The Eindhoven Library has joined forces with startups Less or More, Beam it Up and Van Alles Wat Design. Under the joint name Moved, they are launching an interactive quiz tool for primary and secondary education. The tool, which aims to promote the information skills of young pupils, was the result of the cooperation.
How does my phone know where I am, who were the most important inventors ever and why don’t people have a tail? These are a few examples of questions that arise among children. With Brainy, children between the ages of eight and fourteen can look for answers in an educational way.
“Brainy is aimed at promoting children’s information skills. That means learn to deal with, search for and process information. In my opinion, this is something that is not sufficiently addressed in education.” says Robbert Storm, director of Moved. The online service allows teachers to create a theme and a central question. After this, the students try to look for an answer with the help of both on- and offline sources.
To complete the journey from question to answer as efficiently as possible, pupils use a six-step plan. Through this approach, the children first make a mind map together and make use of a source checker. Afterwards, the pupils reflect on the process.
Co-director Tim Scholten explains what distinguishes his platform from competing tools: “Other methods with a similar purpose are often very much screened off so that it is determined in advance which sites may and may not be visited. We think differently: ‘Let them search on the entire internet.’.”
Media coaches
To provide both pupils and teachers with the necessary knowledge about the use of Brainy, they receive help from media coaches of the Eindhoven Library. In addition to their other work, these media coaches also provide workshops and training courses on the use of the tool.
Brainy’s ultimate goal is simple: to increase digital literacy among children. Scholten: “What we want to achieve with Brainy is that children will always think about the reliability of a source.”
Brainy will be launched in both Dutch and English and is available from the 1st of September.
