Digitalisation in Early Childhood Education Centres: The Example of Education Documentation from the Perspective of Early Childhood Teachers in Germany and New Zealand

The public debate on digitalisation in education has thus far been focused on school and university; early childhood education is usually left out. When the theme of digitalisation and early childhood education (ECE) is addressed in pedagogical research, the discourse is limited either to the use of media within the family or media education in ECE centres. This contribution extends this perspective to digitalisation in ECE centres and locates it within the more comprehensive context of mediatisation. Using the example of the digitalisation of the core process of pedagogical documentation, it explores the various implications of digitalisation. 24 early childhood teachers in ECE centres in Germany and New Zealand were interviewed for the study. The study shows that digital documentation explicitly foregrounds the function of communication. This is a strong indication that digitalisation - understood as one aspect of the process of mediatisation is not merely the translation of an analogue into a digital format; it actually changes the functions of pedagogical processes themselves.