How the required skills of future employees are trained is hardly anchored in the rigid German education system. Meanwhile implementation of individual competences in connection with media use or in connection with STEM subjects has already taken place. However, STE(A)M education is still in its very early infancy in the German education system. Some actions and initiatives are already visible for kindergarten and pre-school, but for primary, secondary and high school STEAM is not anchored in German educational system. In contrast, a considerable number of non-formal educators and initiatives offer a wide range of STE(A)M educational opportunities.

Nationwide initiatives on STEM and Arts

The digitisation is already demanding that education policy focuses on broader skills – especially the 21st Century Skills – communication, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration.

Even if the education policy level has not yet shown any efforts for the implementation of a STE(A)M framework, some initiatives that can be linked to STE(A)M education are visible in Germany.

In the nationwide initiative «Code your Life«, children and young people experience the connection between algorithms and artificial image creation or create music. «We encourage the imagination and creative use of programming tasks by teaching children and young people to use our Turtle application to define geometric shapes and algorithmic sequences that produce artistic images,“ explains Jutta Schneider, Project manager of «Code your Life». In recent years, around 300,000 children and young people were involved in activities as well as their teachers and educators which are trained in using and preparing the coding activities. A comprehensive range of teaching materials, online tutorials and teacher training courses are part of the offer.

The combination of art with technology, mathematics and computer science is made visible every year by the award and the associated exhibition Der Deutsche Multimedia Preis mb21 (German multimedia Award mb21). Children and young people from different age groups submit their own creative multimedia ideas and products like creative blogs, sound combinations for the city of the future or painting music by using artificial intelligence. At the annual media festival, the winners’ objects are exhibited, they can be viewed and tried out by the audience. For example, 3D printers can be used to make imaginative or useful things, soldering irons can be used to repair or reassemble technology, and artistic designs can be created.

Helpful STEM structures

STE(A)M education is not yet structurally anchored in the German education system, but for more than 14 years, STEM education has been a central issue in Germany at civil society and political level. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research published the STEM Action Plan in 2019 and defined four fields of action: STEM education for children and young people, STEM professionals, opportunities for girls and women in STEM, and STEM in society.

It would also be possible to access the structure of the previously established STEM networks, which have already created local bodies for STEM education and training and support educational institutions such as kindergartens and schools in exploring and discovering the world of mathematics, IT, science and technology with children and young people.

The aim of these measures is to secure skilled workers in Germany and to promote female employees in technical and scientific fields. There are already numerous civil society initiatives, ranging from the early childhood sector – Stiftung Haus der kleinen Forscher (House of Little Researchers Foundation), through pre-schools and primary schools – awarding STEM-friendly schools – to STEM regions for secondary schools.

STEM Education in Germany

The foundation «Haus der kleinen Forscher» promotes STEM activities for very young children and promotes the natural urge to research. With local players in over 200 local networks, it supports educational professionals in kindergartens with ideas and training to support and awaken interest for STEM education in children.

But even in the area of STEM education, German secondary schools do not provide cross-curricular schooling on the one hand and do not anchor individual STEM subjects on the other. The disciplines of engineering and computer science are not or only rudimentarily included in the educational plans of the Länder. Interdisciplinary lesson planning between several teachers takes place only rarely. The German learning and school structure, in which teachers conduct and organise lessons, leaves little room for interdisciplinary exchange between colleagues. «In an international comparison, Germany has a relatively high number of teaching hours – up to 28 compared to 15-18 hours in China, for example. This leaves little room for further training or for the development and implementation of interdisciplinary learning opportunities in German schools,» said Dr. Ekkehard Winter, Co-speaker of Nationales MINT Forum (National STEM Forum).

Dr Ekkehard Winter (image – Andres Süß/NFM)

National STEM Forum

One of the central tasks of the National STEM Forum (Nationales MINT Forum, NMF) is to provide impetus for strengthening STEM education in Germany at federal, state and municipal level. The members of the NMF – 30 renowned institutions from science, business and the foundation sector – are involved, for example, in linking school and extracurricular activities in more than 130 STEM regions. These are networks that create locally appropriate, centrally coordinated and sustainably effective offers along the entire education chain in the STEM subjects. Project days, researcher workshops and labs, teacher training and teaching materials are common offerings for those responsible for education. With Parliamentary Evenings or the annual National STEM Summit, the NMF stimulates political debates and addresses key demands to education policy decision-makers. But what about the connection between Art and STEM? Dr. Ekkehard Winter sees this as a broadening of perspectives also with regard to the demands on the workforce in a digitalised working environment. In a working group, the NMF now wants to develop recommendations on how cooperation across subject boundaries can be successful and thus stimulate the debate on STE(A)M education in Germany.

The European project STEAMonEdu

The current project STEAMonEdu initiates a discussion on the STE(A)M educational and competence framework for pedagogical training. In addition, a MOOC and an online-supported in-service training course will illustrate examples of good practice and STE(A)M learning activities to educational staff, teachers. A European STE(A)M community provides impulses for the establishment of STE(A)M education. Helliwood media & education (21^st CCC) is the German consortium partner and is responsible for the implementation of the project in Germany. With its experience in implementing media education and offering activities for children and youth within nationwide educational initiatives, it will create and support the German STE(A)M Community.

by Katrin Schuberth, Helliwood media & education

While the world is affected by COVID-19 lockdowns and physical distancing, online communication and its content are growing. For many it is the only way to stay in contact with friends, family, and colleagues. The goal is to work together and to show that something is happening in times when it is essential to share social proximity to respect distance rules. Thus, media usage has increased worldwide since the corona virus spread to all continents. 45% of people spend more time on messaging services such as WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. and, according to Statista, 67% see more news coverage.

In the meantime, the educational sector has had to react to closures and the abandonment of personal activities. For many responsible institutions like schools and learning centres or persons like teachers, students and parents, it is challenging to find a way to adapt to the individual situations of the learners.

In the field of STE(A)M education, many activities for children have been put online in Germany. The German STEM Alliance, including more than 50 strong STEM partners, provided online games and educational ideas to promote children’s STEM skills during the corona shutdown. For the first time, these STEM organisations join their educational forces online under the umbrella of the Federal Ministry of Research and Education.

Our STEAMonEdu partner Helliwood media & education participates in the STEM Alliance with coding activities, which are offered several times a week in video streams for children. They also provide many videos about artificial intelligence and future skills and gave teachers tips for remote learning.

Currently, German pupils can participate in the Blockhelden award of the Code Your Life initiative, where groups can code together in the digital world of Minecraft Education. The aim of the award is to promote the students’ ideas for innovative solutions to pandemic crises. The best ideas will be awarded at the end of June.

By Helliwood media & education

Featured image – Greenwall video shoot at Helliwood media & education

The lockdown caused by COVID-19 in spring 2020 in Germany posed big challenges for everyone, including the education sector, and brought many changes for children and youth: distance regulations, meeting only a few friends, hardly any sports, etc. In May and June 2020, STEAMonEdu partner organisation Helliwood media & education looked ahead with the world’s first Minecraft Award Block Heroes and asked children and young people to transform the future with the help of Minecraft: Education Edition.

The task was to develop innovative, creative ideas that encourage and make our lives – with Coronavirus and in the future – easier and more enriching. A total of 141 children and young people aged 10-18 took part in the competition, organised between 25 May and 14 June 2020. Alone or in a team, the participants built their own Minecraft world and courageously created their future ideas with clever codes. However, it was not only about building with blocks, but also about programming agents. Agents are personal robots that only exist in the Minecraft: Education Edition and support the users in programming.

In the end, seven finalists managed to convince the jury with their ideas. For example, a game was built and programmed, in which you can create useful equipment, such as a protective mask, with small mini-games or tasks. In a submission by the youngest participant, a digital classroom was built, as well as parks, playgrounds, and buses, where the distance regulations can be observed.

On 24 June 2020, the Block Hero Final took place live with the finalists and the jury. You can check it out on YouTube

The Turtle Coding Box was released in June 2020 under the motto “Anyone can code”. Educators and teachers from German speaking countries will have the opportunity to use the already piloted teaching materials to carry out activities with students. The inclusive approach has been tested since 2015 and creates the prerequisites for all children – regardless of any impairment or special ability – to learn programming together. With the teaching material, teachers and other education managers start a basic course in computer science education with learners of eight years and older and discover the basics of programming using the programming language LOGO and the programming environment TurtleCoder.

The Turtle Coding Box consists of:

• the Turtle book as a manual with elaborated teaching units for programming
• the digital Turtle-Book supplemented with additional media, videos and templates for download and digital whiteboard pictures in a whiteboard player for teaching purposes
• an introduction to the didactic-methodological approach and differentiation possibilities for inclusive learning groups
• the programming App TurtleCoder with various assistance systems
• individual task cards for pupils for internally differentiated teaching
• Working materials for analogue programming and a portfolio booklet for the documentation of the learners’ work results
• Participation in a webinar for teachers and educators on the Turtle Coding Box with practical exercises in programming, an introduction to didactics and the presentation of possible applications in hybrid teaching situations.

Already 250 copies have been ordered by teachers nationwide. The STEAMonEdu partner organisation Helliwood media & education im fjs e.V. has already held several webinars in cooperation with Aktion Mensch to introduce the Turtle Coding Box. You are welcome to register here.

By Helliwood

On 7-8 October 2020,  our project partner ALL DIGITAL, a pan-European association working in the field of digital inclusion and empowerment, will organise its 13^th annual summit ONLINE. The event is run in collaboration with ALL DIGITAL German members Helliwood – also a STEAMonEdu partner, JOBLINGE, and Digital Opportunities Foundation. It brings together representatives of networks and organisations working to enhance digital skills of European citizens.

ALL DIGITAL Summit 2020 is supported by the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy of the Federal Government of Germany, which has the Presidency of the European Union from 1 July to 31 December 2020. The German Government has made digital learning one of the key priorities for education and training during their EU Presidency.

The theme of the Summit is “Competences for the Future”, and keynotes, panels, lightning talks and workshops will be organised around these four topics:

• Towards a version 2.2 of DigComp > DIGCOMP
• The future of digital competence centres > FUTURE
• Recognition of digital competence certificates in Europe > CERTIFICATION
• Lessons learned during Covid-19 > LESSONS

Check the PROGRAMME to learn more about the sessions.

STEAMonEdu Project at the Summit

Our STEAMonEdu partnership will run a workshop «STE(A)M Education practices and competences» on 8 October. The aim of the workshop is to discuss the characteristics of STE(A)M Education good practices and the competences of STE(A)M educators. During the workshop,

• STEAMonEdu partners will give an overview of STE(A)M education and introduce characteristics of a STE(A)M education good practice;
• STE(A)M educators will share good practices that they have developed and used in the classroom; and
• for the first time the consortium will present the STE(A)M education competence framework.
• Participants will have the opportunity to discuss the presented STE(A)M education practice evaluation framework and the STE(A)M education competence framework.

How to participate?

Registration for the event is mandatory, please fill in the REGISTRATION FORM by 1 October 2020.

Summit website: summit.all-digital.org

Writing a complete poem out of keywords, putting together a song out of snippets of music, or merging artistic styles and creating a new one in painting – these are the various possibilities that artificial intelligence already implements. In a learning module for young people, the German initiative IT Fitness has compiled a list of the ways in which technology is already being used to create art and where it can support creative processes.

The module «Creativity» illustrates for the fields of literature, music, art and programming in a low-threshold way, in which creative processes artists are already accompanied by artificial intelligence. In addition, it also shows examples of the creativity that artificial intelligence already develops independently.

The Pix2Story tool, for example, combines different text styles such as adventure, thriller or science fiction by using intelligent image recognition. The machine learns to create texts itself using keywords and genre-specific terms.

In the Deepdream Generator you can find paintings and picture combinations that show how art styles from painting but also photos and paintings are brought together with the help of artificial intelligence and how new art is created from this. The application demonstrates that technology can create works of art that are very similar to the different art styles.

The module also contains a video (below), in which Thomas Schmidt and Jutta Schneider from the STEAMonEDU partner organisation Helliwood demonstrate the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence.

Finally, the competence creativity is one of the most important future competences, which is necessary to survive and act successfully in future work contexts.

By 21CCC/Helliwood

10 and 11 March 2021 were the two days of inspiration and important insights into the topic of school transformation in Germany. At the German “Dialogforum Schultransform”, experts discussed the ways in which schools are tackling the subject of digital transformation and the steps they are taking to implement contemporary learning. More than 80 online participants added to the contributions and discussions by asking questions.

The thought-provoking panels were moderated by Dr. Anja Hagen (Bündnis für Bildung) and Thomas Schmidt (Helliwood media & education at fjs e.V.), who delved into topics such as visions and goals for the future, awareness, leadership or personnel development, and professionalisation. Moreover, the panel discussion touched upon school equipment as well as teaching and learning outside the classroom, and experts highlighted a number of noteworthy aspects regarding the process of school transformation.

The task of qualifying teachers goes hand in hand with networking in order to initiate a transformation process. As Ines Bieler from the University of Halle underlined, «Teacher qualification should be thought of as a network that spans multiple phases«.

A significant goal of school transformation is to prepare students for the challenges they will face in both their private and professional lives after leaving school. Thus, Prof. Dr. Uta Hauck-Thum (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität) emphasises that “School transformation means providing children and young people with real-life experiences that prepare them for current challenges.»

Some schools have already embarked on the path to transformation and recommend working holistically, involving colleagues, carrying out further training and demanding the necessary equipment from school authorities. More specifically, the process of moving towards contemporary learning, which is also relevant in STE(A)M-learning activities, can be successful through:

• Self-directed learning
• Interdisciplinary work
• Networking and cooperating with colleagues

Maria Kruse (Primary school teacher) appeals to the expectations teachers have of themselves and their motivation to provide good teaching by «enabling explorative learning for everyone, everywhere«.

The event was part of the German project “Schultransform”, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and conducted by Helliwood media & education at fjs e.V. and Bündnis für Bildung. The aim is to create an open and scalable platform through which schools and school authorities can evaluate their status in the digital transformation process and thus enter an exchange for further planning.

The implementation of the European STEAMonEdu project, for which Helliwood media & education at fjs e.V. is responsible in Germany, follows these approaches precisely. STE(A)M educators across Europe are currently networking on the STEAMonEdu platform and exchanging information on learning and teaching activities. The STE(A)M competence framework for educators in STE(A)M education, developed as part of the aforementioned project, offers a starting point for a contemporary qualification of educators.

By Helliwood