TOMMI KINDERSOFTWARE PRIZE KITA: BEST MEDIA CONCEPT - Four institutions win

At the Online Daycare Conference on March 14, 2024, four daycare centers were awarded prize money of 500 euros each for their outstanding media programs. Read the commendations here.

Marion Lepold (Online Daycare Conference), Thomas Feibel (TOMMI Children's Software Award), and award winners Ana-Maria Bandi and Dagmar Dénes from the Municipal German-French Daycare Center in Trier

Mittelangeln: ADS daycare center Sartrup

The ADS Kindergarten in Satrup has impressively demonstrated through its podcast projects that digital media don’t always have to appeal solely to the sense of sight, but can also promote auditory skills. As part of their educational projects, a group of children produces a podcast that they narrate themselves. The teachers edit the recording a bit, and then it’s even made available to the public on Spotify. What a great idea! This way, the children not only learn to express a story or their experiences verbally but also to listen. After all, the other children naturally want to know what the group has to say. This is an interesting educational project dedicated to speaking and listening—skills that are also important in digital media and must not be neglected. The teachers at this daycare center deserve an award for this!

Lahnstein: St. Barbara daycare center

Digital media are diverse and can be used in a variety of ways. The St. Barbara Daycare Center in Lahnstein is a prime example of this. Tablets and other digital devices are used not only for creative activities with the children but also for communicating with parents. Letters to parents are no longer printed but sent digitally. The children use a wide variety of apps that satisfy their curiosity and support their learning. All of this is embedded in a comprehensive approach to early childhood media education that centers on children’s right to engage with media. However, the children are also taught about the limits of usage and how to respect the rights of others—for example, when taking photos. All of this is part of the holistic approach of this daycare center, which doesn’t just use digital media in a few small educational projects but integrates it into everyday life so that it is always a natural part of it. This is exactly the right media education approach and therefore deserves a special award!

Trier: Municipal German-French Daycare Center

Is it possible to combine such an interesting educational project—like exploring the origins of chocolate—with programming? The project at the Franco-German daycare center in Trier proves that it is. The starting point is the story of the cacao bean: where it comes from and how it is turned into chocolate. This is complemented by learning about the fruit itself and exploring the beans’ global transport routes. In this way, the children learn a lot about other cultures and the world. And now programming comes into play, as the children design a narrative landscape for Cubetto, the programmable robot. To do this, they sketch pictures, photograph them, and use them to create a themed landscape that can be explored using Cubetto via computer programming. In this way, the children not only learn a great deal about the world, but also about the possibilities of digital media. The preschool’s educational staff have thus succeeded in broadening the children’s cultural horizons and their knowledge of working with digital media. A very ambitious and successful project that definitely deserves an award.

Daun: Thomas Morus Daycare Center

Combining analog and digital activities is at the heart of the educational work at the Thomas Morus Daycare Center in Daun. The preschoolers will soon be starting school, and to prepare them, the center is carrying out a fantastic project. The starting point is a storybook that the children love. Using the Puppet Pals app, they’re producing a video based on it. But that’s not enough—so they’re crafting, painting, and cutting out the appropriate images, characters, and backgrounds. A dance video is also part of the project. It’s a major multimedia spectacle. The daycare’s educators have understood how digital media and its potential can be seamlessly integrated with the diverse creative activities of everyday educational life. The results are also shared with and presented to the parents. The children are especially proud of this. An excellent project that serves as a model for other daycares!