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.