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.
