The private PINGUIN day-care centre in Aurich, Germany, was founded in 1971 by a parents' initiative and offers 150 children between 1 and 10 years of age numerous learning and educational opportunities. Qualified supervisors address the individual strengths and weaknesses of the pupils and encourage them to learn and explore independently. The aim is to promote the children as holistically as possible and to strengthen their cognitive, motor and creative abilities through playful learning. An important feature of the facility is that parents not only hand over their children to the day-care, but also contribute to the children's educational development themselves. For its high-quality educational work, the PINGUIN day-care centre was awarded in 2020 1st place of the German Kita Prize, in the category “Kita of the Year”.

In order to further modernise the day-care centre and make processes more connected, an interactive board was required. The decisive criterion in the selection was that the children could learn playfully with the display and thus improve their media skills. Following a recommendation from the start-up imaginable.digital - which specialises in the implementation of digital projects in day-care centres and schools - those responsible ultimately chose the RP8601K interactive board from BenQ. The solution was financed by the childcare centre’s support association.

The PINGUIN day-care centre has stood for individual care and modern learning strategies since it was founded. These include measures to promote language skills and media usage concepts. Against this background, the day-care centre strives to continuously modernise the facility and to digitise the offer. There is already a paperless administration, and access to the day-care is exclusively via a secure NFC key card, with which parents can digitally log their children in and out in the entrance area. In addition, parents can register their children online for the day care-centre and regularly receive interesting internal newsletters.

During the redesign, the employees took their daily work with the children into account. “In the past, newspaper articles and books were mainly used for project work, which often hindered dynamic collaboration. We therefore wanted a solution that would increase the commitment and motivation of the children”, says Frank Meyer, educator and head of the after-school care group at the PINGUIN day-care centre. In the context of digitalisation, the display should therefore blend in particularly well with the day-care centre’s long-term media project.

It was important that the solution was interactive and self-explanatory. For daily usage, the digital board should both facilitate educational work with children between the ages of 3 and 10 and be used for team meetings, and also presentations for visitors.

The services of the interactive board RP8601K fully meet the requirements of the day-care centre. With a diagonal screen of 86 inches, the display ensures that everyone present can easily see the content in every area of the room. Thanks to the 4K UHD resolution, pictures and films appear particularly detailed and bright. Another advantage is the extensive range of modern functions. Children can practise writing together on the cloud-based whiteboard with the integrated EZWrite 5 collaboration tool.

In addition, the interactive board creates a healthy learning environment with ClassroomCare®. For example, the Smart Eye-Care technology ensures lasting protection for the eyes: the integrated motion sensor automatically activates the functions for flicker-free light with low blue components. The germ-resistant display surface made of non-toxic nanosilver also effectively reduces the spread of diseases. The interactive board is now used in numerous ways in the day-care centre.

In particular, the children in the after-school care centre use the BenQ display for their homework help. In addition to the independent use for games that encourage learning, the children look specifically for information for their presentations and homework, for example, or use the display for group work. The children benefit from the intelligent handwriting recognition and two pens for writing comments in different colours.

For example, if a math problem is particularly complex, the children can write it down on the digital board. They then discover the right answer together or explain the solution to one another. Since smartboards are becoming more and more important in many elementary schools, and especially in secondary schools, the display is a good preparation for further school life. Lectures and presentations are played and called up more and more in the day-care centre - the children go along with it very intuitively.

Since language education and language support for children between the age of 3 and 6 are part of the curriculum of the day-care centre, the BenQ digital board is now increasingly used for these purposes. Among other things, the children can solve and draw interactive puzzles on the display. In this way, they playfully expand their vocabulary and continuously improve their vocabulary and comprehension. Thanks to the diverse interactive options of the BenQ display, the children have great fun studying the language and experience a totally new learning situation for them.

“The installed learning apps invite you to deal intensively and playfully with the language. By using them, the children's language skills improve almost by themselves - without them being aware of this development,” explains Renke Mannott, educator in the kindergarten area at the PINGUIN day-care centre.

A long-term project is currently running in the day-care centre to train children’s media skills and perception, and to make them aware of how to use digital media. For this purpose, there are various projects on the same topic that involve children, educators and parents alike. The BenQ interactive board is a useful and innovative addition. In the media projects – for photos and social networks, as well as the planned day-care newspaper - the children can also easily use the display for research, notes and similar tasks.

The regular exchange with parents is an integral part of everyday educational life. With the help of the BenQ display, employees are able to prepare and carry out parenting discussions in a more suitable way. In addition to showing the analog portfolio and the development sheets, they can also illustrate the everyday kindergarten life for the parents using video observations and photos. This is particularly helpful for the parents of crèche children (1 to 3 years old), as the display supports the transparency of the educational work. The display is also already used for business meetings.

The PINGUIN day care centre in Aurich now has an interactive board that inspires children, employees, and parents alike. By using the BenQ display, the children learn much more actively and exchange ideas with one another dynamically. Internal meetings and discussions with parents are also noticeably more efficient and target-oriented. “We are very satisfied with BenQ and our new solution. Our media usage concept is ideally complemented by the BenQ display,” emphasises Mieke Matthes, pedagogical employee with a focus on language training at the PINGUIN day care centre. “We use the interactive board, for example, for research, language training and homework supervision. Thus, the display meets all of our wishes and requirements and even exceeded our expectations."