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Digital materials in early childhood education and care and preschool. Headphones, iPad, books and children's hands.

Innovative Learning Environments in Early Childhood Education and Care

Multi-literacy in the digital world 

 In the autumn term 2022, the City of Vaasa’s Early Childhood Education and Care started to promote digital skills and digital learning environments with help of the Innovatiiviset oppimisympäristöt varhaiskasvatuksessa project funding (Innovative Learning Environments in Early Childhood Education and Care). 

The objective is to promote digitalisation by creating a bilingual model for early childhood education and care that promotes equal opportunities for learners in digital learning environments. 

 Another objective is to develop digital learning environments and teaching practices in Vaasa, and to strengthen the basic skills of educators and children in accordance with the revised Digital Agenda. 

 The aim is also to improve the quality of the digitalisation of education and learning, to promote the use of digital skills and to support and develop the multi-faceted use of digital environments. 

 The project seeks to improve the quality of digitalisation of education and learning and to promote the use of digital skills in accordance with the Early Childhood Education and Care Plan by implementing the Early Childhood Education Digital Agenda and supporting materials for staff, based on the New Literacies development programme. 

Design and production of supporting material

In autumn 2022, Vaasa’s early childhood education and care updated its Digital Agenda based on the good pedagogical practices of the New Literacies development programme.  

The Digital Agenda for the Vaasa Early Childhood Education and Care and Preschool Education is available here (in Finnish).  

The adoption of the new plan was supported by organising training for staff members. The new plan was reviewed with the entire staff.  

Vaasa’s Early Childhood Education and Care has a network of digital tutors, and each unit has a contact person who staff can turn to in case of problems. To support the work of the digital tutors, an annual schedule was created, highlighting the tasks that recur every year. You can find the annual digital schedule at the bottom of this page under Project Materials (Hankemateriaalit). Digital tutors were offered a more extensive training package to strengthen their multi- and media literacy skills, which included work on creative production.  

Skills mapping highlighted the need to strengthen basic iPad skills, which was addressed through basic iPad user training. As part of the basic iPad training, staff members learned how to use QR codes to listen to books, read and search for information.  

  • In Lukulumo, a QR code directs readers to the intended book 
  • in Yle Areena, the QR code directs to free content, such as songs 
  • a QR code that directs users to the desired location when searching for information   
  • ChirpQR, audio QR Codes  

E-stories in education and learning

The project enabled the introduction of Lukulumo or Polyglutt from the beginning of 2023. All City of Vaasa’s Early Childhood Education and Care units received a licence for either Lukulumo or Polyglutt. Vaasa being a bilingual city, each unit could freely choose which one of the two services to use. Lukulumo offers a wide selection of books for Finnish-language units and Finland-Swedish versions for language immersion groups. Polyglutt offers a wide range of books in Swedish for Swedish-language early childhood education. 

The use of Lukulumo and Polyglutt was launched through a training partnership with ILT Education. The possibility of reading books in different languages creates a level playing field for children to understand the stories and join in the play/projects that flow from the stories they have read and heard. 

Why use #Lukulumo? 

  • Lukulumo reinforces the child’s first language and engages them. 
  • Lukulumo allows multilingual children to develop their skills in Finnish, Swedish and their mother tongue(s) alike. This helps to strengthen the child’s cultural identity, in line with the objectives of the National core curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care and the pre-primary curriculum. 
  • Language awareness, vocabulary and language use skills improve.  
  • Lukulumo enables children to strengthen their digital literacy in an equal and equitable way and to play an active role in the digital learning environment. 
  • The use of Lukulumo also strengthens the digital skills of both staff and children, in line with the Digital Agenda. 
  • Play is a key tool, and reading, fairy tales and stories can be used to enrich play. Listening to the same stories in different languages allows all children to have an equal opportunity to participate in the play after hearing the stories in their native language. 

 

Find tips on how to use e-books and audio books in early childhood education here: 

https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/Kuunnellaan-aanikirjaa.pdf (in Finnish) 

https://www.oph.fi/fi/koulutus-ja-tutkinnot/kuuntelen-siis-luen  (in Finnish) 

Read more and get inspired: 

The City of Vaasa Culture and Library Services published reading passes for children under school age. Find the reading passes for Early Childhood Education and Care here:   

https://kirjasto.vaasa.fi/en/children#/ 

Creating multimedia products

Creating, producing and collaborating on multimedia projects was the focus in autumn 2023. To support staff competencies, training was organised together with the Atea Edu Team and Linn Österås. 

Vaasa’s Early Childhood Education and Care uses iPads with access to iMovie and GarageBand. The tablets also have the Stop Motion Studio Pro animation app, and the Book Creator apps are available for educators’ devices. 

Early Childhood Education and Care groups integrated e-books and audio books into their learning modules. Find out more about the learning modules here (in Finnish).  

In connection with the learning modules, thought was given to how children could easily evaluate the activities. The evaluation was based on the devices available and the easiest possible way of doing it. The guidelines for children evaluating through photography are available under Project Materials (Hankemateriaalit). 

Before Christmas, we created a public Christmas calendar in the Vaasa Early Childhood Education and Care Instagram Stories. The Christmas Calendar tasks are included in the account’s highlights, so you can still continue to explore the tasks and practice your production skills https://www.instagram.com/varhaiskasvatus_vaasa/. 

Augmented reality as part of digital learning environments

Augmented reality as part of learning environments focuses on the use of different applications and software in early childhood education. A wide range of digital applications and services are used in education and they all must meet the requirements of the law. Together with the digital tutors, a range of apps suitable for early childhood education, available for iPads from the remote administration HUB, was developed. 

Magic Carpet enabled the safe integration of augmented reality into the everyday activities of early childhood education and care. Magic Carpet enables an equal participation experience for children regardless of language or motor constraints. Find out more about Magic Carpet here: https://www.aistikanava.fi/taikalattia/ 

In spring 2024, Magic Carpet toured the different early childhood education units. From autumn 2024, Magic Carpet will become part of the Early Childhood Education Loan Library and kindergartens will be able to use it also in the future. Read comments from children and adults about Magic Carpet: 

  • ”Everyone could and were able to participate in using Magic Carpet equally. Magic Carpet was simple enough to use (both in terms of the grown-ups’ digital skills and the motor skills of even the youngest children). Magic Carpet provided new experiences for children (and adults) and was very much enjoyed by all.” 
  • ”Very engaging and interesting for children, fun and educational.” 
  • ”Very vice, the kids loved it.” 
  • ”Simple and easy enough to use.” 
  • ”Simple enough for the youngest children.” 
  • ”Versatile and stimulating.” 
  • ”A very nice addition, and we talked about using the carpet in projects, for example when studying volcanoes, space, travel, and so on.” 
  • ”We did like it, but it was pretty repetitive. Heavy to pack. Easy to use, but the ”apps” were slow or didn’t work properly. The music/sounds were nice. Everything being in English was a huge minus.” 
  • ”We were delighted to test Magic Carpet in our group. All children were able to participate, regardless of their skill level.” 
  • ”The children’s enthusiasm right from the start was engaging. Every child was excited and happy to participate.” 
  • ”The children were overjoyed and wanted to try many different games. Football and chasing the fish were particularly popular. The trial period was limited, however, and the staff were only just learning how to use the equipment, so the testing was quite superficial. Some children would have liked the reflective surface to be larger to allow even more movement. However, every child had the chance to participate, regardless of language and skills.” 
  • ”Functionality is an important part of learning today, and Magic Carpet supports this mode of learning in many ways.” 
  • ”It was nice to be able to do different things, and to move around.”