Children chip in a kindergarten in Prague. The teachers appreciate it
Prague 6 wants to increase the safety of children in kindergartens using GPS locators. They can help teachers, for example, when traveling by public transport, on walks or trips. The GPS is supposed to track the children’s location and then transfer the data to the teachers’ phones.
Children will receive reflective vests with a locator. From that moment on, the kindergarten teachers in Prague 6 can see every movement of the children on their phones. “We gave it to them in such a way that it is their medal that watches over them. And they like it,” says the director of the kindergarten, Monika Janečková.
“The unique thing there is a virtual moving fence. The fact that it follows the whole group, the center is the teacher and her phone, which moves,” says the deputy mayor of Prague 6 Václav Koženy (ODS). If any of the children move away, the application will immediately notify and guide the teachers to the place where the signal is coming from.
“It really helps the teacher so that she can individually attend to other children who need something, rather than having to constantly recalculate how many they have and monitor their every move,” added Janečková.
In addition to kindergartens, there is also interest in localizers in interest circles, for example in orienteering clubs. Older children can also use the locator as an SOS button.
The advantage of the device is that it does not collect any personal data. It is not possible to find out which child has which tracker. If some are lost, it is up to the teacher to notice which one is missing. Despite this, there are concerns.
”It is a question of whether it is really okay to track the location of children. If we were to consider implementing it, we would have to communicate really well with parents and explain to them how the technology works and how and under what conditions we would track children,” I think, for example deputy mayor for Prague Mariana Čapková.
However, if the locators prove themselves, the district plans to expand them to other kindergartens and interest groups.
luk, TN.cz