Phillips READIUS Materialises With Fold-Away Screen

Literacy students need an electronic slate, similar to the old 19th century slates. These would save a lot of paper because teachers could download electronic worksheets or textbooks into them and students could write the answers directly onto the slate. The slate would need to have the same surface resistance as paper so that students could sense control over their electronic pencils and produce decent handwriting. There should be mechanisms in the worksheets to allow instant feedback, or guidance if the objective is improved handwriting. A sound feature could assist students to learn both reading in general and specifically pronunciation for English as a Second Language students. A product like this is best developed in conjunction with literacy teachers, ESL teachers and the producers of software so that the product answers real needs, rather than creating the product and then convincing an over-gadgetted audiene that they need it. A problem would be the continual light into the face of the students as they worked so they would need rests from their slates and some work with paper. However being able to take slates home and re-do worksheets, getting positive feedback for each improvement would be great. The costs of the slates needs to be about $10 or $20 each to make it realistic that an entire class would be fitted out with slates. Clearly the real cost of the slates would have to be subsidised within the production company through the sale of other products. Literacy students are often from the poorest families so are unlikely to be able to afford expensive gadgetry.