✦ Erasmus+ KA220 · 2025–2028
TET4CL equips parents and early childhood educators across Europe with the digital skills and playful pedagogies to prepare young children for a creative, collaborative world.
What is TET4CL?
TET4CL is a three-year European project funded by the Erasmus+ programme (KA220-SCH), built around two simple but powerful ideas: that the toys children play with can be powerful tools for learning, and that the adults supporting those children deserve practical, evidence-based training to confidently make use of those toys in meaningful educational ways.
Technology-enhanced toys (TETs) are already finding their way into homes and early childhood classrooms across Europe, often from as young as two years of age. Think about the interactive, connected, or “smart toys” lining the shelves at your favourite store, or perhaps sitting on a shelf in your child’s room right now, and you understand what TETs are and just how ubiquitous they have become. But having the toys is one thing- knowing how to use them in ways that are meaningful, creative and genuinely educational is another. That is exactly the gap that TET4CL wants to close.
Over the next three years, TET4CL will create a set of freely accessible online resources including a framework that any educator or parent can use to make the most of their technology-enhanced toys. We will also seek to bring together educators, teachers, and early childhood professionals from across Europe to share knowledge, swap best practices, and grow together through a dedicated online community. TET4CL will also provide practical, hands-on training — both initial and ongoing — to help education staff build confidence when weaving TETs into their everyday teaching through play-based approaches and STEAM activities.
FRAMEWORK
Everything TET4CL creates is oriented around four foundational 21st-century skills that research consistently identifies as essential for young learners. We call them the 4Cs:
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Helping children express ideas, stories, and emotions through play with TETs
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Encouraging children to work together, share, and learn from each other through shared play experiences
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Supporting children to ask questions, explore cause and effect, and develop problem-solving skills with technology
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Fostering imagination, original thinking, and artistic expression through play-based STEAM activities
These four skills are woven into every work package, every learning design, and every training workshop that TET4CL produces. They are equally central to the project’s broader goal of embedding the STEAM approach (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) into early childhood education and care.
OUR APPROACH
TET4CL unfolds across five interconnected work packages, each building on the last.
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Before building anything, TET4CL starts by listening. Through a comprehensive systematic review of existing literature, covering the last twenty years of research on TETs for children aged 2 to 8, the project establishes a solid, evidence-based foundation. This review maps out what educators actually need, what the research tells us about technology-enhanced toys in early childhood settings, and where the real gaps lie.
From this evidence base, TET4CL develops a versatile theoretical framework that combines pedagogical and technological knowledge. The framework guides educators in evaluating the technological characteristics and pedagogical affordances of TETs, helping them integrate these tools into play-based practice in ways that are constructive, meaningful, and purposeful.
Research Phase
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At the heart of TET4CL is a rich, practical toolkit for educators and parents. The TETs Portrait Repository will profile 180–200 technology-enhanced toys, detailing their technological characteristics and pedagogical affordances so that teachers can make informed, confident choices.
Alongside toy profiles, the project develops a curriculum of 40–50 learning activities grounded in the 4Cs and STEAM, as well as instructional guides for parents, translated into English, Greek, Norwegian, and French, with additional versions in Braille and Sign Language to serve diverse learners and families. Templates and learning design plans ensure that educators can adapt all materials to their own classroom context.
Resources
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TET4CL provides practical, hands-on training, both initial and ongoing, to help education staff build genuine confidence when weaving TETs into their everyday teaching. A workshop-based professional development programme delivers four workshops to pre-service and in-service teachers in Norway and Greece, built around co-design, inquiry, and reflective practice.
A dedicated online learning portal brings together all training materials, resources, and learning designs in one freely accessible space. The portal supports both synchronous and asynchronous learning and is designed to grow and evolve long after the project ends.
Community
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TET4CL’s dissemination work package ensures that the project’s results reach as wide an audience as possible. All outputs will be shared freely via the project portal and through the Erasmus+ eTwinning platform, the EPALE adult learning community, national and international conferences, and peer-reviewed publications.
The project aims to reach educators in at least 10 EU countries, engage 4 national education ministries, and build an online community of 6,000 users. A rigorous evaluation framework, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, will track progress and ensure the quality of every output.
Impact
AUDIENCE
TET4CL is designed for everyone involved in the lives of young children aged 2 to 8. Our primary audiences are:
STRUCTURE
All resources: Freely accessible via the TET4CL Open Portal
CONSORTIUM
Four partner institutions from across Europe collaborating to transform early childhood education through technology.
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