An amazing week at NOT in Netherlands!

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The previous week we went to Netherlands to show off Active Floor, and the interest and feedback we received was unbelievable!

Five days of success

With the amount of interest for the concept, and with a lot of people visiting the stand, we couldn’t have asked for a better start at the Dutch market.
NOT is a Dutch learning exhibition that lasts for five days, and throughout the week we had people of all sizes and ages on the Floor, everyone from kids and ordinary pupils to teachers and principals. And despite differences in age and size, everyone seemed excited about the Active Floor concept. As we don’t speak Dutch we brought along our Dutch reseller – Ict voor School.
Their main task was explaining the concept of Active Floor to the people who came by. That means explaining the various games, pricing, and the benefits of having Active Floor at institutions and schools.

A professional angle

Among our Dutch reseller was Joep, who is the principle of the Doelakkers School in the southern part of Netherlands, which is the first school in all of Netherlands to have an Active Floor installed.
Besides Joep we had brought a couple of teachers to help us out, and with their professional knowledge and pedagogical and didactic point of view, they could explain to the visitors how Active Floor could be beneficial, and used as more than just entertainment.

How to use the Active Floor as a method of teaching became the most frequently asked question.
Instead of just explaining how, we showed some of the games like “Quiz Ninja”, “Pirate Island”, “Memory”, and “Danger in the Jungle” – especially the latter was a popular game. In all of these games you can edit the content to make it match the curriculum in different grades.

The follow-up question would typically be “how do you change a game, or even make your own and how long does it take?” We would then demonstrate how easy it is to change the content, and how to make your own game. Everybody was very surprised to find out how simple the system and process was.

The pupils loved it!

We asked some ordinary schoolkids what they thought about Active Floor, and how they would feel about having it at their school. The most frequent answer was “that would be fantastic!”

Since returning from Netherland our main focus has been preparing for the Danish education tradeshow ““Læringsfestivalen” in Copenhagen the 1st  and the 2nd  of March 2017.

 

Active Floor in Danish hospitals – a haven in a difficult time

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More and more children’s wards invests in the interactive floor, and there is good reason why. “Playing is an important part of a child’s hospital stay.” It emphasizes Professor Bent Ottesen, Rigshospitalet here.

Rigshospitalet leads the way …

Rigshospitalet has undoubtedly led the way and has installed Active Floor solutions a great joy to the kids at 3 different pediatric wards. Nurse Supervisor Maria Simmelkjær says: “The floor is interactive in several different ways, and it contributes both to get the kids out of the hospital bed to move, and to combine play and learning in relation to the children’s own disease.”

 

Play and learning in a fun and different way

“One of the unique things about the floor is that you can design games to the floor. This means that we can use the game to teach children about the body and thus help creating an understanding of the challenges some of the children have. A child with an ostomy may for example learn how to fit this along with mom and dad. By jumping from one field to another on the floor, the child can learn what to do and in the right order. With the floor, we can activate children in a fun way, and we can teach them some of the most difficult things in an entertaining way, “explains Maria.

 

Parents, staff and especially the children are excited ..

The 3 Active Floor solutions at Rigshospitalet is frequently used throughout the day. “We only hear positive feedback from parents who think it’s cool to be able to offer their children different types of stimuli and recreation during the hospitalization, or while they are waiting. The outpatient clinic also has access to Active Floor and the children are waiting here also uses diligently floor. The general picture is that it is being used with great pleasure “, says Gitte Maria Bondrup Larsen, who is an educator at the Children’s Surgical department at the hospital.

 

5 good reasons to get an Active Floor on the children’s ward:

  1. It mobilizes children, so they come out of bed and moves.
  2. They get good and entertaining experiences alone or with other children in a difficult time.
  3. It strengthens the treatment by giving doctors and nurses the opportunity to assess the children in the new framework.
  4. Staff gain a more varied clinical picture of the children.
  5. It fills the waiting time for both patients and their families.

 

Teachers are thrilled at Langhøj school

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Movement in the learning process provides improved academic results

 

Langhøj School in Denmark is working with movement and learning consciously. The investment in Active Floor – an interactive floor – gives them even more opportunities to pursue their educational principles into practice.

Active Floor was installed in December 2015 at Langhøj School. The decision about having an interactive floor at the School is completely in line with the School’s fundamental educational principle – that learning in combination with movement creates better academic results. Another initiative that supports this educational principle at the school involves physical activity before a test with the aim of “energizing” the student’s brains. During the test the students get blueberry smoothies, which has the beneficial effect that it increases the supply of oxygen to the brain.

The School’s intention for 2016 is to put more focus on particular:

  • Movement
  • Active Floor as an inspiration to the supporting education
  • Common development of learning pathways

Langhøj School is a part of Hvidovre municipality. They have increased their focus on digital behavior, which Active Floor can be a natural part of.

Peter Büchner Hede, who is the Manager of the Daycare at Langhøj School and has a sport pedagogical background, says: “Active Floor is a brilliant tool to support all the goals and intentions that we have. With Active Floor we can combine many things that previously were not possible. All students can join and play on the interactive floor. They can participate whenever they want and the academic level of difficulty can be adapted to the individual student. “

“In the late hours at school the children are burned out. At this point playing at Active Floor is a fantastic way to keep them motivated to learn through fun and movement” says Peter Büchner.

Teachers and educators are excited…

With Active Floor you get access to a wealth of games, ready to be played on the interactive floor. This makes the teachers and pedagogues really excited, but they also appreciate that they can easily form their own games with exactly the content to suit the teaching or activity they are working on.

“For example last week we had “Reading Week” at the school where we had a number of stations with different types of tasks for the students. Here we used Active Floor to train nouns in a fun way. And the other day one teacher had made a Star wars game with text and images, which really made the kids excited. There are so many possibilities,” says Peter Büchner.

Besides being used in the school hours Active Floor is a very good tool for free time use. Peter Büchner states that it is so easy to use that the children can play on the floor without a teacher or pedagogue have to be there.

 

“We think that Active Floor is fantastic!” Peter Büchner says.

 

Facts

  • Langhøj School has approximately 730 students
  • Active Floor at Langhøj School is located in a theater hall, so all students can benefit from it
  • It consists of a vinyl floor, a ceiling-mounted projector, a computer and a camera which captures movements
  • Our local reseller provides the implementation and training of teachers and educators
  • There are more than 100 different learning games available at the floor

Bett show 2016 – heading for success

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During week 3 we took of to London, heading Europe’s biggest education trade shows. We were loaded with expectations, excitement and energy; because we knew that it would be four tough days.

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We had a lot of visitors at our stand everyday; teachers, students, principals, parents, university students and others. Everybody with a huge enthusiasm for how easy the children was playing the different learning games. Children aged two to seventeen years loved Active Floor.

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Born to be global

During the days we had visits from many potential resellers worldwide. It is exciting to follow their interest in selling Active Floor around the world. Follow this page where we will continuously update our reseller list.

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Accuracy

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One of the reasons that we have spent so much time developing Active Floor is all about accuracy.

When is a touch a touch with the foot and not the hand? When is a click a click, kick or a third gesture. We have developed a unique gesture library of how Active Floor must track one’s movements.