Well, remember when I ‘reviewed’ the Teachermate PC a few posts ago? Basically I slammed it for three reasons: 1) It’s not a PC if it can only run proprietary software 2) It doesn’t cost $50 if you HAVE to buy their software to make it even worthwhile to own and 3) Their website is wonky, and that’s putting it kindly.
After writing that post, I was contact via email by Seth Weinberger, the Executive Director of Innovations for Learning. He thought that if we had a chance to talk and see it firsthand, I might revise my opinion of the Teachermate.
I gotta admit, he was right about two of those three items.
The one thing he was wrong about is the website. It’s slow and clunky, but even worse, it’s incredibly misleading. Part of the reason I blasted the device is because they’re calling it a Handheld Computer. It is NOT a handheld computer. At least, not by the colloquial definition. Rather, it’s a custom built platform designed to run their reading and math software.
What’s the difference there? Quite a bit. As Seth shared with me, they’ve spent 15 years developing reading and math software for students grades K-3. A serious amount of time and research has been put in to make it integrate tightly into the core curriculum (textbook), and really target students at their exact ability level. The software is the breakthrough. The hardware is a means for putting that software in students hands.
You’re probably thinking, why not just box it up and sell it? Seems as though they’ve been doing that. Trouble is, most classrooms don’t have a 1:1 environment. In a typical early elementary classroom, there are 1-5 computers, and 3-4 of them are sometimes working, sometimes not. T he one computer that DOES work… is on the teachers desk, not to be touched by student hands. Yes, they do visit the computer lab, but not to learn reading skills, rather to learn computer skills.
So what they did was they built a custom hardware platform SPECIFICALLY to run their software. That puts an entirely different spin on things. So perhaps the issue isn’t so much a matter of deceptive practice (billing it as a $50 PC), rather misguided marketing combined with sensationalized reporting.
Gotta share a few other tidbits that I learned while talking to Seth. I loved the idea of the Sync and Store case for its simplicity, but I didn’t realize how critical it was to use these devices effectively. The idea is, once per week the teacher goes into the classroom management software and marks off where each student is for reading and math, at a class, group, or individual level. Then, the device will load up lessons that are specific to that students’ level! The device won’t have the entire year stored on it. Heck, it won’t even have the entire unit. It will have just the lessons that the individual student would need for that week. VERY targeted. Of course, the flip side is that students’ answers/responses are recorded and uploaded to the teachers’ computer at next sync so they have a solid idea how the student is doing.
Another tidbit that almost blew me off my chair was how they’re using the microphone. The example he showed me was the Teachermate displaying an image along with a sentence below it. Then, using the built in speaker, you would hear a person read the phrase aloud. After hearing it read aloud (highlighting the words along the way), the student would repeat it back. The microphone would record the student reading it. Then, it would play the original voice reading it, the student reading it and the original once again. So the student had the ability to compare their own reading and inflection to the original! Not only that, but those recordings? They also get transfered over to the teachers computer so he or she can HEAR how the student is doing. Just think how powerful that would be to be able to break out during conferences and share with parents.
But wait, that’s not all! After reading a story (or watching an animated story), students can even choose characters from the story, stamp them on the screen, type out their own story via the onscreen keyboard (yucky, but kids are doing it anyway on their video game systems all the time), and then NARRATE IT using the microphone. The whole thing is saved and can be transfered over to the teachers computer. I know what you’re going to ask next, and no, there is no way to publish those just yet, but it’s on the list for 2.0.
Starting to get the idea why I’ve changed my opinion of the device on the whole? This is not a PC. Calling it one just confuses things. Rather it’s an incredibly powerful 1:1 deployment of the Innovations for Learning Reading and Math programs.
Of course, the big giant unanswered question is whether it’s worth the roughly $100 per student it will cost to deploy throughout your K-3 classrooms. To be honest, I don’t know. We’ll have to see what the research says once it comes in. My gut feeling says students will wind up with positive results. Could those results have come about another way without spending the money? Probably. But at the same time, this is such a no-brainer to deploy that substitutes could use it easily with little to no training. In an era where teaching quality has really come into question, this would certainly be a pretty powerful asset to any reading or math program.
Personally, I think they’re on to something here, and I’ll be watching them careful for future releases.
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