Informatik im Park

The project Informatik im Park (Lakeside IT-Curriculum) started as a collaboration between Lakeside Science and Technology Park and the University of Klagenfurt. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.