Building Sustainable Digital Practices in Kindergarten Literacy and Arts Programmes (DigiSus)

The Project 'Building Sustainable Digital Practices in Kindergarten Literacy and Arts Programmes' (DigiSus) is a bottom up competence project involving kindergartens in two municipalities, Tysnes and Stord, pre-service kindergarten teacher programmes and a research environment (CASE center) at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, campus Stord. The main objective of the project is to develop a competence framework for kindergarten staff and teacher educators connected to establishing sustainable digital practices (SDP) in kindergartens supporting playing and learning in literacy and arts practices. The research design is inspired by action and educational design research focusing on four key research phases: 1) Engage and analyse, 2) Design and enact, 3) Evaluate and validate, 4) Spread and implement. Research processes will lead up to knowledge as competence agency connected to actional thinking and research based decisions. During the autumn-17, groups of staff in the 8 participating kindergartens were interviewed about existing kindergarten practices and attitudes and competences for using digital technology in everyday life of kindergarten. The objective of conducting the interviews was to survey and understand similarities and differences kindergartens according to staff?s positions as assistants, teachers or managers in the kindergarten. The findings from the interview analysis informed the design of spring-18 when the kindergarten staff were involved in exploration of digital technologies like Makey Makey and coding in Scratch. During spring-18 we arranged 5 workshops, where the 16 kindergarten staff took part as engaged project partners together with the research group. In the workshops we explored together a number of different design propositions for the use of touch-based Makey Makey technology in pedagogies that can support children's art experiences in kindergarten. The design principles were explored in the kindergartens between workshops and the staff reported their experiences at the next workshop. All tryouts form a collective experience platform for developing prototypes of SDPs including complete designs of unique and magical sensory and aesthetic SDP-rooms in each kindergarten during autumn-18. Sept-18 the research group and 4 staff from the kindergartens participated in a project seminar arranged in collaboration with our partner at New York University. The seminar took place in New York and Boston and consisted of meetings with central scholars and technology developers relevant for DigiSus (NYU, Tufts University, Boston and MIT Media Lab, Lifelong Kindergarten). The group visited several schools/kindergartens and art/childrens museums. Preliminary results and experiences in the project were presented at MAGNET, NYU, for Multimedia and Games Network, Digital Media Design for Learning program, and MusEDLab. During autumn-18 the SDP-rooms were introduced to the children by using process drama or telling stories and their responses and reactions was documented by video observation for further analysis and reflection. Our partner from NYU, Dr. Alex Ruthmann, visited the kindergartens together with researchers to experience the BDP-designs and supervise the staff when needed. Late autumn-18 we arranged an evaluation seminar on campus in which the BDP-designs were presented and discussed by the kindergarten staff and the research group. In spring-19 we focused more on literacy and language in the new BDP-designs to be developed. We introduced the technology micro:bit (BBC) that has other possibilities than Makey Makey. The cooperation in the project was structured similar to autumn-18 with workshops and visits. The project developments in the kindergartens were filmed and reports with descriptions of the design were developed and shared. Results were presented at the Grieg Research School-conference and to the Minister of Education, Sanner, when he visited one of our kindergartens. During autumn-19 the kindergartens developed their own musical instrument (Makey Makey) and a magical book (micro:bit) for stimulating childrens own storytelling and a third round of kindergarten SDP-designs were developed and explored together with children. In Oct/Nov-19 we conducted individual interviews with each participant about their competence development during the project. The interviews were transcribed and analysed in 2020-21. Nov-19 we arranged an evaluation seminar inviting stakeholders to presentations of the project developments in each kindergarten during the project. Dec-19 we published project report 1: Tilstandsrapport and project report 2: Sluttrapport is expected in dec-21. Spring/autumn 2020 has been markedd by the pandemic, but also analysis for final reporting and publishing, as well as arranging a digital webinar 18th-19th of November-20 for disseminating project results. We presented the project in a self-organised symposium at EECERA-21.

DigiSus har hatt fleire verknader og effektar for deltakarane i løpet av prosjektet. Deltakarane har utvikla sin digitale kompetanse ved å utforska ein type teknologi som ikkje er skjermbasert og som krever programmering. Dette har gitt nye mulighetar for dei estetiske faga og stimulert språkarbeidet i barnehagen på ein ny måte. I åtte barnehagar har barn i ulike aldrar fått oppleva magiske og sanselege rom og installasjonar som har stimulert barns forestillingsevne og språkarbeidet i barnehagen. Erfaringane i dei ulike barnehagane er formidla via prosjektbloggen, https://blogg.hvl.no/digisus/ og på sluttwebinaret nov-20, på UHR-konferansen apr-21 og EECERA-konferansen sep-21. Ein annan effekt av prosjektet er at prosjekterfaringane vert nytta i undervisinga av barnehagelærarstudentar ved HVL. DigiSus-prosjektet har bidrege til å utvikla forståinga av kva berekraftig bruk av digital teknologi kan vera i barnehagesamanheng.

The DigiSus project will introduce a learning environment in kindergartens where MIT developed non-screen based technology will be explored along with existing screen based technologies in moveable experience labs, e.g in the shape of aesthetic interaction rooms (0- 3) years, and language stimulation rooms (3-5 years). The research focus and questions in this part of the DigiSus are: What are important characteristics of sustainable digital practices (SDPs) in kindergartens? How can such practices contribute to the overarching goals of kindergarten pedagogies? And what kind of competence and competency framework is needed to implement sustainable digital practices in kindergartens? The research design of DigiSus is primarily designed as a qualitative study, but with some elements of quantitative methods. The research design is inspired by action research and educational design research and can best be described as mixed methods. The overall research design of the project is structured around four key research phases: 1) Engage and analyze: 2) Design and enact; 3) Evaluate and validate; 4) Spread and implement. Research process and phases will all lead up to knowledge as competence agency connected to actional thinking and research based decision making. DigiSus is a bottom up competence project involving all kindergartens in two municipalities, Tysnes and Stord, pre- service kindergarten teacher programmes and the research environment of two research centres and one research programme. The research will be carried out by a group of experienced researchers and teacher educators at West Norway University of Applied Sciences (Høgskulen på Vestlandet), and be anchored in the research centers Centre for Creativities, Arts and Science in Education (CASE), the research programme Creativity and Culture Pedagogies (C-ped), both located at Rommetveit Campus, Stord, and Center for Arts, Culture and Communication located at Kronstad campus, Bergen.