The project Informatik im Park (Lakeside IT-Curriculum) started as a collaboration between Lakeside Science and Technology Park and the University of Klagenfurt (Mag. Dr. Stefan Pasterk). The Lakeside Science and Technology Park can be seen as a linking point between research, enterprises, and education and runs its own Educational Lab which can be described as follows:
“The Educational Lab is an open research laboratory for new forms of education and further and continued training and development.”
This has the goal to develop a continuous curriculum for computer science and digital literacy starting in kindergarten and continuing until graduation. With this idea the project won the first price in the competitive Inspiring Solutions Programme from the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation (IASP). It is divided into the three following phases:
- Kindergarten and first years of primary school: In the first phase the lowest levels are covered. This marks a special challenge as reading and calculation skills are very limited and cannot be seen as prerequisite skills. This has to be considered during the development of activities and material.
- Primary school and lower secondary school: In higher grades of primary education reading and calculations skills are on a basic level and can be presumed in the activities and material.
- Secondary school: In higher grades of secondary school a lot more knowledge and skills can be expected. This means, some topics can be additionally considered or more details can be integrated.
As the project is not part of the official curriculum for these school grades, but is implemented in the Educational Lab, the activities are planned as workshop modules. In the first pilot study, together with the public kindergarten Bunte Knöpfe in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Austria, the first phase is implemented.
Pilot project: Digitaler Kindergarten
Project facts
Duration: 04.2019 – 03.2020
Partner: Lakeside Science & Technology Park, Kindergarten Bunte Knöpfe
Funding source: BABEG, Lakeside Science & Technology Park
Age group: 3 – 5 years old
Number of participating educators: total 5, during the activities between 1 and 3
Number of participating children:total 50, during the activities between 2 and 20
Project team
Project coordinator
Development and implementation
Alexandra Webernig, BEd
Philipp Mödritscher, MSc
Quaility assurance
Project description
In the first phase, the focus was on the youngest target group – Kindergarten children – in form of the pilot project called Digital Kindergarten. In collaboration with the Kindergarten Bunte Knöpfe our team selected target competencies suitable for this age. As a next step materials were developed and workshop modules were defined. The results were reviewed by participating educators and revised by the project team.
In summer 2019 we started to test the following modules in the Kindergarten Bunte Knöpfe with varying numbers of participating children:
- Use technology (Technologie einsetzen)
- Technology in everyday life (Technologie im Alltag)
- Understanding digital media (Digitale Medien verstehen)
- Step by step commands (Schritt-für-Schritt Befehle)
- Problem Solving (Problemlösen)
- Algorithms in daily life (Algorithmen im täglichen Leben)
- Features and patterns (Merkmale und Muster)
- Programming 1, 2, 3 (Programmieren 1, 2, 3)
The tested and documented materials were collected in a book for further distribution. Besides the material, it includes some facts about the corresponding computer science topic and descriptions of how to use the material.
Bildrechte: Lakeside Park, FritzPress
Publications
Stefan Pasterk, Andreas Bollin: Digitaler Kindergarten. Informatik, Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V., 313, Bonn, 2021, S. 173 - 182.
