Running head: ITS Analysis

Intelligent Tutoring System Analysis

Mid-Term Paper ELPS 811

Michael Medeiros

University of Kansas

It was my birthday in 1979 when I received the best gift a child could receive.

Economically, times were tight in my family at that time. However, on that day I was
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given a Speak & Spell retailing for about $50, which would be near $200 today (Speak

& Spell). It was the only gift I received that year, but it was amazing. After that time, you

never would see me without my Speak & Spell.

The Speak & Spell was invented in 1978 by a team of four researchers for Texas

Instruments. It was a pioneering technology as it was the first electronic device that

emulated human speech without any moving parts (Speak & Spell). The product was a

handheld device that children could use to learn proper spelling. There was a keypad

that you could press to input letters as the machine prompted you to spell words

(VC&G).

My memory of the Speak & Spell makes the device more mystical than it is. In my

imagination, I remember this magical device that taught me endless words and had

many games on it. Even though the technology that went into the Speak & Spell was

innovative for its time, it was still a simple machine that only had about 200 words

preprogrammed into it (VC&G). Despite this, I carried it everywhere. I will never forget

the way it would pronounce certain words and I would sometimes answer incorrectly

because I loved the way it would say, That is incorrect, the correct spelling of the work

_____ is __ __ __ __ __. For a demo of the sounds, follow this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwWaeEyhPP0

English was never my best subject. I teach math these days, but math did not

become something I was particularly good at until high school. As an elementary

student, I loved to read and to write short stories. Words were much more important to

me than numbers, I am sure that the SPEAK & SPELL had something to do with this. I

would not have such fond memories of this device if it did not have a strong influence on

me. The Speak & Spell did not teach me how to use a word in context or anything about
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its definition. This was about learning to spell. I am not the worlds greatest speller

today but I usually know when I am spelling a word wrong. I think the Speak & Spell

gave me a foundation that carried into more advanced words. Since the Speak & Spell

only had 200 words, these were the only ones I learned from it. I have never, however,

misspelled the word stomach.

Inspiration for the Speak & Spell came from an earlier device called Little

Professor. Little Professor was a handheld device that would give a math problem that

the learner had to answer (Speak & Spell). This early math tool, also made by Texas

Instruments, led to the development of the Speak & Spell. Intended for very young

children, The Little Professor and the Speak & Spell helped with learning numbers,

letters, spelling, and basic math operations. The Speak & Spell did have a removable

memory card that you could update as the child grew and advanced. I did not get any of

these update cards myself.

Robert Wiggins, the lead engineer for the Speak & Spell, when asked for the aim

of the device, answered, To serve as a learning aid for spelling. (VC&G) Through my

research, I did not find anything that indicated formally trained educators were involved

with the technology. The four main contributors to the development of the Speak & Spell

were computer and manufacturing engineers, not educators. (VC&G)

Even though educators were not involved in the development of the Speak &

Spell, I feel they met their goal of creating learning aid for spelling. I did not realize I

was learning at the time. I just thought it was fun to play with. It had a hangman game,

you could ask for clues when you were stuck, and you could hit the repeat button ad

nauseam much to the chagrin of my parents, I am sure. When I see papers and essays

written by students I teach today, I think any student could have benefitted from a
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Speak & Spell. I learned that there were rules and structure to words. I learned that I

needed to spell words the way they were supposed to be spelled rather than just how

they sounded.

In addition to teaching me the rules of spelling I think there were other effects

from this technology. This was the second time that technology could be used to teach

children things that previously required a human teacher (the first was the Little

Professor). It showed that technology was a valid educational tool. Would we have

LeapFrog or Khan Academy today if these early technologies had been failures? An

unintended positive consequence of this technology was to give autonomy to learners. I

could now choose which games or processes I used on the Speak & Spell. It gave me

empowerment that I could learn on my own. Often, when I teach in my current

profession, students seem to think that I need to be in the room for them to learn. I use

technology for my students as there are no paper assignments. When they are stuck on a

problem they have the option to ask the technology for hints or watch videos

supplementing my instruction. I would have loved to have had something like that in

high school.

Richard Mayer developed the Cognitive theory of multimedia learning

(Cognitive). The Speak & Spell fits in well as a tool that works with this theory. Mayer

explains that learners have visual and auditory channels (Cognitive). The Speak & Spell

is exactly that. You see the word, hear the word, and are expected to then spell the word

when asked. Mayer states we can handle about seven pieces of information at a time lest

we experience cognitive overload (Cognitive). I think the Speak & Spell never presents

learners with any more than about three pieces of information at a time, be it sounds,

individual letters or whole words. Mayers idea of not overloading our limited working
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memory so we may revert information to our long-term memory easily fits in with the

Speak & Spell. There is a rote memorization to spelling but also we see how words are

structured so we can develop a schema for the formation of words. This schema is not a

fixed rule but as we acquire the knowledge of different spellings we have several

templates in our long-term memory that we search through and process when trying to

spell a word we have not encountered previously. One limitation that comes to mind

regarding Mayers work and the Speak & Spell is the fact that eventually, the technology

does not remain rigorous to the student. Once all the words are learned to a level of

mastery, no further benefit can be gained from the device. There were add-on modules

for the Speak & Spell but, as I mentioned earlier, I did not get any these. Thus, I outgrew

the Speak & Spell.

From the presentation in module 2 regarding learning transfer, I have made

some interesting observations regarding the Speak & Spell. The idea of learning transfer

is that we can use what we already know to process new information. There are two

types of transfer we are concerned with: Near Transfer deals with new information that

is very similar to what we have previously learned; Far Transfer is the attempt at

processing things that are in the same subject area but are much different from previous

lessons (Learning). As far as using the Speak & Spell to process new information, there

is a question to ask: Is the Speak & Spell a useful tool in helping learners to spell words

that are not pre-programmed into the Speak & Spell? In other words, does mastering

the 200 words on the device give enough of a foundation to the rules of spelling that a

learner can spell a good number of words that are beyond the scope of the original 200

words? I mentioned earlier that I would never forget how to spell the word stomach.

The Speak & Spell said stomach in a way that was hilarious to my young four-year-old
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mind. I would hit the repeat button endlessly to hear this word. A few years later, I was

in an arcade (remember those?) and a machine had eaten my quarter. I went to the

attendant to ask for my quarter to be refunded. He asked which machine I was referring

to and I stating, Mach 3 but I pronounced it as match. He laughed and even nudged

his friend to tell him how I mispronounced the word. Now the Speak & Spell taught me

that the mach in stomach is pronounced like muck. Had I said the game was call,

Muck 3 I am sure I would have been met with same ridicule as the correct

pronunciation sounded like Mock 3. In this context, the Speak & Spell has failed to

help with what here is a far transfer of learning. Because the Speak & Spell is an

electronic device and is not adjusting itself to a learner, the limitations begin to show.

Computers today seem to know users better today than they did back then, but even

then, that is just a result of better programming and computing power. We still see

computer limitations anytime we try to speak to Siri on an iPhone or OK Google on an

Android phone. This does not mean that the Speak & Spell is not useful, but in regards

to transfer learning, human teachers cannot be replaced. Human teachers can adjust to

students when they struggle and can point out potential future pitfalls such as how

mach can be pronounced many ways depending on context.

In the first presentation in our course this semester, there was some discussion of

three metaphors or perspectives of learning. I will briefly discuss how I believe the

Speak & Spell fits into ideas from the first metaphor. The first metaphor describes

learning from a reward/punishment perspective. Teachers (in our case technology)

reward good behaviors and punish bad behaviors (Objectivism). These behaviors are not

to be thought of as doing something to get in trouble but we are trying to encourage

students when they do things that help them learn and discourage things that prevent
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learning. There are two ways the Speak & Spell rewards and punishes. When you spell

correctly, the Speak & Spell will tell you that you are correct. When you are incorrect, it

will say that as well. This does not seem like much of a reward for good answers or much

of a punishment for wrong answers, but I think they are strong enough for a small child

to work. There is also a game very much like hangman where the result is the device

sating, You win! or I win! I certainly did not want the Speak & Spell to say, I win!

because then I knew I made a mistake. I do believe there is a failure on the part of the

Speak & Spell that does not occur (or at least it should not) in regular classroom

teaching. If a student finds more failure than success on the Speak & Spell, then the

learner can always turn it off and ignore it; no more punishments for wrong answers. In

a healthy classroom, a teacher will continue to work with a student to keep their

transfers near so the student becomes less frustrated with the material and then will not

give up. Present technologies have countered this by shaming us at times. There are so

many learning apps today that reminds each day to log in and learn more whether it is a

language app or another learning situation. Would not it have been great (or creepy) if

the Speak & Spell would turn itself on automatically after a few days of idleness to get

children to resume learning.

Piagets Constructivism says we have four stages of development: Sensorimotor;

Pre-operational; Concrete operational; and Formal operation (Constructivism). At the

time, I was working with the Speak & Spell I was right in the middle of the Pre-

Operational stage that Piaget states occurs between the ages of two and seven. This is

when we are Learn[ing] to use language and to represent objects by images and words

(Constructivism). At this time, I was learning words and how to use them in my

language and, with the help of the Speak & Spell, learning to spell those words as well.
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Because of this device I certainly was not going to use the word, tummy any longer.

Piaget says we will try and fit new information into existing schema using assimilation

(Constructivism). I am sure I did this with the word stomach, not thinking it was a part

of my body, but I am sure I was at first attracted to the word because I thought it was

funny. Later as we learn more we can use accommodation to adjust our schema to fit

our new world view, hence now the word stomach stops being funny (it still is) and

starts being the name of a part of the body.

Vygotskys Constructivism deals with the concept of scaffolding. Scaffolding is a

student using outside help to learn something that was beyond their ability before

(Constructivism). We do this any time we are working with a student to acquire a new

skill. Since my thoughts have centered on the one word, we will again visit the word

stomach. This is a word unknown to me before the Speak & Spell. I am sure I asked

what it meant soon after seeing it for the first time. However, just before I would have

posed this question to an adult, I am sure I tried to spell it. St would not have been too

far beyond my knowledge but the first vowel would have presented a problem. The uh

sound of the o would have been a challenge. Is it a u like in bug? Maybe the second

vowel also sounds like bug. I may have first tried to spell it as stumuk. Then I would

have heard in a terrific Speak & Spell voice, That is incorrect. The correct spelling of the

word stomach is S-T-O-M-A-C-H, stomach. and I would have laughed and laughed.

The scaffolder here would be the Speak & Spell itself since the knowledge gained is not

the definition but the spelling. I am not sure how many times I had to get this spelling

wrong before I no longer needed help, but as soon as I did, the Speak & Spell would stop

assisting me. (Transcript: Constructivism and Constructionism)

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Through this analysis, I hope I have demonstrated that the Speak & Spell was an

amazing learning tool I was fortunate to have in my youth. It is by no means perfect and

technology has come a long way since then. I am glad to have had it not just for the

things I learned from it but also that it made me comfortable with learning from

technology in the first place. My school did not have a computer until I was in third

grade and I did not use them extensively until college in the mid-nineties. I did not own

a computer until I was 26 years old but I feel just as comfortable with technology as

without it. Texas Instruments and their little orange box was no small player in that

regard.
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References

ELPS811 Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning [PDF] KU Online.

ELPS811 Learning Transfer [PDF] KU Online.

ELPS811 Objectivism Versus Constructivism [PDF] KU Online.

ELPS811 Constructivism and Constructionism [PDF] KU Online.

Speak & Spell: A History. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2016, from
http://hackeducation.com/2015/01/13/speak-and-spell

Speak n Spell Demo. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2016, from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwWaeEyhPP0

VC&G | VC&G Interview: 30 Years Later, Richard Wiggins Talks Speak & Spell
Development. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2016, from
http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/528