Keywords: children, digital technologies, education

Main users: Wider community

The Digital Kindergarten is preparing the next generation for challenges and opportunities of the digital era and the correct usage of digital devices via an educational programme, in the ideal surrounding of an STP. The Lakeside IT curriculum starts with kindergarten and runs all the way through to primary school and high school.

The pre-school age is an ideal moment for children to take their first steps in the digital world. The parks Montessori kindergarten, the Institute for Informatics Didactics and resident companies worked together to develop a teaching method using digital devices to support childrens development. With clear educational goals, children from 3 to 6 years are introduced to digital media, IT devices and the basics of computational thinking. The digital kindergarten is just the first part of an entire Lakeside IT curriculum, developed by the Institute for Informatics Didactics and tailored the specific requirements of Lakeside STP. It aims to continue education at Lakeside from age 3 to 19, from kindergarten to primary and high schools visiting the Educational Lab.

Lakeside is a catalyst of the quadruple helix for the region of Carinthia/Austria and serves as a platform in the knowledge triangle (enterprises research education). Given this social responsibility, the development of the ""Lakeside IT curriculum"" for (digital) competences is an important socioeconomic innovation. It brings together academia, research, enterprises as well as kindergartens and schools visiting the Educational Lab, developing new forms of education for the community. Children, pupils, students and parents are empowered to discover, research and innovate themselves, enabling all parts of the quadruple helix to not only reside in the STP, but to develop new forms of education and training is crucial for the success of Lakeside.

Around 400 children aged 1-6 visit the five childcare institutions at Lakeside. The STEM-certified Montessori kindergarten launched the digital kindergarten in spring 2019, and research conducted by the Klagenfurt University states significant improvement in precision, as well as critical information selection by 80% out of the 200 children in the kindergarten. Resident company priorIT developed an application of digital literature being read in multiple languages, benefiting usage of digital devices for children significantly. In a second step the Lakeside IT curriculum will pilot visits from local primary schools to the Educational Labs STEM laboratory classes, carried out in fall 2019. This will be followed by the curriculums third step for high schools in the Educational Lab.