Using media in the daycare center, but competently and creatively

How can you create an interesting word puzzle with children using pictures, an iPad and a simple app? And how could you use an iPad as a tool with children to create short animated films about children’s stories? These were just two of the questions that the 2nd-year part-time vocational school for social work investigated and tested with their own experiments as part of a workshop on “Media practice for daycare centers” run by “Medien und Bildung RLP” under the direction of Birgid Dinges and Daniel Zils.

In a first practical test, the task was to create a photo puzzle with the PicCollage app in small groups and then present the resulting puzzles to the group. The creative media design options offered by the app were first introduced: Photo collages, photo puzzles, fake pictures, profiles. All of this can be produced very easily with little effort and little technical knowledge using tablets. Very different and tricky puzzles were created in no time at all, which were solved together and with a lot of fun.

In addition to the productive use of tablets, the participants discussed the fundamental question of to what extent and under what conditions it makes sense to work with children using media. The participants had quite controversial views on this, ranging from skeptically cautious to euphorically welcoming. The speaker put forward a number of arguments that at least helped them to critically question their own point of view: the use of media must always be accompanied by pedagogical support; rules are needed for the use of technical devices; digital media are just one of many options and of course do not replace the work of pedagogical professionals. She emphasized that media competence ultimately only arises through active action, through which media can only be understood in a reflective way. Teamwork is particularly important and beneficial here. Viewed soberly and realistically, children’s worlds are media worlds that are shaped by their parents. In this respect, educational and advisory tasks for educational professionals arise in both directions: towards the children, but also towards and in cooperation with the parents.

In a short digression, the two speakers also offered an insight into a completely new area of media education: what worlds are opening up for educational work through newly emerging forms of so-called artificial intelligence using the examples of ChatGPD, deepl, Midjourney, Leonardo.ai and others? What is the relationship between reality and disinformation when working with these tools, or the relationship between the fascination of new possibilities and the need to protect against misuse? At this point, urgent reference was made to the large area of data protection in daycare centers and the resulting legal consequences, and corresponding support services offered by the state were highlighted.

The varied and entertaining workshop concluded with the task of using the Puppet Pals app to create their own story as puppet theater. This app can be used to underlay digital theater with texts that are previously considered and then assigned to generated or photographed figures as spoken text. The fact that this results in highly imaginative, creative and constantly new stories is what makes this creative work so appealing. The participants were completely fascinated by what was created in a short space of time and was presented for everyone’s enjoyment.

In a concluding reflection, the participants were able to look at future steps that they see in relation to the use of digital media in their respective institutions. The speakers encouraged the participants to simply try out the first steps and to gain further supporters in order to ideally prepare for the development of a media education concept.