WHAT YOU TALKIN' 'BOUT, WILLIS?

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So, here it is. A very good educational toy product that does not work with Windows Media Center 2004, but pretty well with just about any other DVD player.

InteracTV by Fisher-Price: Children’s television you can feel good about.

The Fisher-Price InteracTV DVD-based Learning System is a very simple concept, with very lofty goals. It is essentially nothing more than an oversized universal remote control for your DVD player and a collection of specialized interactive DVDs similar to Scene It? But what it accomplishes is so much more. The product actually has the potential to take one of our worst vices as a parent—allowing our children to watch television, and make it a virtue.

The innovative product uses existing technology, DVD players found in most homes, and programs that your child is already familiar with. These include: Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob, Scooby-Doo, and many more. As the program progresses, the characters ask your child a series of questions. This level of interactivity has been going on in children’s television for years, but now there is a distinct difference. Your child can answer back.

The packaging of the product indicates that the system allows children “to interact with their favorite characters and shows in a fun and educational way.” The curriculum includes about 100 learning questions that are included during each show. This supports the claim that this toy is focused on the child’s cognitive development skills. The box lists a variety of learning objectives that can be achieved as the child uses the toy. Perhaps even more important than these is the way this product can change the experience of television viewing for your child for years to come.

Jackson loves television.
My two and half year old son loves watching TV. He would watch TV all day long, every day! Early on in his television viewing we were amazed at how quickly he learned the names of characters on TV. He often knew names for programs that he had not even seen. Despite our best efforts to ban certain programs we didn’t like, Jackson was learning about them from storybooks, advertisements on other children’s T-shirts and sneakers, and talk amongst children at his daycare.

What is the harm in watching television? I did it. So did my wife. And we both seem relatively normal. We both even went to college and have respectable jobs. Television didn’t ruin our lives. Yet you hear so much negativity about children’s television viewing these days. News programs and magazine articles suggest all types of negative outcomes for children from watching too much TV. You might think allowing your child to watch television was on a par with encouraging your child to smoke cigarettes or drop out of school. But what does the research really say?

Children’s TV Viewing: How much is too much?
In my graduate program I am doing my research on children’s television. In a review of literature on children’s television I found that children’s viewing habits were shown to have effects on subsequent learning patterns. A great deal of research points out that even too much viewing of educational programs such as Sesame Street can have negative effects . This is usually said to be caused by displacing other important learning activities such as reading and social interaction. Another concern that has been heavily researched in recent years is the relationship of children’s television viewing and childhood obesity. Because of these concerns, the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for reduced levels of television viewing in children ages 2 and up, and urges parents of children under 2 to not allow any viewing at all (http://www.aap.org/family/smarttv.htm).

I was concerned about the possible negative effects that watching too much television could have on my child. The literature I reviewed led me to the summary that any amount over two hours each day may be too much television. With that general rule of thumb in mind, my wife and I have decided to do “No TV” nights, in which we plan activities that would otherwise have been replaced by sitting in front of the television. Of course these don’t completely counteract “Movie Nights” where we purposely all watch television together, but at the end of the week we believe our average viewing time is lowered to about 2 hours per day or less.

What kind of viewing is taking place?
Other research into children’s television has shown that it is equally important that we pay attention to how our children are watching television. Does your child slump back on the couch and barely blink or do she jump and down when something funny happens? Does he clam up when Dora the Explorer or Steve from Blue’s Clues asks a question, or is he calling out the answers? Does your child seem to be interacting and engaged, or catatonic? These behaviors may indicate whether a child is an active or a passive viewer of television.

This is where Fisher-Price’s InteracTV system shines—in creating a more interactive learning experience out of an activity otherwise referred to as being a couch potato. The system encourages a more interaction with the content of the programs and compels the child to think critically, rather than just viewing the content hypnotically. This new way of viewing television can develop into patterns of engaged viewing that last a lifetime.

Engaged viewing is when your child is plugged in and engaged while watching a program. When a child is actively engaged in watching a TV program, he uses the same cognitive skills as are used when reading a book. In cognitive learning theory, knowledge is thought to be created when a child is actively involved. Jean Piaget, renowned psychologist, emphasized that children aged 2 to 7 need new concrete experiences upon which to build learning cognitive structures—the building blocks of knowledge (http://www.funderstanding.com/piaget.cfm).

The Fisher-Price InteracTV system causes a child to be more engaged while viewing. They do this by periodically pausing the action during which the characters ask questions. Your child must then press the appropriate button on the InteracTV controller before the program will continue. If wrong buttons are pressed the question is either repeated or advice is given on getting it right. This series of questions is repeated each time the game is played, but they are randomized and the answers are never in the same order on the screen. In this way, the experience is never the same for the child.

What do children learn while watching television?
When children watch television they learn quite a bit more than just what is presented on the screen. They learn patterns of viewing behaviors that will last for many years to come. If the pattern that is learned is that of a “couch potato,” it is very likely that the child will not be interested in challenges and critical thinking opportunities that appear in other media as well.

In a study of the effects of children’s viewing of learning-based programs such as Blue’s Clues it was found that viewing such a program can affect how a child watches other shows (Crawley et al., 2002). For instance, if children begin watching television that is entertainment-based, they will more likely watch other shows passively. This is true even of educational shows which present material in a straightforward manner, but do not ask the child to participate in meaningful ways. If the child is not encouraged to interact with the material by their parents, they will likely zone out, and not construct new knowledge with the presented material.

On the other hand, if children watch shows that are learning-based first, they will be more likely to be engaged, interactive viewers of many different types of programs—and of other types of media as well (van den Broek, 2001). This is particularly encouraging for Fisher-Price and other toy manufacturers, as well as television production companies, because they would like to use children’s television to help build reading and literacy skills, rather than taking away from them. Rather than allowing television to displace activities such as reading and play that promote learning (Wan, 2000), TV can actually be a source for all of the above.

InteracTV has the potential to take this to a whole new level, largely due to its most important selling point—it’s fun! The product is a game, and it is a game that kids will want to play. Yes, children can learn by playing with it. They can learn math, vocabulary, and observation skills as the packaging suggests. But most importantly they are learning to be active, engaged viewers. This is a learning behavior that will be important for them in years to come as they encounter other forms of media. Will they be mesmerized by the screens of videogames and dulled to sleep by textbooks? Or will they interact with television programs and dig deep into books to find the answers their brains are wired toward figuring out? I believe that InteracTV has the capability to expand a child’s capacity for critical thinking, for developing a curious mind, and for making the most of their entertainment-time—teaching them that learning can be and is fun.

Final Analysis
There are just a few drawbacks to this product that a parent must consider. It does heavily encourage TV viewing. If your child is already having difficulty tearing him or herself away from the tube, you may want to consider buying a few more books and investing in a pair of earplugs as you guide them through TV withdrawals. But, if you can incorporate InteracTV into a healthy TV diet of no more than 2 hours per day, this product definitely has the potential to fulfill a variety of learning outcomes.

A quick check of user reviews online will tell you that several people have had trouble with the setup of the DVD remote controller. My tests worked fine with all of the suggested methods of teaching the remote to work with my DVD player. I never could get it to work with my Windows Media Center PC however, even though it uses an infrared remote control and has all of the same buttons as my DVD player’s remote.

The price and flexibility of this product’s being able to work with the majority of DVD players on the market make it a very effective and relatively low-cost educational toy. It is both age appropriate and safe, though it should never be used as a sitter for your child, which is generally the problem with children’s television viewing. If you are in the market for something that will cause your child to tune in to the learning possibilities offered by educational television, rather than vegging out while watching any form of TV, I highly recommend this product.

References

Crawley, A., Daniel R. Anderson, Angela Santomero, Alice Wilder, Marsha
Williams, Marie K. Evans, Jennings Bryant. (2002). Do children learn to watch television? The impact of extensive experience with Blue’s Clues on pre-school children’s television viewing behavior. Journal of Communication. June 2002. 264-280.

Piaget. Retrieved Feb. 01, 2006, from Funderstanding Web site: http://www.funderstanding.com/piaget.cfm.

Smart Guide to Kid's TV. American Academy of Pediatrics. Retrieved Nov. 20, 2005, from http://www.aap.org/family/smarttv.htm.

van den Broek, P. (2001). The role of television viewing in the development of reading comprehension. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved November 17, 2005, from www.ciera.org/library/archive/2001-01/04Oct99-58-MSarchive.html.

Wan, G. (2000). “Barney and Friends”: An evaluation of the literacy learning environment created by the TV series for children. (ERIC Document Reproduction No. ED 438 900).

Posted by cmwillis at February 7, 2006 10:58 PM | TrackBack