The Times: Technology for children
Toys are becoming increasingly high-tech. But as parents rush to buy 'interactive learning aids', would their offspring be better off with wooden blocks? By David Rowan
They are sold as "educational learning aids", "IQ enhancers" or "interactive learning tools", but children's computers certainly are not mere toys. As competition in the billion-pound-plus educational market intensifies, companies such as Oregon Scientific and Tomy are scrambling to package the latest technological innovations for consumers who are barely out of the crib.
In the UK, 62 per cent of homes with children contain electronic toys with an educational premise, according to Research International. This is a higher proportion even than those with computers. This year alone, VTech, the market leader, will launch 40 new products, ranging from the £40 Discover Handheld computer for five- to six-year-olds to the £130 Researcher Notebook laptop aimed at nine-year-olds.
Both, naturally, can beam data using an infrared port and can synch with a PC to send and receive files over the Internet. Yet, as with their adult equivalents, today's must-have item quickly becomes obsolete. On average, VTech manufactures a product for just two years. Coloured bricks never presented that problem.
"The next generation of products will be Web-enabled," says Andrew Dickson, UK managing director of VTech. "And just as you are starting to see cameras integrated with mobile phones, children's PDAs will soon have cameras, too."
Junior hand-held computers will offer video streaming, and allow children to talk to each other using Bluetooth wireless networks. And, as chips accommodate ever-greater volumes of voice data, the toys will also talk back to you in any number of languages.
"Software is central to the development of a lot of our products," Dickson says. The company is working on toys that attempt to teach children "lifestyle" skills - from good manners to techniques for managing stress, and even their pocket money.
Traditionalists may dismiss such developments, but the Bermuda-based company wields huge influence in the nation's playrooms. Each year it sells 200,000 copies of its battery-powered Nursery Rhymes Book, offering three-month-olds "friendly phrases and sound-effects to enhance play", and 100,000 of its First Steps Plus baby-walkers ("includes flashing lights and melodies to stimulate baby's senses").
The company insists that its toys develop a child's imagination and teach new skills in a safe environment. Some educationists, however, are concerned about children's playthings becoming increasingly technology-focused.
Diane Levin, an education professor at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts, who has studied how children respond to electronic toys, believes that such products can hinder a child's healthy development. "Children make sense of the world through play," she says. "But an electronic toy controls the agenda. It impedes children's own exploration and discovery and mastery of their world, leading to children with shorter attention spans and a need to be entertained."
Levin's research suggests that the more high-tech toys a child owns, the more frequent the complaints of boredom. She cites another company's Teletubbies cot toy, which plays music and projects a light pattern on the ceiling to comfort and soothe the baby. "They learn that you get comforted by passivity," says Levin. "Compare that with a baby who discovers his own toes when he is upset. There is this sensory motor experience, and he learns that when he feels bad, he can chew on his toes. The baby is in control."
For all their digital bells and synthesised whistles, electronic toys have yet to convince critics such as Levin that they offer more than technology-packed appeal to parental anxieties.
"They play on parents' insecurities," she says. "And what parent does not want to give their child a head start?"
++++
Discovery Handheld (VTech). £39.99.
Reviewed by Claudia Rowan, 4
"This is green and has orange buttons and an orange pencil to draw with. I have lost the pencil, I think. I did not like it because it was too hard to understand what to do. I think it is for older children. You can carry the little computer in your hand and plug it into the big computer, but I do not know why. It is hard to fit them together. It make silly noises and a man talks to you to tell you to choose something."
Parent's comments: "A PDA packed with features that are way beyond this four-year-old, for whom concepts such as 'docking with the PC' and 'infrared beaming' might as well be Latin. Too clever."
Verdict: 4/10
++++
Pixter (Fisher-Price Toys). £50approx.
Reviewed by Claudia Rowan, 4
"I liked this the best because it let me draw. You have to copy houses and trace the dot-to-dots with a special pen on the screen. Drawing faces was the best part. It was hard to work out how to get rid of a picture, and I didn't understand the little pictures that it made me choose from (icons around the screen) - but Daddy told me I could rub out my pictures and choose new things to draw. It makes too much noise. You don't need music when you are drawing."
Parent's comments: "An effective expansion of the magnetic drawing pad with plenty of scope for a child's imagination."
Verdict: 8/10
(The Times, May 22 2002)
They are sold as "educational learning aids", "IQ enhancers" or "interactive learning tools", but children's computers certainly are not mere toys. As competition in the billion-pound-plus educational market intensifies, companies such as Oregon Scientific and Tomy are scrambling to package the latest technological innovations for consumers who are barely out of the crib.
In the UK, 62 per cent of homes with children contain electronic toys with an educational premise, according to Research International. This is a higher proportion even than those with computers. This year alone, VTech, the market leader, will launch 40 new products, ranging from the £40 Discover Handheld computer for five- to six-year-olds to the £130 Researcher Notebook laptop aimed at nine-year-olds.
Both, naturally, can beam data using an infrared port and can synch with a PC to send and receive files over the Internet. Yet, as with their adult equivalents, today's must-have item quickly becomes obsolete. On average, VTech manufactures a product for just two years. Coloured bricks never presented that problem.
"The next generation of products will be Web-enabled," says Andrew Dickson, UK managing director of VTech. "And just as you are starting to see cameras integrated with mobile phones, children's PDAs will soon have cameras, too."
Junior hand-held computers will offer video streaming, and allow children to talk to each other using Bluetooth wireless networks. And, as chips accommodate ever-greater volumes of voice data, the toys will also talk back to you in any number of languages.
"Software is central to the development of a lot of our products," Dickson says. The company is working on toys that attempt to teach children "lifestyle" skills - from good manners to techniques for managing stress, and even their pocket money.
Traditionalists may dismiss such developments, but the Bermuda-based company wields huge influence in the nation's playrooms. Each year it sells 200,000 copies of its battery-powered Nursery Rhymes Book, offering three-month-olds "friendly phrases and sound-effects to enhance play", and 100,000 of its First Steps Plus baby-walkers ("includes flashing lights and melodies to stimulate baby's senses").
The company insists that its toys develop a child's imagination and teach new skills in a safe environment. Some educationists, however, are concerned about children's playthings becoming increasingly technology-focused.
Diane Levin, an education professor at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts, who has studied how children respond to electronic toys, believes that such products can hinder a child's healthy development. "Children make sense of the world through play," she says. "But an electronic toy controls the agenda. It impedes children's own exploration and discovery and mastery of their world, leading to children with shorter attention spans and a need to be entertained."
Levin's research suggests that the more high-tech toys a child owns, the more frequent the complaints of boredom. She cites another company's Teletubbies cot toy, which plays music and projects a light pattern on the ceiling to comfort and soothe the baby. "They learn that you get comforted by passivity," says Levin. "Compare that with a baby who discovers his own toes when he is upset. There is this sensory motor experience, and he learns that when he feels bad, he can chew on his toes. The baby is in control."
For all their digital bells and synthesised whistles, electronic toys have yet to convince critics such as Levin that they offer more than technology-packed appeal to parental anxieties.
"They play on parents' insecurities," she says. "And what parent does not want to give their child a head start?"
++++
Discovery Handheld (VTech). £39.99.
Reviewed by Claudia Rowan, 4
"This is green and has orange buttons and an orange pencil to draw with. I have lost the pencil, I think. I did not like it because it was too hard to understand what to do. I think it is for older children. You can carry the little computer in your hand and plug it into the big computer, but I do not know why. It is hard to fit them together. It make silly noises and a man talks to you to tell you to choose something."
Parent's comments: "A PDA packed with features that are way beyond this four-year-old, for whom concepts such as 'docking with the PC' and 'infrared beaming' might as well be Latin. Too clever."
Verdict: 4/10
++++
Pixter (Fisher-Price Toys). £50approx.
Reviewed by Claudia Rowan, 4
"I liked this the best because it let me draw. You have to copy houses and trace the dot-to-dots with a special pen on the screen. Drawing faces was the best part. It was hard to work out how to get rid of a picture, and I didn't understand the little pictures that it made me choose from (icons around the screen) - but Daddy told me I could rub out my pictures and choose new things to draw. It makes too much noise. You don't need music when you are drawing."
Parent's comments: "An effective expansion of the magnetic drawing pad with plenty of scope for a child's imagination."
Verdict: 8/10
(The Times, May 22 2002)
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