Pre-schoolers get a head start on tech learning with Smart Table

Baldwin Academy students learning on the Smart Table are (clockwise from left) Julian Cadena, Calli Browne, Corinna Antoni and Trevor Sandler. (Photo by Rachel Curtis)

A child care center on Hornblend Street has been selected as the first in all of Southern California to pilot an innovative new early-learning technology.

Smart Technologies, maker of the Smart Board that is popping up in classrooms and offices across the globe, is segueing into childhood education with a new device. The Smart Table essentially combines the same elements as the Smart Board — a touchable white board with a computer screen. However, its applications and physical configuration (picture a giant iPhone mounted on four legs) facilitate both intellectual and social interaction for little tykes.

With 27 years’ experience providing a structured curriculum designed to nurture early childhood development, the Baldwin Academy was a natural contender for the year-long trial. The center hosts six programs for each of the first years of life, from the baby Bluebirds (0 to 1-year-olds) to the kindergarten Parrots (5-year-olds). Each child has a set of age-appropriate skills to learn over the year that they must demonstrate before “flying up” to the next “nest.”

This year’s Parrots will be generating feedback on Smart Technologies’ latest development, but already Baldwin Academy President Herbert Perico feels certain the Smart Board will enhance the existing curriculum.

“The very first day we put the table in front of them, their hands were all over it,” he said, adding that the children benefit from “every aid we can have in repeating either letters, colors, textures or words, to keep them interested.”

The Smart Table functions as an interactive textbook, but feels like a toy. It allows kids to draw, write, play matching games and answer trivia, and teachers can even upload videos to supplement lessons. With as many as eight children at a time passing images back and forth or debating answers, the instrument also encourages cooperation and social function.

Perico thinks the state-of-the-art tool will be useful for teaching various ages, but recommends that children be at least 3 years old.

“It has to do with the discipline at the Table,” he said. “Some children are just too young; they can’t follow it.”

While there is no dearth of other teaching tools available, Perico believes the $8,000 Smart Table brings an extra component to the classroom that makes it worth every penny.

“By allowing them (the kids) to interact with something so friendly yet high-tech, we are putting them at the vanguard of technology,” he said. “Today’s world is made up of these little gadgets. If you don’t learn them, you’re behind, period.”

Rachel Curtis writes for the Beach & Bay Press, where this story was first published.

Tags: Baldwin Academy, Hornblend, iphone, preschool, SDNN, Smart Board, Smart Technologies, teaching

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