Tuesday 24 June 2014

Toca Boca, wonderful and successful apps for children


Remco Pijpers, POSCON-member and working for Kennisnet and Mijn Kind Online, visited head quarts of Toca Boca in Stockholm to interview the makers of the wonderful and very popular children’s apps. What is their secret? 

Toca Boca was only founded in 2010, yet has since grown into a prominent player in the children’s app market. With a total of 68 million apps downloaded in 169 different countries, the company is clearly on to something. Their secret? Game designer Chris Lindgren has been with Toca Boca since the start and sums up the core philosophy: “We make toys, not games,” she says. It’s an important distinction. She goes on to explain that toys, as opposed to games, are more open-ended in their approach. They are materials to play with and fantasies around. “The best toys have a strong replay value; kids can keep finding new ways of playing with them,” Chris adds. That is what Toca Boca strives for in its apps. Also, where other apps may focus on learning cognitive skills in a more traditional sense, the focus here is on fun. Why? Because at Toca Boca, playing and having fun are considered “the best way to learn about the world”. Their aim is to stimulate young children’s imagination and support their creativity in a non-competitive digital environment, coupled with a child-friendly usability.

A lack of spoken language or written instructions is a further feature defining Toca Boca apps. This was a conscious decision made early on and has two benefits. Firstly, it makes the products more international and therefore, more financially viable. You can reach a global market without having to translate so much as a single word. Secondly, as Chris points out, it can help to make kids feel empowered: they don’t need their parents’ help to play the apps. At the same time, Toca Boca purpose-builds many of its apps as shared experiences, incorporating multi-touch features so children can play with others if they want to, be it with siblings, friends or parents. It’s a way to practice valuable social skills such as turn taking.

The complete story about Toca Boca will be published in a book in English made by Mijn Kind Online and POSCON. It will be available in November 2014. 


Monday 2 June 2014

POSCON at the FOSI 2014 European Forum – Creating a Better Internet





Logo of conference - FOSI 2014 European ForumRemco Pijpers from My Child Online and POSCON Network Member represented the Thematic Network POSCON at the FOSI conference about safer internet for children in Paris, on May 22. 
The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) is an international, non-profit organization which works to make the online world safer for kids and their families. FOSI convenes leaders in industry, government and the non-profit sectors to collaborate and innovate new solutions and policies in the field of online safety.

Remco participated in the panel discussion ‘Doing Good Online, Making a Better Internet’. This panel covered best practices for creating more positive content for children. Remco talked about the work of the Thematic Network POSCON and stressed the need for more positive content, making that a priority for companies and the need for more research into the positive use of the Internet. 
The panel expressed the need to get more children competing and learning to code as well as opening up the education system to allow creativity. Remco provided an example of the King of the Netherlands inviting children to produce content and handing out prizes as a way to encourage more content for kids. The panel agreed that high-profile individuals can help incentivize content creation. 
One of the POSCON Network Members also joined the panel: Filip Rožánek from Czech Radio as winner of the European Award for Best Content For Kids with the website "Webík Rádia Junior" . He explained how he divides content for age groups including pre-schoolers and older kids and said the key to making the Internet better is more education and less regulation.