Digital albums: A teaching experience from music and art education in the Degree of Early Childhood Education

Abstract

The emergence of COVID19 and the forced migration of many face-to-face university courses to an online model have led to important changes in the way classes are taught and the programme of activities carried out by students. In the subject Expression Laboratory of the bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education at the University of Oviedo, the main task was the elaboration and representation or dramatization of a story in the face-to-face classroom. With the confinement decreed because of the pandemic, in the current academic year 2020-2021 it was decided to adapt this activity to a virtual environment, encouraging the use of platforms such as Genially, Prezi or Symbaloo. This article presents a selection of the best stories created by students on these platforms, using the digital album typology. It begins by reviewing the literature on the importance of reading and storytelling in Early Childhood Education, the incorporation of ICT into the traditional album format and the benefits of the musical story, starting from the premise that the subject Expression Laboratory seeks to integrate the contents of Plastic and Musical Expression in the same product. The didactic objectives and the types of activities that were taught in the theoretical classes, in relation to the contents of the 2nd Cycle of Infant Education curriculum, are set out below. The results are presented, detailing the population, number of teams, typology of the stories and a summary of the best projects selected, with a web link to the platform where they are hosted. Finally, a series of conclusions are drawn from the observation of this experience: Criteria for the selection of the story by the pupils, advantages and limitations of working in an online environment and the degree of innovation of the proposals.