Future perspectives for the product

As said before, we imagine that the basic functions of the wristband can be used in many different games and learning activities. An extension for further development can be to make possibilities for more customized product set-up, controlled trough for example the app connected to the wristbands. The wristbands could be configured to specific situations such as public transportation or walking in traffic, as well as to more complex group-games where team members could be interconnected and spatial locations of importance could be represented.

The concept of seeing where others are, like looking at a radar or compass that shows people, has possibilities of usage also outside the kindergarten scenario that we chose to work with.

We believe that the idea of group navigation – almost like a group sense – can be used in many other situations, like for example sports and mass gatherings such as demonstrations and festivals.

Conclusion on the so far product

What we have now is a tool-toy for group navigation. The functions are described in the scheme underneath, and include colour-change, vibration signals and giving direction. These functionalities we imagine can be used as a platform for both adults and children, to make games and learning activities.

 

Developing the shape of the wristbands

In relation to the design of the shape of the wristbands, we had to account for two contradicting needs: The wristbands should be used for play, and be something the children will feel is fun to wear, but at the same time be serious and tell the child when it is too far away and have to turn around. It should not look like a toy when it is also used authoritatively. For the caretaker, large responsibility has partly passed on to a technological product, and it is therefore important that the product expresses stability and reliability.

 

Furthermore, it is a highly sophisticated technological product that is demanded to be humane, simple and non-disturbing in its appearance. As one of the caretakers we spoke to was explaining: “I already have 22 children to keep an eye on, I simply do not have time for guarding yet another thing”. The development of the shape has been long and difficult, because of the relatively small possibilities for expression a wristband have, but we have ended up with a shape we feel meets all the needs, and as well is aesthetically pleasant.  

Testing again with children

We made new prototypes in order to test how the children could read representations of direction and explore possibilities of location-based games.

 

A simple prototype was a paper wristband on which we drew dots in direction of the other children on the spot. They understood this representation intuitively and responded correct continuously throughout the test when they were asked to point in the direction of the respective dots.

 

 We brought three smartphones, all with an app that could locate the other smartphones on a map. We divided the children into groups and each group followed an adult with a smartphone. We played a game of hide and seek, where the groups could see each other on a map, so the seeker could locate the hider, but the hider could also run when the seeker came close. The children were very into the game, but they had difficulties in reading the map without help from an adult, and ended up not trying to read the map. We also brought the compass again, and the children understood the direction, and used it for finding treasures that we had hidden in the direction of North. This of course did not work precisely, when the children came closer to the treasure, because the arrow just pointed North.

 

From the tests we could see that the children had intuitive understanding of the direction of different points, in contrast to representations on a map, and also that the games we organised was fun for the children and made them run a lot.

User-test with children

To test our ideas and hypothesis about the design of the product, we made a user-test with children, of functional prototypes. Beforehand we discussed the purpose of the test and sat up some survey questions that the test would attempt to answer. While answering our concrete questions we also wanted to observe the spontaneous reactions of the children to the objects, and see if we could develop games for an interactive product with them. We went out with 16 children and two caretakers to “Oxbjerget”, an open nature area just outside Copenhagen. With the test we wanted to try out light and vibration as ways to communicate physical boundaries. Due to propositions from professor Jan Kampmann, we furthermore wanted to test the children’s understanding of direction shown on a compass.

In advance of the test we made one prototype of a wristband with a small telephone inside that could vibrate when we called it, and three other prototypes of wristbands that could change colours with a remote controller. Additionally, we brought a compass for testing the children’s understanding of direction.

 

We put the vibration wristbands on two different children, on the age of 5 and 3, and told them that there was an invisible boundary around them, and that the wristbands would vibrate if they went further away than this boundary. When the children looked occupied in other things and crossed a certain point, we would call the phone in their wristbands. They both understood the signal, though they where a bit confused of what to do when it happened. An interesting observation was that both of the children asked us when they could take the wristbands off. Maybe this was because of the “negative” communication of the wristband, and because the children could not use it themselves.

We tried the wristbands that could create and change light in different colours with two groups of three children. They thought right away that it was fun, and there was competition to join the experiment. We told them that the wristbands changed colours if they were put together. The colour-change quickly became a game and there was created contact between the children, because they had to approach others with wristbands to change colour. Inspired from a game they played previously, where some of the children were zombies in the forest, they agreed that the red colour was the zombie colour. When a zombie caught someone, this wristband would also have to be red and another zombie was created. In the game it became preferred to be red, and because both colours changed when wristbands were put together, some children tried to hold on to their colour by keeping it away from the others.    

The last test we made with the children, was to give them a compass in their hand and ask if they could walk the way the arrow pointed. It went okay, even though they got a bit confused when the arrow switched direction. To elaborate on the children’s understanding of physical location in relation to themselves and others, and explore the creation of location-based games, we have planned another user-test.   

Conversation with professor in child development Jan Kampmann

To get a professional point of view on both the issue and our product, we invited Jan Kampmann, professor from the Institute of Psychology and Educational Research at Roskilde University, to join us for approximately one and a half hour interview and sparring.

He told us that 90% of the time it is possible to make agreements with children that they will respect, but that sometimes they can forget. He suggested that when the children are spread out in larger areas on fieldtrips, it could expand the opportunities for social play, to know where the others are. This could contribute to more advanced games in the open space, and stimulate children in learning and playing with a new technology that activates them instead of making them sedentary. He imagined to create playful and physical exercises around a modern kind of compass.

He believes that the safety aspect will benefit both adults, because they can be more relaxed, and children because it increases their room for manoeuvring. In his opinion, the product should be as concrete and easily readable as possible, in order to make the children understand the rather abstract information of others' locations. Jan Kampmann concluded by summarizing that the focus has to be on both safety and play, and that it is important to be creative and think from a child's perspective, that is how it can be fun while providing open application options so that the children can come up with new usages and make a tool of their own.

We joined a fieldtrip

To gain understanding of how a fieldtrip with a kindergarten runs, we joined a Copenhagen kindergarten in one of their everyday fieldtrips.

The fieldtrip was a 15 minutes walk to the local library, where the children were let free in the kids department. After the trip we did an interview with the caretaker in charge of the fieldtrip. He described the procedure when going to a larger nature area without fences. Usually the caretakers walk around the area with the children, and tell them how far they can go, according to some chosen pointers in the surrounding landscape. The caretakers locate themselves so they can keep an eye on different areas, and communicate regularly to each other how many children they have their eyes on. Also, the caretaker was saying, usually they give responsibilities and tasks to the older children, who help out.

 

We discussed technical solutions with the caretaker. He was sceptical towards a technology that would take over the personal contact and relation between children and adults. Though, he was very interested in security enhancing solutions that could give message, if a child was going away from the group.

Consulting pedagogical IT in Copenhagen Municipality

Pedagogical IT is a department under Copenhagen Municipality that works with pedagogical implementation of IT and the development of technical products for schools and daycares.
The two employers we talked to are working especially with learning and play, and are connected to a large number of institutions, child-and test-groups, where they work from the perspective of the children.

One of the things they work with in Pedagogical IT is the concept of “the open school”, where among other things safety is discussed. The amusement park Tivoli in Copenhagen has been working with safety wristbands for kids as well, with some involvement from Pedagogical IT. Their experience is that in any safety-solution it is crucial to have the children involved, so that the it will be fun and/or educational for them, and so that it is a solution they would like to use.

If it should be a pedagogical tool and not just surveillance, and be a Nordic/Scandinavian product, one should be focused on learning and play and have children in the centre.

 

Inspiration from the principles of Calm Technology:

Due to the concerns for time-occupying devices expressed by the pedagogues, and to our personal fascination of technology that unnoticed makes the everyday life easier, we looked into the principles of calm technology. 

Technology is calm when it interacts with you in the periphery of your consciousness, as opposed to the center of the attention. Calm technology does not attract attention, but merely draws attention if it’s necessary. An example is the motor sound in a car, which is not perceived consciously unless it sounds wrong and thereby provides indication that something is wrong with the car.

We are interested in ways to use Calm Technology to shape the product in a way that information resides in the periphery of the users attention, but easily can be fetched if needed, or be used subconsciously to create an overview or a feeling. In this way we might be able to provide the user with an “extra sense”, or feeling for certain things, without interrupting.

Concept of safety, responsibility and group feeling:

In our everyday we constantly are included in different groups. With work, family, football team, friends, travel companions, kindergarten etc., we are a part of a group. According to pedagogic theory (see resources), it is crucial to the personal and social development of a child’s identity to activate the group feeling. The group feeling gets stimulated for example by committing to and taking responsibility of other human beings, which is a requirement in Danish daycare regulations.

According to the pedagogue we talked to, it can be stressful to be responsible of the safety of a big group. There exist several tools for surveillance of children’s locations, but pedagogically it undermines the child’s development of responsibility and trust, and the devices demand conscious operations.   

On this background we thought it would be interesting to examine further the possibilities of working with group feeling, having sense of each other’s presence, limits for moving away from the group and safety in emergency situations, in a pedagogically inclusive way.  

The first sketches of the idea:

Hard at work with idea generation

From the conceptions of the everyday in kindergartens gathered through empirical and theoretical research, we formulated different issues we found interesting. Along with the research on kindergartens, we investigated existing and possible ways to make use of sensors and technology more generally. The sensors, technologies and issues were listed and put into a pool, and from diverse combinations we developed more or less realistic and processed concepts. From twenty various concepts, we picked a few favorites that had for us more potential to explore. The selected concepts were about sensing each other within a group, and making children’s tiredness, hunger and pain visible for others. 

Staging a dialogue with the leader of a larger child institution.

In a newly opened childcare institution we met Anja, who has worked 20 years with kindergartens and is now the leader of Lille Arena in Amager, Copenhagen.

For the meeting we brought a dialogue tool, intended to be the starting point for a conversation. The dialogue tool was a map of the different stakeholders we could identify, in and around kindergartens, along with what-if questions written on tags that was turned around one by one. A question was, as an example: “What if the parents knew everything about their children’s day in the kindergarten?” The questions were based on pedagogic literature and the previous visit in a kindergarten, and some of the pedagogic and ethical dilemmas that can occur between various envisioned efforts. 

Anja advocated for full transparency in between all stakeholders in and around the kindergarten. It is good to know as much as possible about the children, and across the gap between the day in the kindergarten and the day with the parents. Open dialogue enables good collaborations, and every information and insight will benefit and make kindergarten and parents more qualified. It is difficult to communicate everything with small children, therefore in some cases grown ups are responsible.

Yet, she could also recognize certain risks of everyone knowing everything about everyone, and the means to achieve this knowledge. For the documentation of the information, Anja pointed out the difficulty of measuring the soft values of the pedagogic field and put it into facts. The subjective evaluations of children are difficult to grasp quantitatively, and their exchange happens through daily interaction.

She also empathized that children should have privacy, and not be monitored in all corners. It is important that children get to know, and develop relationship to personal, social and spatial limits. They must learn to fend for themselves and be self-reliant. However, in the privacy and independency of the children you must be able to ensure safety and soundness. 

Field visit in a kindergarten in Copenhagen.

To understand deeper the everyday life in kindergartens, we went out to visit Anna Havana, a kindergarten located in Islands Brygge, Copenhagen. We did an open interview with Janni, who has been working there for 19 years.

The interview was conducted inside, in her usual work environment with the children around, and therefore they were also observed. Janni told us that they use quite a lot of time to plan and document their pedagogic work, and showed the different papers and folders used in the documentation. She problematized the spreading of diseases in the kindergarten, but stated that children needs some bacterial exposure to develop a strong immune system, and that they themselves are responsible for washing their hands well, several times a day. Before lunch they all ran to the washroom, and washed hands without requests. This observation, along with the pedagogic expectations, went well in line with what we had been reading about the values of Nordic pedagogy. The overall focus of the Nordic pedagogy is on developing independent and responsible children, with abilities to concentrate and learn on their own initiative.

One of the biggest fears and dangers, faced in the everyday life in the kindergarten is, according to Janni, the safety of the children. Anna Havana kindergarten is located in an apartment, and does not have an outside area attached: when the children go outside it is excursions in public zones. On excursions two pedagogues has responsibility of twenty-two children. Janni says the children are behaving really well and have good understanding of their limits and own responsibility, but eitherway she fears to suddenly loose a child. She counts the children extensively and is very strict with towards them, when they are outside. Towards the question of, if any device would be helpful, she stated that it would just be an extra load, if she had to keep an eye on one more thing.

Kindergarten as the focus area.

From the initial process of listing areas and criteria for choice, we chose the kindergarten as the focus point for our project. The use of public kindergartens as part of the welfare system in Denmark, and the overall pedagogic angle as part of a Northern European tradition of child development, makes the kindergarten represent values of Danish society. Although we will develop a product in collaboration with Danish kindergartens, we imagine it to be transferable to other nations and cultures, as well as other possible contexts. The kindergarten is an area with different stakeholders involved - parents, children, pedagogues, municipality, etc. - and possible conflicting or dissimilar interests between those stakeholders. The different interests inside the field, characterised by having soft values and a humanistic approach as opposed to more hardcore facts such as physical measurements, opens the kindergarten for new solutions based on in depth research of the field.

Choosing an area to make sense of sensors within.

We began the project by outlining possible areas of interest that could be the outset for further research, areas within which we could make sense of sensors. Along with the listing of areas, we developed different criteria for choosing between them. The subject should represent values of the Danish society, be possible to research first hand, have a relatively big target group across nations and cultures, and speak to our respective personal interests in the group. Furthermore, we were leaning towards choosing an area of humanistic challenges, than more practical challenges, because of the design task made by working with technical sensors, inside qualitative complexities.