Digital media are part of everyday life and have an intergenerational appeal, entering older people’s agendas, practices, and habits. Many people aged over 60 years lack adequate digital competences and media literacies to support learning, well-being, and participation in society, thus imposing a need to discuss older people’s willingness, opportunities, and abilities to use digital media. This study explored older people’s media use and repertoires, digital competences, and media literacies to promote media literacy education across all ages. The article discusses the data from 24 interviews with older people aged 65 to 98 years in Italy to answer the following research questions: What kinds of media repertoires emerge? What kinds of competences and media literacies can be described? What kinds of support and training do older people get and wish to receive? The analysis of the data produced four specific profiles concerning media repertoires: analogic, accidental, digital-instrumental, and hybridised users. Media literacy is still a critical framework, but the interviewees were open to opportunities to improve their competences. The use of digital media has received a strong boost due to the pandemic, as digital media have been the only way to get in touch with others and carry out their daily routine.

Since March 2020, we have witnessed a movement of great power: research centres, organisations, publishers, scientific societies, groups and associations have become more engaged, creating networks to promote learning for teachers and schools through digital environments. The contribution tries to think about the digital solidarity initiatives built by Research Centre on Media Education, Innovation and Technologies (CREMIT): a series of webinars for schools, a special free issue of the magazine EaS, the challenge (#distantimaunitiperlascuola). Can we read these initiatives as a third space? The contribution tries to think about these questions, starting from the analysis of some data belonging to communication: the analytics of the social channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), analysis of the posts collected in the social channels around to the initiatives promoted and analysis of the questions collected during the 13 webinars delivered.

Assessment and validation are crucial to support learning experiences. In this paper the focus is on the VET system (Vocational Education and Training), which represents an important node in the training of young people in Europe. Within the theoretical framework, in the specific evidence of the passage from a school-based learning to a work-based learning, we will start a reflection on some assessment and validation practices implemented in Europe, within the AppSkill+ work, an Erasmus+ project aimed at developing and testing an app-based tool dedicated to the evaluation and validation, highlighting circularity, triangulation, continuous assessment and digitalization of the processes.   Pratiche di valutazione e validazione nel sistema di Istruzione e Formazione Professionale: un'app per studenti e professionisti. Il tema della valutazione e della validazione sono centrali per supportare le esperienze di apprendimento. Nel presente contributo il focus è sul sistema VET (Vocational Education and Training), che rappresenta per l’Europa un nodo importante nella formazione dei ragazzi e delle ragazze. A partire dal quadro teorico, nella specifica evidenziazione del passaggio da un apprendimento basato sul contesto della scuola a un apprendimento work-based, si proverà a riflettere su alcune pratiche di valutazione e validazione attivate in Europa, nell’ambito di AppSkill+, un progetto Erasmus+ finalizzato allo sviluppo e alla sperimentazione di una app dedicata alla valutazione e alla validazione, facendo leva su circolarità, triangolazione, valutazione continua e digitalizzazione dei processi.

Media education is a cultural framework that can be applied in different contexts: schools, families, informal educational environments, along with pastoral work. With Pope Francis’ championing, there is an increasing need to bridge pastoral care and the media, which can become new important forms of proximity and open opportunities to connect and assume responsibility towards others. Our aim is to understand how parishes can think of themselves as third spaces. The paper tackles this question through the exploration of the initiative Aperto per ferie. The initiative was created to enable professionals to experience the summer camp activities despite the Covid-19 pandemic, finding new ways of aggregation in pastoral youth clubs and taking advantage of digital community meetings. It developed a digital space to promote a unifying experience. With digital technologies, the boundaries of the community are redrawn. The correspondence with the territory (of the parish and the diocese) is no longer pre-determined. A community with porous edges is making its way and is more open and permeable to contributions coming from outside, and perhaps more accessible, even by those who do not frequent parish environments.