Technology Free

With the “Technology Free” project, we aimed to strengthen the international exchange of proven educational approaches through close cooperation between partners from Germany, Turkey, Italy, and L...

With the “Technology Free” project, we aimed to strengthen the international exchange of proven educational approaches through close cooperation between partners from Germany, Turkey, Italy, and Lithuania. The goal was to jointly develop creative, technology-reduced learning methods that can be easily integrated into the daily routines of educational institutions and tested in different cultural contexts. A key focus was on the training and support of educational professionals in all partner countries. Through workshops, joint activities, and professional dialogue, they received new impulses to create creative, nature-oriented, and community-building learning environments. In addition, the project actively involved parents and caregivers in the educational processes. The aim was to encourage and enable them to create technology-free learning and play spaces at home as well, fostering children’s creativity, social skills, language development, and motor abilities.

In this project, four international activity weeks were carried out in Germany, Turkey, Italy, and Lithuania. These combined the professional development of educational staff with practical insights into creative, technology-reduced learning methods, with a particular focus on Waldorf educational approaches. In each partner country, a parent-child painting workshop was held to strengthen parental involvement and create shared, technology-free learning experiences. In addition, all partners implemented local activities: at least 60 documented “Body–Mind–Soul” activities, parent workshops, awareness-raising in neighboring schools, before-and-after photo documentation, as well as social media posts. To measure the impact, pre-/post-tests, interviews with teachers and parents, and feedback forms were used. The project also included virtual partner meetings, the maintenance of joint social media channels, the creation of a brochure, and the establishment of long-term partnerships.

The project achieved clearly measurable and sustainable results. Pre-/post-tests in all partner countries demonstrated significant competence gains among educational professionals in Waldorf-inspired and technology-reduced methods. In Lithuania, the proportion of technology-free activities for children increased from 40% to 85%. In total, more than 240 children, 87 parents, and 37 professionals participated directly. Children showed improved concentration, creativity, and social skills; parents became more actively involved and implemented project impulses at home. Outputs: Four international activity weeks, four Father-Child Painting Exhibitions, over 240 documented “Body–Mind–Soul” activities, Waldorf-inspired learning spaces, before-and-after documentation, a project brochure, more than 120 social media posts, and numerous press articles. Public outreach reached over 5,000 people, with multipliers such as mayors and media actively involved. The developed methods have been integrated into curricula, formats are planned to be repeated annually, and the partnerships will continue beyond the project with a focus on early childhood education.