<< Background >>LIBERTEC is the result of 3 years of scientific reflection and work on the issues regarding both high quality-inclusive ECEC and 0-6 Services modernization, that found in the recent Covid emergency a hastening trigger. The ECEC Services tackled the challenge launched by the pandemic to the whole Education system to rapidly adapt themselves, their daily routine and educational strategies, finding in ICTs useful solutions. Recurring to remote work and online meetings for the educational pool and the organization of distance activities (where possible) such as videos, readings aloud and songs for children accelerated the ECEC technological transformation: never as now the digital responsiveness of the 0-6 Services has been fundamental. Therefore, being able to manage distance educational interventions and to carry out their pedagogical coordination thanks to high digitally skilled staff became indispensable, beyond representing an essential requirement to raise ECEC quality and inclusiveness. LIBERTEC wants to give a concrete response to this need through the development of a digitized pedagogical documentation system aimed to raise digital readiness, quality of educational and organizational Services’ work, as well as their external relations’ efficacy (with families and local institutional stakeholders). The adoption of a digitized documentation system can support ECEC operators in their commitments, that are increasingly complex due to the steadily evolving educational methodologies, the updating of legislations and to the change of rules to manage and document daily work, that could require also remote-work. An effective and standardized documentation, especially if digitized, can become a methodological and pedagogical strength for the Services as it allows to organize/save files and materials to make the data collection-storing a norm. Internal procedures, educational strategies and activities and all the useful materials can be easily catalogued, systematized and made quickly transferable and usable in daily work by educators and pedagogical coordinators, giving to all the internal operators the same working structure and contents.Concerning the users, the families can be involved more transparently in their children school life through the effective access to clear pedagogical documentation, also enhancing mutual trust with the Service, while children can gain further opportunities to develop their social and cognitive skills. Thanks to the digitized documentary practice - done e.g. by video-photos storing, educative products’ preservation, activities' traceability- they will be able to recognize themselves and their daily life in kindergarten/preschool. The entrance at systemic level of a standard digitized repository for management procedures and pedagogical strategies can also facilitate the institutional parts in a better work-checking and in controlling the accomplishment of the due administrative requirements.High quality ECEC – together with the modernization of 0-6 Services - constitutes the ideal fil rouge of LIBERTEC as well as its main final goal. Working on this theme means contribute to sustain social cohesion and inclusion dynamics through education since its earliest stages in several ways (e.g. they can serve as meeting space for families and contribute to develop children language competences, both in the Service’s language and first language). Moreover, the Covid emergency relighted the public debate on importance of adequate and inclusive ECEC systems, revealing its consequences on children, family wellbeing and female employment. High quality Services can contribute to break the cycle of disadvantage among children (boosting also female employment) and to help them in acquiring/developing abilities whose benefits can be seen beyond childhood into later educational and life achievements.<< Objectives >>While in ECEC there is a wide debate on issues such as routines and traditional or experimental pedagogy, we believe that discussing on correct pedagogical documentation is essential to pursue its high quality, especially if it entails to resort to ICT and –consequently– to provide educators adequate digital skills to deal with daily assignments. LIBERTEC aims to improve the quality of 0-6 Educational Services working on their modernization and on operators’ competences upgrade. It will be done developing specific GUIDELINES (R1) reporting the best European educational practices for the 0-6 age range and an innovative model to perform the traditional documentation of daily pedagogical/management work.Through the LIBERTEC project, partners expect to:1. Create the model for digitized pedagogical documentation focused on standards and needs of school facilities for 0-6 children. The model will be drawn by specific GUIDELINES (R1) and a tailored package of digital competences for operators to perform the documentary task and to manage: remote team-work (if needed), possible distance educational activities and relations with families and third parties.The specific skills’ package will be designed taking into account the European Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu), to enable operators to:- effectively interact within the Services and with users (internal sharing-transferability, access, transparency, security/privacy);- use and/or design educative digital resources (according to features/limits and possible specific needs per each age group);- evaluate/adapt the educational strategies and/or the internal management procedures.2. Sustain sharing of good pedagogical and management practices in use in partner countries aimed to early childhood (kindergarten, preschools, other services for 0-6 children) and promoting their highlighting, for a proper collection. The GUIDELINES – indeed – will be developed starting from the analysis of daily practices, already adopted by the partners, but not formally detected and recognized. These practices will be renewed by applying ICT potentialities and completed by the skills required to operators. R1 will have a strongly operational character, including a set of pedagogic and management tools, activities and strategies that can be applied by educators to improve their daily assignments, especially those referred to documentary task.Three main activities are considered fundamental in EU early childhood schools:1) Management of daily routines;2) Definition of play/teaching spaces;3) Pedagogical documentation.If the recognition and the mutual exchange on the first two issues will entail to highlight good educational practices that deserve to be shared, transferred and borrowed among ECEC organizations, the third represents the core aspect of LIBERTEC GUIDELINES. The digitized documentation will be actualized through a proper Digital Library: a corporate secure system to store files that can be set, managed and updated in each Service - according to the single technological asset already in use - by trained operators. The Library will store internal procedures/daily activities, supporting an easy-safe access to official work tools and documents, also paying attention to adopt proper Blockchain technology.All the achieved results will be put at disposal of all the institutions/organizations and professionals working in ECEC thanks to free OER, available from a specific website devoted to LIBERTEC (as well as from those of partner organizations). Concerning the specific pedagogical GUIDELINES’ contents a special regard will be placed in giving relevance to all the social-emotional aspects connected with early childhood education because a full and rich educational experience can contribute to enable children to learn how to be empathic, learn about their rights, equality, tolerance and diversity, starting from the beginning of their school path.<< Implementation >>Close to the transversal activities such as general project management and Partnership work coordination, assessment procedures and dissemination campaigns, the core activities to be realized by partners are related to the development of project's results. These activities are aimed to ensure the proper running of the whole complex of LIBERTEC's actions, to achieve the final objectives - with special regard to the creation of the GUIDELINES - and to effectively pursue the outcomes' sharing and valorization, as well as their sustainable impact in time.The work-plan is articulated in operational tasks having their own main goals, milestones and related outcomes and they are identified by assigning a responsible partner. Tasks distribution was carefully defined during proposal’s preparation considering features, scientific or technical expertise and experience in 0-6 Education shown by each partner:- CEPISS: General project Coordinator and Leader of R1 with fully centered experience on pedagogical documentation as manager of several preschools adopting, in some pilot Services, a specific experimental web App;- CM Whole Quality Assurance Leader;- UMA Scientific Supervisor as Academic partner;- ASDJD, PRICHINDEL, PINOLIVO key pilot partner preschools. They will play a crucial role in the educators’ needs analysis preliminary to R1 contents’ definition and in the field-test, as they will apply the digitized documentation procedures within their daily activities.Partners agreed to base the whole LIBERTEC’s managerial strategy on the Next Generation EU pillars, aiming to a modern and more sustainable Europe fit to face the digital and green transitions. Considering these key dimensions for partners means increasing the impact and quality of their Cooperation project. The implementation logistic aspects, especially related to such actions as: transnational meetings, Sharing-promotion-valorization, LTTA, will be designed in an eco-friendly way looking at low environmental impacts and incorporating digital practices.Partners will realize the following actions, applying a collaborative work methodology, safeguarding a target-oriented process:1) PREPARATION essential to confirm common view on goals, scenarios and expected results, agreeing on responsibilities, competences and mutual expectations so as to ensure the effective project’s planning and high-quality implementing actions2) GENERAL MANAGEMENT: professional administration & coordination of LIBERTEC, including arrangement of official TPMs both online and in presence, internal/external communication and cooperation strategies;3) R1 IMPLEMENTATION for the development of the core project’s deliverable; “LIBERTEC Guidelines for ECEC Services’ digitized pedagogical & management documentation”, articulated in sub-actions:3.1Mapping: Initial recognition on ECEC good practices and documentary methodologies, including those which already apply possible ICTs supports, focusing: implementation methods, ICT requisites, achieved results and pedagogical implications, operators’ digital needs,3.2Contents’ drafting integrating the EU DigCompEdu references, to manage Library’s technological potentials3.3LTTA: to train a selected group of operators coming from each partner country on GUIDELINES’ contents3.4Local Workshops: to widen the operators’ training on digitized documentation methodologies and prepare an effective setting for the field test3.5Experimentation: to test the effectiveness of digitized documentation within daily educative commitments, family relations and external institutional connections of preschools3.6Final validation, Editing and OER conversion 4) ASSESSMENT: project’s steadily monitoring, evaluation and quality assurance 5) SHARING, PROMOTION AND VALORIZATION OF PROJECT’S RESULTS toward ECEC professionals, public/private kindergartens and pre-schools, training organizations, universities, public institutions and policies makers in the ECEC area.<< Results >>LIBERTEC’s main results are represented by:1) PROJECT’S CORE DELIVERABLE: THE R1 GUIDELINES, providing an original digitized pedagogical documentation model arisen from the analysis of daily good educative/management/documentary practices among partners. The documentation will incorporate tailored requisites for secure sharing (privacy) and blockchain technology, based on ICT assets’ safe use and adequate operators’ digital competences (DigCompEdu). It will be done through a Digital Library, a corporate secure system to store files that will be set, managed and updated in each Service - according to the single technological asset already in use - by trained operators. Library will store internal procedures/daily activities, supporting an easy-safe access to official work tools & documents, allowing to:a) Organize, catalogue and save files/materials, ruling the data storing in a centralized systemb) Quickly select, consult, share and use these contents, making them daily transferable/usable by team, families, and third parties (according to the user’s profile and needs)c) Strengthen internal management/external communication capacity of pedagogical coordinators by instant means (e.g in managing parental receptions or the Open Days) d) Ensure the same quality level and efficacy, giving to all the internal operators the same working structure and contentse) Create specific and safe media education paths for 3-6 childrenf) Support Service’s inclusiveness, making all its actors (professionals, institutions, children, families) aware of the complex work done in ECEC everyday.The results of the initial mapping on ECEC status in partner countries will flow in a smart Compendium of best practices, pointing out the more interesting ones - calibrated per age groups - that could be used to enrich the educational offer for children. Therefore, within the R1 implementation an additional intermediate significant result will be produced that can be put at disposal of educators: a reasoned overview on European ECEC policies end trends.2) OTHER OUTCOMES2.1 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF ECEC OPERATORS (EDUCATORS, COORDINATORS, CARE-STAFF AND ADMINISTRATIVE), thanks to applying digitized systems for pedagogical documentation and the improvement of their own digital competences. It can raise quality of their educational & managerial work as well as the efficacy of internal/external relations (with colleagues, families and local institutional stakeholders) and their documentary skills, to transfer the contents of the didactic work, creating high quality standards.2.2 SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL CONSEQUENCES ON THE MAIN PROJECT’S OTHER PARTICIPANTS (families, 0-6 children)Mutual trust between parents, Services and educators can be enhanced by the potentials of digitized documentation, contributing to a more clear/safe interaction among them as they can be better aware of the procedural efficacy and pedagogical consistency of the actions aimed to their children. Children can benefit both from the renewed educational strategies to be used to promote their own potential/identity, and from the innovated way of documentation (e.g. video-photos storing, educative products preservation, activities' traceability, etc.), to recognize themselves and their daily life in preschool, gaining further ways to develop social and cognitive skills.2.3 SYSTEMIC IMPACTS ON ECEC SERVICES’ ORGANIZATION, through a more strategic and integrated use of ICTs and OER also in this area improving quality standards and inclusiveness of this key initial educational step, extremely relevant for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. High quality Services can contribute to break the cycle of disadvantage among children (boosting also female employment) and to help them in acquiring/developing abilities whose benefits can be seen beyond childhood into later educational and life achievements.