Osmo: Toy or Learning System Identifying a Road to Success

An OSMO reference document hosted on edCircuit with permission from Osmo.

Written by:

MARIANN ESZYMANSKI and REBECCA CASTILLO

Pramod Sharma was working on his computer as his young son tugged at him to come and play. Too often, parents faced the dilemma of watching their child play on their own or playing and interacting with them. Modern-day technology, educators, researchers and lifestyle patterns indicated that learning skills continued with self-play, but these kinds of playthings still left parents wondering what these toys were teaching. Were children retaining the knowledge they were learning?

Combined with early learning and schoolwork, were children learning faster? Were tech toys depleting other life and learning skills from a child when they could be interacting with others?

As a father, Sharma saw firsthand his children’s fascination with technology. Specifically, they loved playing on iPads, and he noticed how quickly they grasped the concepts of navigating one. At the same time, he noticed how quickly the field of education was changing, and how it was merging with technology to create a new field: educational technology (EdTech). Teachers, parents and entrepreneurs began to see the vast number of possibilities for using technology to revolutionize education, create a better experience for students and make learning more accessible. This was evident in new technology like SMART Boards1, interactive whiteboards that became widely popular in classrooms throughout the 2000s, shifting away from outdated overhead projectors. The buzz around EdTech continued to grow. In the early 2010s, Google launched its file-sharing program for teachers, Remind launched an app that allowed teachers to safely message students and Kahoot! launched its game-based learning platform.

Read the rest in the attached PDF.