The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) has published new online teaching materials dealing with various forms of commercial communications. The materials enable teachers to help pupils recognise when and how attempts are being made to influence them commercially.
Digital media and technology have become a natural part of the environment in which children grow up. Digital technology is apparent in children´s everyday life, for example, in new types of marketing and methods of advertising. Not all school children, however, are able to distinguish between advertisements and other materials in an online environment. They may not necessarily know how to choose the most useful link from among the options offered by search engines or how to evaluate the reliability of information.
The online materials compiled by the FCCA provide teachers with tools with which pupils can be activated to develop their information management skills. The aim is for pupils to know how to interpret and critically evaluate commercial messages in various media. They will then be able to protect their personal information and display a critical attitude with respect to offers that seem too good to be true. Pupils can also be helped to see how different marketing methods change as media and digital solutions evolve.
The online materials are linked to the FCCA´s task of promoting and implementing consumer enlightenment and education. The Authority has also been involved in developing a new curriculum – to be adopted in autumn 2016 – in which digital technology is taken into greater account than before.
Materials on commercial communications phenomena
Additional materials on the teaching of consumer skills