WePlaySmart and Early Learning

The human brain begins forming after three weeks of conception; therefore, when children are born, their brain continuously shape and develop, especially from birth to age of early education, they start to acquire information including social-emotional skills and memories that affects the next stage of human development. In this period, early education plays a key role for this important developmental period to sets the foundation for lifelong learning, behavior and health (Mustard, 2006).

In January 2012, the new Weplaysmart product was unveiled at Florida Educational Technology Conference(FETC) in Orlando, Florida. The new Weplaysmart is an innovative multi-touch table technology tool to assist early learners develop their social and emotional skills. Weplaysmart is the combination of technology and most recent research on social-emotional development to nurture positive peer relationship as well as to facilitate children involment in early learning. Young children having trouble controlling anger, struggling listening skills, lacking emotional awareness or do not want to participate with peers can be helped to develop social and emotional skills through Weplaysmart.

WePlaySmart is a research-based is a technological product to help children learn the cooperation, follow the instruction and solve problem. The system saves the data so the teacher can keep track of children’s progress and improve their learning outcomes. Recently, NationalAssociation for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has emphasized the role of technology in classroom as it can complement the teachers’ instruction.

Obviously, weplaysmart is a high-tech tool create kids an interesting learning environment i.e learning through playing. This research-based, age-appropriate technology product also facilitate young learners accumulate pre-school knowledge which will be useful for their study later. Nevertheless, the high-cost of this innovative product can be an obstable for most educational settings. It can be concluded that the implementation of technology should be thoughtfully considered, parents and teachers should monitor kids’ development process as well as create useful playground for children wholly physical and mental development.

References:

Mustard, J. F. (2006). Early Child Development and Experience-based Brain Development

 Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/childcare/oelf/continuum/continuum.pdf

http://withthebraininmind.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Trainer-Document-Final.pdf

http://www.hatchearlychildhood.com/Pages/early-learning-smart-table-how-it-works

http://coloradotechfairs.wikispaces.com/Florida+Educational+Technology+Conference+-+FETC 

http://www.naeyc.org/tyc/current