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catalinvosstoday at 1:38 AM2 repliesview on HN

Yeah totally. Here's a video that shows some parts of the experience: https://x.com/CatalinVoss/status/2074527066926776802?s=20

The long and short of it: We use AI to scaffold in the moment and respond to what a child is struggling with or excited by. At times, we allow them to follow their curiosity and at times we guide them through a curriculum. At times, we get them to do both of those things, e.g. you can make a book about a topic you're interested in and then take that curious drive to ultimately learn to decode words using phonics and practice reading skills. There is time for what our learning designers call "productive struggle" and then there's time to jump in and support.

Under the hood, there are activities and learning objectives designed by experts and a teaching toolkit that distills everything they know about how to effectively teach kids across several subjects. A real-time planner then decides what to apply when. Without this interactivity, you pretty much get static content delivery and gameplay which is what traditional edtech delivers. With it, you can find the shortest path to getting the "ahhhh I get it now" moment.

There's also a bit more context on our website https://www.ello.com/our-teaching-approach


Replies

erikschostertoday at 2:32 AM

Thank you. The segment showing a child reading text on the screen which highlighted a word they had difficulty with seems like it could be a useful learning interaction. How does your system follow up in that case? Have you studied this type of interaction?

That's the only moment in the video that gave me a sense of what it might be like for a child using this system.

In the blog post you say:

> Imagine a custom story about dragons this week, ice princesses the next — woven with the letter blends your child needs to practice right now.

Have you considered using an automated orchestration system to deliver literature that already exists? This example seems like an opportunity to introduce children to really thoughtful literature like Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking stories but I'm deeply skeptical that generating the stories with an LLM would inspire a similar experience.

Are there other examples of your platform from the perspective of a child using it? I think those are both interesting cases: 1) interactive feedback on a subject they are making an effort toward mastering, and 2) trying to deliver information when it seems relevant. I'd like to know more about how you are approaching these things and other aspects of the learning process.

mncharitytoday at 7:02 AM

Fyi fwiw, x.com video requires Sign-up/Log-in to view.