It’s hard to imagine everyday life in a school or other educational institution today without computer technology. The Covid-19 pandemic, the closure of schools and the whole educational process being moved to the distance have forced all of us to take a fresh look at the educational process and its organisation. The initial focus was on renewing existing resources and ensuring access to education for pupils in mainstream schools, but unfortunately early childhood education was once again left behind.

Paradoxically, it is in these institutions that we can see great potential and discover many untapped opportunities for the successful integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in early childhood education. After all, the biggest mistake we make is thinking that children’s education only starts at school.

Given the real need to strengthen the skills of early childhood teachers in working with digital content and tools, the idea of applying for the Erasmus+ project „Make ECEC institutions fit for the digital age leaving no one behind“ was born. The project is a journey of learning, exchange of best practices and international cooperation between four partner countries of the European Union – Lithuania, Italy, Greece and Spain – that will last until the end of 2023.

The project partners believe in the power of ICT to motivate and encourage children to expand their worldview, communication and thinking, and to develop their values. Teachers should engage children in activities that help them to learn about digital content, to make good use of the full potential of ICT, and to approach their regular lessons in innovative and creative ways.

The project aims to contribute to social development and the well-being of society by strengthening the ability of ECE children to create innovative content and use it in their own learning. It also aims to support teachers in sharing good practices in finding innovative ways of delivering educational material, in particular in exploiting the potential of ICT tools and in incorporating the creation and use of animation in children’s educational process.

The aim of the project is not only to provide teachers with the final product generated by the project activities, but also to encourage them to develop their own tools to use with their pupils. It is important to improve the digitisation of the early childhood education sector, including the creation of animated content, and to strengthen quality assurance.

The very different backgrounds, national and cultural aspects of the project partners will make it possible to achieve the set objectives and to create 3 complementary intellectual products:

• Good experience compendium of ICT tools in ECE sector;
• Training program (including training platform) for ECE teachers how to create ICT based educational content with special focus on the creation of animation;
• Quality Assurance Framework to assess how digital tools/resources affect the 5 Quality principles – accessibility, workforce, curriculum, monitoring and evaluation, governance and funding.

The project partners:

1) Lithuanian education and science trade union (Lithuania);

2) Marijampole kindergarten „Ruta“ (Lithuania);

3) P-consulting (Greece);

4) Centro San Viator (Spain)

5) FORMA.Azione (Italy);

6) Santa Croce Maria Montessori kindergarten (Italy).