The unprecedented level of technological interaction that educators and teachers have been forced to engage in as a consequence of the pandemic has altered educational practices and how they interact with children and their families. During the height of the pandemic, staff members exhibited a lack of understanding regarding appropriate technology utilisation. They often turned to unregulated social media platforms to share educational experiences and communicate with families as part of what is considered pedagogical documentation (Restiglian et al., 2023).

Pedagogical documentation has a significant historical background in Italy, dating back to the Reggio approach to education (Edwards, Gandini & Forman, 1998). Utilised primarily to record and recollect noteworthy occurrences and experiences, it also furnishes material to support the reflective practice of children and adults and facilitates the replication, comparability, transparency, and comprehensibility of educational practices (Biffi, 2019). By making the subjective and collaborative learning processes of both children and adults explicit, observable, and evaluable, documentation renders learning visible (Giudici, Rinaldi & Krechevsky, 2001). 

After the pandemic, the academic staff endeavoured to reassess documentation, as well as their own professional conduct, in direct correlation with technological advancements. Nonetheless, this has contributed to a social situation in which many families' economic and cultural destitution has increased, resulting in a highly heterogeneous usage pattern that requires revised educational designs that require a paradigm shift relative to the employed tools. In regions with limited state intervention (via municipalities) and substantial variation in the quality of education provided—which is only partially regulated in all aspects—the present condition of nurseries is especially alarming. Lastly, in order to analyse an unconscious decision and a balanced application of technologies (especially social ones), knowledge of the European context is essential. Efforts are being undertaken to provide support for strategies about the ethical utilisation of AI and data, grounded in the AI Act and the GDPR (European Parliament, 2016; 2023). In order to safeguard the identities of European citizens and preserve digital sovereignty, European legislation endeavours to disclose the rationale behind the extraction of data and the psychosocial ramifications of algorithmic manipulation. With the exception of the ECEC system, therefore, circular and conscientious strategies must be implemented in all spheres of lifelong learning. Both the demographic changes taking place in the different Member States and the incorporation of this crucial developmental stage into the Lifelong Learning system contribute to the considerable emphasis on ECEC at the European level (2014) (European Document).

This dilemma is especially pronounced in nurseries in regions where the state's (via municipalities) authority is limited and where substantial variation exists in educational offerings that are only partially regulated by explicit and well-defined policies. 

The critical significance of the professionalism exhibited by educators in tackling these concerns becomes evident. However, it is imperative that they are guided towards the arduous processes of societal transformation that we presently confront, given that the intricacy of technological and social progress often induces feelings of being overwhelmed (Raffaghelli, 2022).

Therefore, it appears crucial to prioritise transformative processes in continuing education and training by using a formative methodology that incorporates research and professional development. Our hypothesis is that this methodology contributes to shedding light on the inherent contradictions and tensions that emerge during the implementation of technology. As a secondary hypothesis we propose that technology could develop into an essential tool for facilitating documentation and, consequently, education for all parties involved (including parents, children, and toddlers). This is because technology is expanding its influence to an ever-increasing degree within the fabric of social reality.

Among the methodologies that can support continuous and authentically transformative training is the one called “Changing Lab,” developed by the University of Helsinki and widely implemented in the context of research in the socio-sanitary and educational professions (Sannino & Engestrom, 2017; Morselli, 2019). This methodology promotes a critical, reflective, and oriented approach to real and improving changes through three sessions of activities led by experts who, through the mode of "mirroring," offer and revive informative situations and support the discussion of transformative solutions and changes generated from the laboratory called "ChangeLab.”. The research involves the educational staff of three nurseries in the area of Rovigo of different types (public, private, religious), sizes, and geographical locations (city, countryside), for a total of about 20 people. It focuses on the quality of the management of pedagogical documentation on technological support, including communication situations with families that usually adopt social media or instant messaging but also documentation activities that serve educators' internal communication and reflection. The work will be completed in March 2024 and intends to answer the following research questions: How do smart and digital technologies, from social media to smart toys, cross the lives of our children, our families, and our own professional practice? How does pedagogical documentation, the core of mature educational professionalism, change in the presence of technologies so configured? The meetings take place at nurseries after working hours for approximately two hours each. They include two presence sessions and one remote session (via Zoom or Meet). These are rather heterogeneous working groups by age and initial training, both in the group-to-group comparison and between groups. The small number of participants enables the full participation of educators and their coordinators. During the present sessions, technology was not used, but rather posters, leaflets, and post-it notes for sharing opinions and points of view useful to open more in-depth discussions. The remote session, however, included the use of some applications such as mentimeter and padlet for the same purposes. As for the data collection, audio recording and pictures from specific perspectives of the work (protecting educators’ privacy) have been adopted after getting the informed consent. The data analysis will be done through discourse and multimodal analysis after verbatim transcription based on the principles of the ChangeLab methodology (Sannino & Engeström, 2017).

ChangeLab aims to respond to the compelling emergence of exploring and advancing proposals for an agency, i.e., a protagonist of renewed educational professionalism, within an educational and social reality deeply pierced by “smart” technologies based on algorithms and huge amounts of user data. The research focuses on a crucial educational dimension useful to effectively address the constantly evolving technological-digital challenges and to contribute to the proactive construction of an environment of professional growth and dialogue with families and the territorial community without ever losing sight of the centrality of the child. Its main purpose is the activation of transformative processes within the nurseries involved. It intends to disseminate procedures and results to other nurseries of the area, then engaging in kindergartens (3-6 years) in the perspective of the integrated system 0-6 years provided by the Ministerial Decree no. 65. It also intends to lay the foundations for advancing the request for modification of the content of the course degree in Education Science activated in the city of Rovigo, but managed by the University of Padova. The research ends up as an exploratory research for the definition of draft guidelines for the use of technologies in nurseries, returning to policy makers (regional and European) a series of reflective elements for defining actions regarding digital practices in education that can deepen some elements contained in the DigiCompEdu (Redecker & Punie, 2017), which at the present stage cannot be fully applied in the integrated system 0-6 years.

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