CONTEXT Countries all over the world are beginning to introduce computer science, programming, and computational thinking into their curricula, even for very young children. With the rapid expansion of the technology market addressing Early Childhood Education, the usage of ICT in European preschools has expanded dramatically. For preschools and Kindergarten environment, this means taking control over the use of available ICT tools so that they enhance children’s learning, creativity and development of language and expression but also ensuring that the benefits this learning is carried through to other school education levels. The partners in #comake - 5 local school authorities/educational centers and 5 pilot preschools from Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Finland and Denmark - believe that computational thinking (a set of problem-solving methods that involve expressing problems and their solutions in ways that a computer could execute) is an very important area of learning and can improve the educational quality in Early Childhood Education. The introduction of computer science concepts in preschools however poses many challenges as few preschool teachers have received pre-service or in-service training to teach in these areas. OBJECTIVES The overall objective is to SHARE AND EVALUATE MODELS AND APPROACHES FOR INTRODUCING COMPUTATIONAL THINKING AND ENHANCE DIGITAL COMPETENCIES IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE. By supporting educators and raising the quality of the educational offer in Kindergartens and preschools the project contributes to lay the foundations for later success in life in terms of education, well-being, employability, and social integration for ALL children, in particular children from disadvantaged backgrounds. PARTICIPANTS AND ACTIVITIES More than 100 preschool teachers and preschool staff, 30 ICT educators,1000 children will participate in activities that will be disseminated and of benefit to more than 10000 preschool teachers and ICT educators, 60000 preschool children and 1800 policymakers across the partner countries. The project’s activities will involve 2 transnational meetings, 5 computational thinking learning and training activities and 4 learning challenges "learnathons" taking place across the partner countries and involving both children and preschool teachers/staff. The project will also create an international network through which preschool teachers and educators can work together on resources and documentation to support ongoing progression in their learning and collaboration around computational thinking. METHODOLOGY The transnational nature of the project will enable each partners to apply methods developed in other countries’ contexts and to learn from best practice outside of their immediate environments. For example the programming expertise in the UK pre-school system, the practical 'maker education' approach in the Netherlands, the discovery and collaboration approach in Finland, the aesthetic and creative approach to using technologies in Sweden and the social pedagogical and outdoor learning approach in Denmark will be synthesised to produce documented innovative and practice-informed pedagogical approaches for the preschool environment. Tasks have been divided into 5 work packages ( PROJECT MANAGEMENT, COMMUNICATION AND DISSEMINATION, LEARNING AND TEACHING ACTIVITIES, CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION and EVALUATION) and distributed democratically among the country coordinators on the basis of their expertise. The 5 pilot preschool schools will serve as local "role models" for all other preschools within the reach of each educational center. RESULTS The project will result in establishing clear evaluated and documented knowledge, approaches and pedagogies for the teaching and learning of computational thinking in Early Childhood Education on both a partnership and individual level. Results will also include a shared website where all results and resources, materials and lessons plans will be accessible and disseminated to targetgroups at a local, regional, national and international level. . IMPACT A generation of European citizens growing up with these valuable computational thinking skills and high levels of digital competency will secure a successful economic and community engagement on a global level. The project will not only target the educational goals of the Erasmus+ programme, in particular by increasing access to affordable and high quality early childhood education and care, but highly contributes to the top priorities of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (“ET 2020”) related to lifelong learning, mobility and the quality and efficiency of early childhood education and care systems.
The ultimate objectives of Comake was to: SHARE AND EVALUATE MODELS AND APPROACHES FOR INTRODUCING COMPUTATIONAL THINKING AND ENHANCE DIGITAL COMPETENCIES IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE. This objective was made possible by the exchange of best practices between the partners of this project, made possible through Learning, Teaching, Training Activities and 5 local so called "learnathons", which resulted in establishing clear evaluated and documented knowledge, approaches and pedagogies. All participating pre-schools and learning authorities collaborated in the sharing of knowledge and models to make new learning approaches and materials based on the common learning from each other and the learning concepts behind “Computational Thinking”. This project's objective met the needs of competence development for pre-school teachers as well as for the participating learning authorities, who also became more aware of digital competencies as a taxonomic development, which can be developed before children begin primary school. All target groups in this project have benefited from the international network and relations with other children and colleagues.
Project Comake was founded on an identified need to develop and strengthen the knowledge of children’s digital competencies in kindergarten/pre-schools. This includes familiarizing children and teachers with the concepts of computational thinking (CT) as the base of developing digital competencies. CT describes the logical thinking, pattern recognition, use of algorithms, logic and decomposition needed to use computers in order to formulate and solve problems and has been highlighted as a 21:st century skill comparable to numeracy and literacy by governments across Europe. In many of the partner countries, digital understanding is a part of the curriculum, but many pre-schools lack competence in how to work with ICT and the learning concepts behind. Participating preschools had different curricula and knowledge, but shared the following needs : - All needed more in-service training, support and ideas from other countries on how to integrate ICT in a way it supports learning, creativity and problem solving in learning environments - All lacked a deeper understanding of how computational thinking can be taught in new collaborative ways and implemented in Early Childhood Education - All wished to strengthen the European dimension