Research On Interactive Educational Toy In The Context Of Information Technology

Information technology, as one of the new cultural characteristics in 21st century, has become more and more popular in both high-tech industries and children's daily life. Computers, TVs and many other kinds of multimedia technologies can be found almost everywhere around children now. Interactive educational toy, product of IT development, has caught much attention from educational experts, parents and toy manufacturers, and brings new topics on the children's development and education.The research starts from the definition of interaction. Firstly, it makes detail description on the various factors, which include product features, functions, the development history, design and relation with the children's development. Then the thesis continues with the application actuality of interactive educational toys in China through the analysis of the survey on parents, teachers and children. Finally, researcher gives some suggestions on the cooperation of toy industries, Publication industries and Education domain.Interaction is the kernel of interactive toys, which is the basic difference between traditional toys. Interactive educational toy is full of high-tech factors under the simple and interesting interface and human-oriented interactive function, which make them more suitable for children to play and learn. The designing of interactive toys is some kind of systematic work. Through the whole process of designing, R&D and manufacturing, toy's designers and engineers need to consider many factors such as technologies, specialties of children's etc.General research on the effects of interactive educational toys on development of children are still absent. Primary researches point out that interactive toys is more interesting, attractive and helpful to children's learning, although it brings some risks of making children over-indulged in playing with toys rather than contact and communicate with other people. The research found out most of the teachers interviewed thought interaction and interests as the most distinct characteristics of interactive toys comparing with traditional toys and also considered to be important of their being friends of children and being helpful to children's intelligent development. Parents believed interactive educational toys could play a useful and favorable role during their children's childhood, but at the same time they also worried children would be absorbed in toys and would not want to play with their peers. Children showed great interests on the interactive educational toys, though many of them could not keep their interests for a long time. As a matter of fact, interactive educational toys are far from being popular in China now. Many of the parents and teachers knew little of this new kind of toy. There are a lot to be...