Digital media in school? Sure, but in elementary school? Many parents fight with their children over digital usage times and, above all, digital content. Are Fortnite® or the like really a meaningful leisure activity? School emerges in this area of tension and would like to use digital media in the morning as well. The use of digital media in the home environment is very different from the opportunities we can find in school. In primary school in particular, digital media offer opportunities that would not exist in school without them. The main focus here is not on: Internet research and text production. Reading a book and writing by hand are values that need to be preserved in school for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, there are three key arguments in favor of using digital media in primary schools.

1. Social development - In our time, digital media are everywhere. They are used in every supermarket and in almost every trade. Digitality is omnipresent in the professional world - and not only there. Teaching digital learning and using social media in school is more than opening up a new profession. Due to the development of our society, it has become part of the socialization of young people.

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2. Puberty - It is no secret that children reach puberty earlier. One of the characteristics of puberty that is important for the education of young people in the area of values is that the central reference group of young people changes during this time. Before the onset of puberty, parents, teachers and other adult caregivers are the central point of reference when it comes to correct behavior, among other things. There is no need to be under any illusions when it comes to the responsible use of digital media: The trend of sustained influence on user behavior is gone in secondary school.

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3. The didactic possibilities - With digital media you can do a lot more than just surf the Internet and write texts. Starting with the use of simple subject-specific apps via mind maps and other applications to preserve knowledge to highly creative uses of digital media in schools, a new world of didactics opens up to which we previously had no access.

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An example:

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Learning to read and write is pretty much the longest and most difficult learning process children go through in school. At the same time, they can hardly do anything else, because for many other processes you have to be able to read and write. If you want to find out something about volcanoes, it is best to read a book about volcanoes and make a note of the essential findings. Until the middle of the 3rd grade this is almost impossible. With the help of a tablet, a first reader can have texts read aloud (which of course must be made available by the teacher) and take notes using the dictation function, which he can read out again in the following lesson without the need for someone to read and can write. All in all, the educational mandate for imparting digital learning is clearly to be found in primary schools. We have to help our children, on the one hand, to be able to move safely and responsibly in the digital world of today and tomorrow, before it has taken over them, and on the other hand, digital media offer teaching and learning opportunities of unimaginable proportions that the classic forms of teaching and learning not displacing, but being able to expand!

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In the course of the school closings, we worked our way into the “itslearning” learning platform provided by the city of Düsseldorf from the outset and provided our students with learning tasks there. The tasks can be solved in very different ways. In the simplest case, the children should write the solutions to the teachers in a text field and send them to them. For other tasks, the children should (interactively) design posters or make a video of themselves. The teaching staff is in a constant process of development in order to diversify the spectrum of different tasks more and more broadly and to fully exploit the individuality of each of our children in this way. The platform is also used by our teachers to exchange ideas with the students. They can exchange ideas together about a solution submitted by the child, food for thought can be given or just keep in touch. The GGS Sonnenstraße sees the need for digital development and tries to participate in it to the best of its ability, to guide it and to adapt it to its students.

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Here you will find our planned implementation in the event of a possible quarantine of a learning group.

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Media pass NRW

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The Media Pass NRW and the areas of competence it contains form the framework for dealing with media in the primary school in North Rhine-Westphalia. Therefore, the staff strives to integrate the media passport into the existing teaching projects. In the sense of a spiral curriculum, the contents of the media pass should be developed in all grades building on each other. As a rule, media education does not take place in isolation, but in meaningful teaching contexts, so that the students can experience media as a supplement, support, work aid or form of presentation. The following goals were formulated for this purpose:

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1. The pupils should learn to deal independently, independently and in a reflective manner with various media and to critically question how they are dealt with.

2. The pupils use digital and analog media in a targeted manner and according to their possible uses.

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Medienpass NRW: Competence area "Operation & Use"

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The pupils learn to articulate their knowledge needs and to search for information in a targeted manner in age-appropriate offers.

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Medienpass NRW: Competence area "Information & Research"

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The pupils get to know different communication channels (e.g. letter, email, chat, Whatsapp) and develop an awareness of how to use them safely.

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Medienpass NRW: Competence area "Communicate & Cooperate"

The pupils develop presentations and work results using analog and digital media and discover the first possibilities of text and video production.

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Medienpass NRW: Competence area “Producing  & Present"

The pupils recognize risks and dangers in dealing with media and excessive consumption and develop rules of conduct.

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Medienpass NRW: Competence area "Analyze & Reflect"

At the end of grade 4, as many students as possible should have collected solid basics in dealing with digital and analog media and successfully acquired the skills of level 2 of the NRW media pass.

In the 2020/2021 school year, the staff will work in so-called thematic teams, among other things, on implementing successful digital learning at GGS Sonnenstrasse.

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