Participatory Learning and Media in Early Childhood Transitions

Introducing ICT in kindergarten and preschool with adequate pedagogical scenarios to foster learning environments for resilience, holds great potential to prevent early school leaving and offer children (age 4-6) a good start in the education system. This paper presents preliminary results from an R&D project on designing technological tools and scenarios that can facilitate a successful transition from kindergarten to school. The focus is on developing designs for exploration using imaginative learning approaches in game-like animated scenarios. The approaches also include digital story making with mobile devices and digital animation in hybrid environments. The focus is on exploring how interactive artefacts can be used as participatory tools for the transition from kindergarten to school. The qualitative methods based R&D project has involved kindergarten and preschool teachers from municipal schools in Denmark in the preliminary phase exploring digital creative lab activities with animation to foster socio-emotional development and continuity across contexts. A preliminary pedagogical framework has been developed, with a focus on participatory tools and their potentials for fostering resilience through narrative interactive approaches.