HK1062069A1 - An educational device - Google Patents

Abstract

An educational device includes an output device (10) and a remote input device coupled to the output device (10). The input device includes a character input device and the output device (10) comprising a character output device (14). The output device (10) is in the form of a toy.

Description

Education equipment

Technical Field

The present invention relates to an educational apparatus, and more particularly, to an educational apparatus for young children.

Background

Children, particularly those in the infancy stage, understand their environment by sensing the rules, patterns, and components of their surrounding world. This learning mode is a natural, but not conscious, behavior of all children. Children learn the rules of the language from the utterances spoken around them. A child can naturally learn in this manner as long as he is effectively provided with sufficient information in the environment in which he is located. At the beginning of birth, children usually receive auditory language stimuli first and then visual language stimuli. Therefore, children can understand words first and then understand words.

Therefore, in order to make children develop their language ability as early as possible, it is considered to make them receive the language and social interaction ability as early as possible, and make them receive the stimulation of both auditory and visual languages.

The traditional education equipment achieves the purpose of learning language by depending on the user to operate the equipment, which requires enough knowledge and ability of the operator. For those children, however, such language learning devices are clearly unsuitable due to their lack of sufficient knowledge and ability to effectively operate the device.

Disclosure of Invention

According to the present invention, an educational apparatus comprises an output device and a remote input device coupled to the output device, the input device comprising a character input device and the output device comprising a character output device.

Preferably, the character output means comprises sound generating means, such as a speaker.

Typically, the character output device includes a display device. The display device may be used to display graphics in addition to characters. For example, the displayed graphic may be a graphic corresponding to a character or a series of characters forming a word. Typically, the pattern is retrievable from a memory, located in or coupled to the input or output device.

Preferably, the character output means includes sound generation means and display means for simultaneously displaying the characters output by the sound generation means.

Preferably, the character input means may comprise an alphanumeric or other character, a keyboard. However, the language input device may comprise any other suitable device, such as a touch screen, which allows alphanumeric or other characters to be written to the input device on the screen. For example, the other characters may not be in a latin alphabet based language, such as russian, arabic, chinese, or japanese.

Typically, the input device may be coupled to the output device by a wire connection, or may be a suitable wireless link.

Preferably the output device is in the form of a child's toy. Typically, the toy may be in the form of a robot, and may also include portions that move, for example, in response to commands entered through an input device.

Typically, the input device may include a microphone to allow characters to be entered verbally.

Drawings

Embodiments of an educational apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of an input device.

Fig. 2 is a front view of an educational toy coupled to the input device of fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is a block diagram of the input device shown in fig. 1.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the educational toy of FIG. 2;

fig. 5 is a flowchart of language operation when the input device shown in fig. 1 and 3 is connected to the educational toy shown in fig. 2 and 4.

Detailed Description

Fig. 1 shows an input device 1 in the form of a portable or laptop device comprising a conventional keyboard 2 with numbers, letters, punctuation marks (e.g. comma, period, semicolon), and editing keys. The device 1 also includes a 50 character rear projection LCD display 3 which displays the characters entered by the keyboard 2. In addition, there is a set of control buttons 4, switches 5, switch buttons 6 for controlling the rear projection lights of the display 3, and a corresponding display on the educational toy 10 (see fig. 2), toggle switches 7 for switching between the automatic mode and the speech pause, and a microphone 8. Input device 1 is coupled to educational toy 10 by wires 9. Alternatively, toy 10 may be coupled by any conventional wireless means.

Toy 10 may be designed to look like a modern robot having a body 11 and independently movable arms 12 connected to body 11 so that arms 12 move up and down. The body 11 comprises a rear projection (backlight) LCD display 13, two loudspeakers 14, a volume control 15, two signal lights made of light emitting diodes 16. In addition, body 11 includes a battery compartment (not shown) for housing a battery for powering educational toy 10. The battery may be a general-purpose battery, and may be a rechargeable battery. In addition to being battery powered, toy device 10 may also be connected to an external power source, such as an electrical outlet.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of the input device 1 and the components shown in fig. 1, and the input device 1 further includes a microprocessor 20, an LCD driver 21, a Read Only Memory (ROM)22, and a Random Access Memory (RAM) 23. All keys and buttons 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 shown in fig. 1 are collectively denoted by reference numeral 24 in fig. 3. ROM22 stores a dictionary for spell checking. When a character is entered via the keypad 2, the processor 20 instructs the LCD driver 21 to display the character on the display 3. Further, the processor 20 also checks each word input with the keyboard 2 against the dictionary stored in the ROM 22. The spell check is performed before the operator "enters" the string, which enables the entered string to be sent to toy microprocessor 20. Fig. 4 shows a schematic block diagram of educational toy 10. Toy 10 includes a microprocessor 30 that receives instructions from input device 1 via line 9. The microprocessor 30 is also connected to an LCD driver 31 for driving the LCD display 13, an audio driver 32 for driving the speaker 14, a Random Access Memory (RAM)33 and a Read Only Memory (ROM) 34. The ROM34 includes text-to-speech conversion software that allows text input by the input device 1 to be converted into sound signals when the toggle switch 7 is placed in the automatic mode. The speaker 14 pronounces the character string in the correct pronunciation while the inputted character string is displayed on the LCD display 13. There is also software stored in the ROM34 for displaying the character string displayed on the display 13 as "highlighting" while the speaker is speaking.

The microphone 8 is connected directly to the loudspeaker 14 via a connection 9, and when the switch 7 is placed in the "speech pause" mode, the microphone function is activated. In this mode, the text-to-speech conversion software, as well as the "highlighting" software, will not function.

In addition, microprocessor 30 receives signals from control buttons 4 and, in response to the signals, controls a motor (not shown) to cause toy 10 to travel in different directions and move arm 12.

In a particular use, a user, such as a teacher, or other adult who wants to teach a child to use toy 1, may activate educational toy 2 by simply activating switch button 39 on input device 1. When input device 1 and toy 2 are activated, microprocessor 20 on input device 1 alerts the operator to input data 40 via display device 3. Thus, the operator can input the characters 41 through the keyboard 2. While the user inputs the character 41 using the keyboard 2, the inputted character is displayed on the LCD display device 3. This allows the user to check the characters entered to ensure that they are correct and any modifications can be made. Further, the microprocessor 20 checks the spellings of all words with reference to a dictionary stored in the ROM 22.

After the user checks that the entered characters are correct, the user presses the "enter" key, which causes the processor to send the string to toy 10 via wire 9. The processor 30 receives the character string from the input device 1 and displays it on the display 13 via the LCD driver 31. Meanwhile, the processor 30 converts characters received from the input device 1 into a voice command using text-to-speech software in the ROM34 and sends the voice command to the sound driver 32 to drive the speaker 14 so that the speaker 14 can pronounce the displayed characters while the display 13 displays the characters.

When in auto-touch mode, if the characters can constitute a word, the sound emitted by the speaker 14 will be the pronunciation of the word. Otherwise, the spoken sound is the corresponding phonetic pronunciation. In addition, when the characters are output through the speaker 14, the processor 30 will run highlighting software stored in the ROM34 to highlight the pronounced characters simultaneously on the display 13.

In addition to the automatic mode, the user can select the "speech off" mode by means of the switch 7. This makes the text-to-speech conversion function inoperative and the user can read the character string displayed on the display 13 directly against the microphone 8. The sound signal will be transmitted directly to the speaker 14 through the wire 9 and output by the speaker 14. In addition, highlighting software in the ROM34 also does not work.

In addition, the user can control the activities of the educational toy 10, for example, moving the arm 12 up and down; flashing the LED 16; and if educational toy 10 is equipped with an operating means (e.g., wheels), the toy can be rotated back and forth, left and right, clockwise and counterclockwise.

In addition to displaying characters, the display device 13 may also be used to display graphical images. Typically, the ROM34 may also include a gallery (graphics library), and the processor 30 may retrieve from the ROM34 a graphical image corresponding to a word sent to the processor by the input device and display the graphical image on the display device 13.

One advantage of the present invention is: a user may use educational toy 10 to interactively communicate with a student, such as a toddler, and cause educational toy 10 to respond appropriately to the student's response. In addition, by displaying these words on the display 13 when the student pronounces, the student is helped to associate specific pronunciations with specific glyphs, thereby improving reading and language skills.

Furthermore, the student does not need to operate the device himself, and therefore the invention is particularly suitable for young children and for students whose manual skills have not yet fully developed or have difficulty operating the device.

Through remote control of a user, the toy 10 can be interactively communicated with students in a plurality of real scenes. One benefit of this is that the real scene can be determined by the toy and the student in real time, rather than being pre-defined.

The device may also act as a virtual playmate and/or animated puppet for students, allowing dynamic development of the relationship between the students and the toy, and developing personalization of the robotic toy. Therefore, it is helpful to develop imagination of students.

Claims (7)

1. An educational apparatus comprising an output device and a remote input device coupled to the output device, the input device being operable to transmit characters to the output device and the output device comprising a character output device, the character output device comprising a sound generating device and a display device, whereby characters transmitted by the input device are output by the sound generating device and simultaneously displayed on the display device, wherein the output device is in the form of a toy.

2. The educational device of claim 1, wherein when the character is output by the sound generating means, the character is further highlighted by the display means.

3. The educational device of claim 1, wherein the display means is for displaying a graphical image.

4. The educational apparatus of claim 1, wherein the input device comprises a keyboard.

5. The educational apparatus of claim 1, wherein the input device comprises a touch screen.

6. The educational apparatus of claim 1, wherein the toy is a robot image.

7. The educational device of claim 1, wherein the input means comprises a microphone.