Media literacy education through an online space: Co-designing of a participative website in media literacy for teachers

This study applies a participatory design approach including the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a participative website in media literacy for Iranian teachers. In the design cycle, we utilized collaboration with Iranian teachers formulating basic inceptive design in three workshops identifying needs and requirements in media literacy. The development process was through paper-based prototyping of design components of the website by participants embodying particular design guidelines and ideated design concepts for the website. In the implementation step, the website was launched based on guidelines and prototypes taken from participants in the workshops. The website was evaluated by teachers based on four factors including being educational, facilitating networking, being engaging, and user-friendly. The result of this research informs researchers about the benefit of a participatory design approach to design a platform in media literacy for teachers. We argue that the process of applying participatory design and the design components prototyped by teachers for designing a website in media literacy can be a guide for researchers and all other agents who are active in media literacy education.