"The King and His Closet"
A Multisensory Software Story Using the Learning PillowTM
and the Touch Window or Mouse
Moonlight Software and Learning PillowsTM are shipping their first product directed towards children from Preschool to Grade 1 for the MACINTOSH COMPUTER! This new version includes human quality speech and animation! In addition, it is appropriate for students who experience visual, physical or cognitive impairments. "The King and His Closet" sells for $89.95 and includes a Learning PillowTM with software for a Macintosh computer with color and 4MB of RAM. It also includes an audio tape with suggested activities and a sample telling of the story, "The King and His Closet."
Learning PillowsTM is a story concept designed by Jane K. Kroheim, a teacher of the Visually Impaired in Boston, Massachusetts. Although Jane herself had not developed a computer related activity to accompany her pillows, she felt that the activities for the Learning PillowsTM would be best expressed through interactive computer use. Therefore, she approached Irene Watson of Moonlight Software and they collaborated on an interactive software story that uses human quality speech and a mouse or the Macintosh Touch Window.
"The King and His Closet" provides the opportunity to learn the following skills:
à Following directions
à Making choices
à Attention to differences in shape
à Same and different
à Parts of the face
à Top and bottom
à Left and right
à Free play with open-ended exploration
The Learning PillowsTM are made out of soft felt and/or nyloop and have tactile designs on them (such as jingle bells, rick-rack, velcro, and raised bumps and lines created by using a "Silk Pen"). These features enable a youngster to feel the pillow and follow along as the Learning PillowTM story is being to read. The computer is then used to enhance a child's learning potential. For example, a visually impaired child can interact with the graphics on the screen which correspond to the images on the pillow. In addition, the child receives audio feed-back from the digitized speech. Therefore, a child participates more actively in a story (through the senses of touch, sight and sound) by using the Learning PillowTM, the Touch Window and human quality speech.
This package is also directed at parents and teachers who want to share the joys of reading and language development, following directions, and interactive play which would involve the Learning PillowTM in a child's lap and the Touch Window and software on the computer.
For more information, please contact: Moonlight Software, P.O. Box 164, Colchester, CT 06415, tel. (203) 537-0217 or toll free in CT at (800) 246-0217.