hence a confusion which seems inextricable. Indeed, MITIC can be considered as well as an object of study (discipline), vectors of information (media), tools (office automation, computer applications), content (media, educational resources), means of communication. teaching (interactive whiteboard).

“Originally (early 2000s), this field was created to bring together media education (information criticism) and ICTs, the development of which in French-speaking schools has taken place. for a long time independently. "

According to Mr. Domenjoz, in the educational environment of French-speaking Switzerland, the acronym MITIC is often used instead of ICT, which in his opinion would however be more appropriate when referring to technologies and their educational uses. " The dimension MID (media and images) hardly be recognized. The educational community shows little interest in image pedagogy. However, this requires specific knowledge and the implementation of appropriate didactic strategies. "

Indeed, young Swiss (like many others no doubt) consume a lot of images. Four out of five, according toJAMES study, watch television and use video portals like YouTube daily or several times a week. You can read more about Mr. Domenjoz's opinion on this subject by reading his post " MITIC: For image pedagogy in French-speaking Switzerland classrooms ".

In addition, Mr. Domenjoz informs us that the cantons of German-speaking Switzerland have just adopted their own study plan, the Lehrplan 21, which contains an interesting component to watch out for, called “Media and IT”. Indeed, computer science as a science is not part of the Romand Study Plan and no reflection is undertaken to make it evolve in this direction, he recalls in another ticket.