After more than a year of valuable collaborations, the time has come: the Healthy Start sprint project Let's Movez Together has been successfully completed. We started this project with the aim of creating an empowering environment in which we give children a voice when it comes to their online world. Because only if we understand what they experience online, we can help them grow up to be happy, healthy, and smart media users. Together with children, educators and our partners from You!nG and Erasmus MC, we developed a practical tool with a web app that actively involves children (9-12 years) in exploring their online world - including revealing their perceptions, challenges, solutions and needs.
In retrospect
During the project, we went through three development phases, in which feedback from the children was leading and the tool took more and more shape.
- In the first phase, we built a prototype of the tool: The Challenge Factory. This was the starting point in which children from an after school care facility actively tackled and discussed in various online challenges. We tested this version and collected valuable feedback to improve the tool.
- Based on the children's feedback, in the second phase we decided to upgrade the tool. The shape and name changed to "Escape Your Screen", an escape game with a focus on the individual's online challenges, with more movement and more game elements. We tested this new prototype with children and caretakers during the Weekend of Science at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
- In this final phase, we joined forces with communication agency Podium to improve, professionalise and digitise the materials. This resulted in the final version of the web app Escape Your Screen, which we tested one last time in with children from group eight at a primary school to fine-tune it.
Are you curious to learn more about the scientific foundation, the design decisions, and the co-design sessions? Or are you looking for concrete recommendations to meaningfully engage children in discussions about issues that affect their daily lives? You can read it in the report below (in English)!
Escape Your Screen
And here it is... Escape Your Screen! Discover it for yourself at escapeyourscreen.nl. Whether you are a teacher, intervention developer, or policy maker, you can use this tool to have a conversation with children about their online world. During Escape Your Screen, children identify their biggest online challenge, explore the obstacles to tackle it and devise solutions to overcome these obstacles. They conclude with a concrete plan detailing what they need from their (social) environment to effectively tackle their challenge.
We look back on this project with pride and are grateful for all the collaborations and feedback we received, especially that of the participating children. We hope Escape Your Screen empowers and supports children, and their immediate environment, to talk about and cope with their online challenges - today and in the future!
Escape Your Screen Development process
