December 2003 — Industry Perspective
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Difference by Design: Taking Learning Tools From the Home into the Classroom
When the pen nearly touches a "hot spot," its location is instantly triangulated and transmitted by radio frequency to a receiver built into the product. LeapFrog acquired the company that first developed this technology and, with the same engineering team, created the first paper-based multimedia device, the LeapPad in 1999. This new media has been used to teach children everything from phonics and reading to math, music and science.To be suitable for use within a school-based setting, however, designers have to go beyond thinking just about how a child will interact with a product, regardless of its technology. After all, the needs of a teacher in a classroom with 10 or 20 children and curriculum to follow are vastly different from those of a parent.
To explain the distinction, let me briefly trace the evolution of one product from its original consumer incarnation to the edition developed for schools. LeapFrog was launched in 1995 with a home-consumer product called the PhonicsDesk, which integrated basic touch and audio technologies. The product used uppercase letters and taught letter names and sounds, consonants, short and long vowels, diphthongs, digraphs, and R-controlled vowels. Teachers were buying these products in retail stores to use in their classrooms. They would write or call, telling us how they loved the products and how this multisensory device had helped students in their classrooms "crack the code" on phonics.
Then, in 1999, we developed a classroom version of the product called LeapDesk. It offered teachers a more advanced voice chip, added uppercase and lowercase letters, industrialized many of the components, added an AC adapter, and inserted an assessment and prescriptive teaching component. We listened to teachers and added the features they needed to make the product beneficial in their classrooms.
Providing More Content in Smaller Chunks
Another significant difference between designing learning products for consumers at home and those for schools lies in how content is handled. While the same concepts and skills may be covered in both versions, products made for schools will incorporate additional practice and will break the content down into smaller portions.
Designers of learning systems for schools recognize that a high degree of granularity is needed to match the realities of how students actually acquire skills and learn concepts. Not only do educators teach very specific skills, they also teach them in extremely small and discrete chunks. Thus, a phonics product for the consumer market might provide four hours of total instruction on diphthongs, whereas a similar product designed for use in schools would supply seven hours of instruction on the topic plus many more opportunities for students who need extra instruction to practice.
Content will always be a high priority for educators. Teachers will embrace instructional technology as a long-term tool once they find it effective in their classroom. They will go to great lengths adapting lessons so that they can differentiate instruction. Parents, on the other hand, are more focused on the immediate, specific needs of their children.
How well a technology-based learning tool can deliver differentiated instruction is another priority of teachers. The ability to deliver a highly personalized learning path, based on students' current skill levels, and provide one-on-one instruction without the need for intervention are clearly of more interest to a teacher with 25 students in the classroom than to a parent with only two children in the family room.
