Digital education in daycare centers: Rhön-Grabfeld launches pioneering initiative!

Digital education in daycare centers: Rhön-Grabfeld launches pioneering initiative!

At the end of June, the final event for the “Startchance kita.digital” campaign took place in the Rhön-Grabfeld district office. Under the motto “Digital education right from the start,” the participants were able to look back on a year of intensive work in which daycare centers from the region broke new ground in digital education. Particularly important was the exchange about qualification opportunities for specialists and the promotion of media skills among children, parents and educators, such as mainpost.de reported.

Together with the Schweinfurt and Haßberge districts, those responsible in the Rhön-Grabfeld district applied for the initiative of the Bavarian State Ministry for Family, Labor and Social Affairs (StMAS). Numerous daycare centers took the opportunity to present their projects. The highlights included video recordings of the pupation process of a caterpillar and language diversity through audio recordings in different languages ​​such as Persian, Polish and Ukrainian.

Digital projects in practice

Participating institutions included, for example, the Catholic kindergarten St. Bartholomäus in Groß- und Kleineibstadt and the municipal kindergarten St. Martin in Brendlorenzen as well as other daycare centers from the partner districts. Her project work provided exciting insights into digital education. The daycare teams are determined to promote responsible early childhood education in the digital age and to do justice to the constantly changing media world. Everyone involved received a certificate of participation and is now part of the “kita.digital.vernetzt” network.

The “Startchance kita.digital” campaign started in September 2021 and provided a free qualification offer that was financed with funds from the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs as part of the Good Daycare Act. This shows that digitalization is becoming increasingly important in early childhood education, even if the reality in daycare centers still lags behind the possibilities. How bpb.de emphasizes, there is empirical evidence that shows that media literacy is actually only promoted to a limited extent. The media education habitus of the educators often gets in the way.

The challenge of media education

Children growing up in a digital world are exposed to new media usage, but at the same time there is often a lack of suitable models to promote digital skills in early education. The **State Institute for Early Childhood Education (IFP)** emphasizes that a critical examination of media should be promoted. However, empirical studies show that access to digital media is still limited in many daycare centers and is often limited to the educators' own use. This means that the requirement for comprehensive media education often remains unfulfilled, as is the case with bildungsserver.de can be read.

Media education should include both the design and critical reflection of media so that children learn to use media potential but also to deal with negative content. This is particularly important for children from more difficult backgrounds, who often have fewer role models when it comes to dealing with media. The specialists are faced with the challenge of not only dealing with the media self-reflectively, but also providing parents with information about media use.

Overall, the final event of the “Startchance kita.digital” shows that the basis for sustainable digital education in daycare centers should be created in the Bad Neustadt area and the surrounding area. The experience gained in this way could not only benefit those involved in the region, but also serve as a model for other districts that would like to take similar paths in digital further education.