# Smart Toys in Early Childhood and Primary Education:
## 5 Conclusions
On the contrary, until 2015, less than 1/3 of toys combine two technological affordances. The question concerning the educational affordances of smart toys is studied in this article regarding two different aspects: (a) the types of possible activities that a student can perform with a toy and (b) the learning objectives that can be achieved while using a toy. The categorical variable that studies the types of possible activities contains three categories: (b1) Organized Educational Activity (OEA), (b2) Free Game (FG) activity and (b3) their combination, i.e., Organized Educational Activity and Free Game (OEA and FG). Although, and especially in recent years, Organized Educational Activities have the highest frequency of occurrence (21/52), free game activities (14/52) or even combined activities (17/52) also occur several times, as is expected, given that the technological application used (smart toy), is by nature playful. As regards the evolution of the type of activities over time, the Multiple Correspondence Analysis shows that in the first period of development of smart toys (Figure 7, Group 3), the majority of games suggested mixed activities (Organized Educational Activity and Free Game), and particularly 9/18 for the years 1991-2010. The interim period (Figure 7, Group 1) focuses on Free Game activities (only 2 out of 14 games relate to the years before 2010), while the most recent period (Figure 7, Group 2), mainly concerns games suggested by Organized Educational Activities (10/22 for the last five years). Interesting conclusions emerge from the analysis of the learning objectives of toys. The data coding gave rise to 14 categories for the categorical variable called \"Learning Objectives\". These categories are organized into two main axes: specific objectives related to specific cognitive objects and general objectives that refer to transversal skills and abilities of the 21 st century. The specific objectives focus on specific sciences (physics, mathematics, programming, biology), arts and English. The general objectives cover some transversal skills (fine motor skills, storytelling, emotional thinking, symbolic thinking) and some 21 st century skills (STEM, problem solving, collaboration, computational thinking). The analysis shows that not only the technological but the pedagogical affordances are also changing through the years. Especially, the Multiple Correspondence Analysis shows that in recent years smart toys concern special sciences (programming) and some 21 st century skills (STEM and computational thinking), the first twenty years of development of smart toys, the interest is focused on transverse skills, such as Collaboration, Emotional Thinking, Symbolic Thinking, Story-Telling and Problem Solving. This review is a first attempt in which we try to categorise the technological and educational aspects of smart toys since such categorisation cannot be found in the literature previously. Searching related studies of the past 30 years, we noticed that the term \"smart\" is related mainly one-dimensionally to the technological features that these toys integrate. However, in some studies the educational aspect is emphasised as equally important. The categorisation of smart toys based both on the technological features they incorporate and their educational affordances can lead to a unified framework of the definition of smart toys as formed over the last 30 years. What should be of great concern to us is the context of use of these toys. Questions of concern are whether a smart toy manages to support the child to have fun, and/or learn, and/or socialise, and/or interact with the environment around him/her in such a way that traditional toys cannot help him/her do it. Such a toy should support the performance of physical, sensory and perceptual activities that help children become aware of the world around them. In this direction, this review introduces the educational dimension in smart toys and explores how much it is considered in developing such prototype toys.