Hopspots challenges children’s competencies At Bagterpskolen in Hjørring and Herningvej Skole in Aalborg the teachers and pupils love Hopspots. We talked to Anja Godtliebsen, teacher and IT-advisor at Bagterpskolen, and Henrik Bundgaard, after school care worker and head of pre-preparatory classes at Herningvej Skole, about their experiences with Hopspots. At Bagterpskolen Anja has borrowed Hopspots for 4 months in total during the past year. She particularly took Hopspots in, in her role as IT-advisor because as she says, “she knows what’s good” and thus she books ahead in order to make Hopspots available at her school. At Bagterpskolen everyone from the first grade and all the way up to the 6th grade have tried Hopspots and Anja says, “they are all equally eager to use it and even the older children find The Chase and Mix’n’Match fun”. According to Anja, Hopspots is ideal for [...]

“The child comes out in us” – HOPSPOTS IS FOR EVERYONE Today Hopspots is used in several other places than the Danish primary school, namely also in SENs, in child therapy and now also at health centres. Based on a demand for using Hopspots in other places than schools, which have so far been our primary target group, we have the past couple of months examined what Hopspots can contribute with to an older target group and we got great feedback. Our examination among other things consisted of user tests with the elderly and interviews of professionals who have also tried Hopspots. Among other places Hopspots have been implemented at Hjørring Sundhedscenter to great amusement for younger as well as older people in Hjørring. Hopspots is here used for both interactive training for people with brain damages and dementia, for groups of children, and for people [...]

BETT show in London In week 4 Hopspots attended the BETT-show in London. BETT is short for British Educational Training and Technology show, which is held in January every year. BETT is a great chance for everyone within the educational field to get new ideas and inspiration for new ways of using technology in teaching. At the show we met both giant companies such as: LEGO, INTEL; MICROSOFT; as well as small and newly established companies. We were located together with all the newly established companies and it was a great experience! There were so many new ideas present in that one room, and it was vibrating with activity. It was quite the adventure examining the BETT FUTURE area, our area. Even teachers, headmaster and distributors from all over the world found the place extremely inspiring. The whole world was there! We talked to [...]

The winning school looks forward to combining play and learning in the teaching! CONGRATULATIONS to the winning school, Egebakken Specialskole in Aalborg, which won a set of Hopspots for a month! Kenneth Vestergaard who is the headmaster at Egebakken expressed that Hopspots is going to be a total hit at the school. Even the pedagogues had great pleasure out of trying Hopspots on the demonstration day. We asked Kenneth Vestergaard about his thoughts on movement in school and how the school is going to use Hopspots. Movement in school is very important and it is related to learning which is why he thinks that Hopspots will improve the children’s learning. “Movement and learning, body and brain are related”, the headmaster Kenneth Vestergaard says. It is important that children get to play while learning, and also that they learn while playing. [...]

THE SCHOOLS’ HOPSPOTS METHODS We know that it varies how the different schools and institutions implement Hopspots into the everyday school life and thereby include digital technology and movement in the teaching. Even though we offer start-up help and feedback it is great to see that the schools themselves do such a good job at finding a rhythm that suits them and their children. Here we made an excerpt of the different Hopspots-methods used at some of the schools that are currently using Hopspots to create active learning. Seeing it, may inspire others to get started using Hopspots. At Uglegårdskolen in Solrød Hopspots resides in the Centre for Learning. Britt is the IT-advisor and manager of Hopspots as well as the person that gets the other teachers started with using the games. Once a week the interested teachers can book a Hopspots lesson [...]

The SEN school Stensagerskolen: ”Hopspots is awesome!” We are thrilled to see that Hopspots creates value for so many different children in schools all over the country. At the SEN school Stensagerskolen in Viby just outside of Aarhus, the children love Hopspots, and they use it several times a week. We talked to Randi who teaches the 3rd grade. Randi scheduled the use of Hopspots and uses it two days a week together with her 3rd grade, particularly when they have P.E. Randi implemented Hopspots in her teaching because she wants “P.E. to be more than just running”. She was pleasantly surprised to see how well Hopspots works and to see just how much the children actually move. When using Hopspots children can keep their focus for about an hour, where they usually lose the motivation and focus after just 10-15 minutes. They are completely done [...]

FlowDance – a co-creation collaboration between CxD, junior designers and musicians On November 18th we visited 8th grade at Uglegårdskolen in Solrød, which we had really been looking forward to. Earlier on, the pupils participated in a contest about inventing a game for Hopspots. They competed against three other schools in Denmark, and Sofie Østergaard from DR Ramasjang elected Uglegårdskolen as winners because of their excellent idea for the game FlowDance. FlowDance is a game that combines dance and music. By stepping on the different Hopspots’ spots the pupils can create their own rhythms within the genres: pop, swing, Jazz and Middle Eastern Music. The music is recorded and subsequently used to choreograph a dance. The music genres in the game aren’t random at all. They have been through a careful screening. The pupils found different genres and choreographies on [...]