The teachermate is not going to replace the OLPC anytime soon, but I have to appreciate all attempts to forward the cause of educational technology. The new gadget, by Innovations for Learning (a Chicago not-for-profit), was designed for children in early elementary school, who its creators hope will be “instantly attracted to its resemblance to a handheld game. Gizmodo’s article on the teachermate summed up its hardware specs: “directional buttons, a few face buttons, a 2.5-inch LCD, USB sync, SD card storage, AC/USB charging, and a 3.5-hour battery life.” The unit costs $50, but the educational software costs $20, coming to a grand total of $70 per pupil.
The teachermate educational software consists of reading and math programs, which, according to the teachermate website “have been painstakingly aligned to all of the leading reading and math programs.” All of the instructions and other language in the programs are available in English and Spanish, and the teacher can determine what mix of languages each student needs. Although this was probably designed for teaching English, it would probably also be fabulous for teaching Spanish to early elementary school students. I’m concerned that only reading and math are covered; it just reminds me how badly NCLB has twisted our idea of what education is.
There is also a “classroom management program,” with which the teacher can access information about how much time each student (or the whole class) is spending on reading and math, how much Spanish support each student is using, etc. They can also print out progress reports. The new technology will be debuting in Chicago Public Schools soon. (Yeah, Chicago!)
Thank you for posting about our new handheld computer. I enjoyed even more your post about reforming education. K-12 education does need an overhaul, and hopefully your generation will make that happen. I believe that technology can be used as a wedge to enable change, but to date most technology has been either ineffective or has served the status quo.
Let me know if you would like to see our teachermates in action. We are in schools not far from you.
Seth Weinberger
Executive Director
Innovations for Learning
seth@innovationsforlearning.org