Paxel123.com - Icelandic website for children

Paxel123.com http://paxel123.com/ is an Icelandic website with educational games for children, about 4-8 years old. The owner and author of all the games is Anna Margrét Ólafsdóttir, POSCON Network Member and headteacher at the preschool Nóaborg in Reykjavík, Iceland.    

The games on paxel123.com are based on Anna Margrét's work with the children in her preschool. Most of the games focus on math and language but one game is about safty on the internet. The games can be played in 9 languages. Access is free, there are no ads, no registration and no personal information is gathered about the users. All you need to play the games is to have Flash and Java installed. Paxel123.com has been online for about two and a half years. Anna´s aim is to translate the games into more languages in the near future. 

Paxel123.com is created through funding provided by grants from the following: Nordplus, The ministry of Education in Iceland, The board of Human rights in Reykjavik, The Developing Fund of the Union of Preschool Teachers in Iceland, an Icelandic government developing fund for teaching material and a stipend from "Barnavinafélagið Sumargjöf", a charity that founded the first preschools in Iceland and operated all  preschools in the city of Reykjavik until 1973.

 
Best content for kids in Europe

Paxel123.com was awarded 1st price for the best content for kids in the non-professionals category in an European competition held in connection with the international Safer Internet Day on February 11th 2014.  More than 1.100 projects were entered into this competition. The award ceremony was held in Brussels at a high-level event hosted by the European Commission.

 

Games from paxel123.com for iPads

Two games from Paxel123.com have been developed for iPads and more are on the way. The first of these was released in the Appstore at the end of 2013 and is called Pattern Puzzle Game. It is the iPad version of one of the most popular games from the Paxel123.com website. Another game, just released in the Appstore, is called Magic Shape Pictures, also developed from a popular Paxel123.com game. The third game for iPad is called Get Shapes, and will be available in Appstore shortly. Get Shapes has been developed in cooperation with a group of six five year old pre-schoolers from Anna Margrét's preschool. The kids drew figures and planned the rules for that games. Hopefully more games from the Paxel123.com website will be available for iPads in the near future.

Pattern Puzzle Game

https://itunes.apple.com/app/pattern-puzzle-game/id741471947?ls=1&mt=8 
The game is designed to be fun and educational for kids, from age four. It is designed by kindergarten teachers and tested by kids! There are four levels of difficulty and the pictures you have to make, using geometrical shapes, get more complicated as you progress through the levels. When each level is done an congratulatory star will appear. As in all games associated with Paxel123.com you will find no advertisments, no social links, no pop-ups or  distractions/links that can divert children. This app has been very well received and has got great reviews e.g  from the specialist website a4cwsn.com (apps for children with special needs) where they tested the app and made a video about it which you can watch if you click onto this link here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdKFKHvEnxM


Paxel Magic Shape Pictures

The second game was released two weeks ago and is called Paxel Magic Shape Pictures. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paxel-magic-shape-pictures/id858006396?mt=8   

It is fun and educational for kids as young as three years old. The goal is to arrange a number of shapes correctly to match a given image. When all the shapes are in place, a beautiful picture with the same theme appears. Three levels are free but parents can buy ten extra levels for 99c. A "parent gate" is installed to ensure that children cannot make a purchase by accident.

At the BBC: Interview with Makers of CBeebies Playtime App

Last week POSCON Network Members from fragFINN and My Child Online got to meet and interview key team members of the BBC who planned and produced the very successful “CBeebies Playtime” App. We met with Lizzie Leadbeater (Senior Content Producer), Leanne Dougan (Senior Designer) and Jon Howard (Executive Product Manager) at their office at the BBC headquarters at Media City UK, to look behind the scenes and talk about how their app developed from the first ideas and dreams, through research, prototypes and testing until its launch in August 2013.

The whole app planning, production, designing and marketing process focused on delivering the best product possible to engage children under 6 years of age to be inspired by creativity and imagination and encourage learning through play – the motivating philosophy of BBC’s CBeebies media content and services. Another important aim, being a public service in the UK, was to meet the needs of as many families and people as possible: That is why the app is available for free on the most popular and common devices in the country.  

A crucial thing we learned was that even within big public services such as the BBC, the project team felt like a little family: The whole team of CBeebies colleagues, researchers, advisers, even the external agency are dreaming, discussing, struggling, improving and succeeding together. Witnessing this positive, collaborative and family-like atmosphere we probably saw a key factor to the huge success of their Playtime app, which is destined to inspire others.

To round off its two-year mission of stimulating positive online content for children, POSCON is currently working with Mijn Kind Online on the publication of a book aimed at both professional and amateur producers of content and services for kids. With the help of this specially designed book, creative producers can inspire others to make appropriate online products for children. You will be able to read the detailed interview of the “CBeebies Playtime” App team and learn why this app has become such an inspiring best-practice example of digital media for children. It will also include practical tips and advice on how to start if you aim at producing great app for kids.

More information: BBC introducing CBeebies Playtime app games for kids (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article/cbeebies-playtime-app)

Thematic Network POSCON meets in Barcelona

On April 9-10 the 3rd POSCON Network Meeting was held in Barcelona, Spain. 21 POSCON Network Members attended the meeting and discussed topics around positive online content for children. One important subject was the POSCON Repository – a data collection about positive content in different European countries the Thematic Network is currently working on. The data collection covers three different categories: gateways and platforms, such as children’s browsers, search engines, starting pages, whitelists; services and websites like websites for information or games, web radios and TV, media sharing platforms, blogs or social networks for children; and apps.  

Specific needs of and requirements for children with disabilities were another priority topic at the meeting: The internet offers many opportunities for people with disabilities, but also a lot of barriers regarding the use of online content and services can be found. One aim of POSCON in this context is to raise awareness for accessibility, especially for children with disabilities. POSCON will contribute to this topic with a checklist and recommendations for content providers of how to create online content accessible for children with disabilities. Further information regarding this topic will follow soon and can already be found in this blog entry: Accessibility of Online Content and Services for People with Disabilities.

Further topics discussed and focused on during the Barcelona meeting were e.g. how to promote, foster and encourage producers to develop good content for young users and how to fund such projects. Further outcomes and results of the very inspiring and productive meeting will be found on this blog soon. 

Towards a European net for Children – the POSCON Repository

One of the main aims of POSCON is heading towards more positive content and services for children and also more “European versions” of positive content. As a first step towards this aim, the project will provide a comprehensive overview of the market for positive content in Europe. 

Currently POSCON is collecting data about positive content offerings in different European countries. The data collection covers three different categories:

1. gateways and platforms, such as children’s browsers, search engines, starting pages, whitelists, 
2. services and websites like websites for information or games, web radios and TV, media sharing platforms, blogs or social networks for children, and  
3. apps.  

The basis for the entries is the POSCON Checklist and Concrete Criteria for Positive Content and Services (http://www.positivecontent.eu/checklist/).

Additionally the POSCON network members analyse “their” landscape of positive content and services. Beyond the number of websites and apps, which the repository will provide, POSCON will highlight the framework and conditions in the different countries – the special situation, characteristics and best practices, existence of support programmes, cooperation with industry, specific challenges as well as an analysis of problems and needs.

The repository will provide a basis for a European extension of link lists, whitelists, browsers and platforms as well as development of multilingual websites and platforms. The repository will keep on growing, the data collection will constantly continue until the end of the project in November 2014.