Patent ID: 7040898

Claim:
A portable memory to add educational software to an electronic educational toy by a user thereof, the educational software designed to teach letters of an alphabet, the portable memory comprising: a portable memory housing designed to be compatible with and inserted into a portable memory receiving device associated with the electronic educational toy by the user thereof; a memory medium contained in the portable memory housing; and computer software embodied on the memory medium for use with a toy processor in the electronic educational toy, the computer software having: data for use by the toy processor to generate a plurality of questions or instructions output via a speaker, a question or instruction of the plurality of questions or instructions designed to encourage a child to make a cognitive selection of a letter and indicate the cognitive selection of the letter by causing contact with a work platform on at least a portion of a substantially planar surface of the electronic educational toy and the question or instruction having at least one correct response; data for use by the toy processor to determine whether the child's cognitive selection of the letter as indicated by contact caused by the child with the work platform corresponds to a correct response to the question or instruction using information from one or more sensors for sensing the contact with the work platform, a contact capable of occurring and being sensed in arbitrary child-defined locations on the work platform, the occurrence of contact on the work platform in response to the question or instruction indicating the cognitive selection by the child of the letter corresponding to the question or instruction, the one or more sensors capable of sensing the location of a first contact caused by the child on the substantially planar surface of the work platform and, while the first contact is maintained in a position to be sensed by the one or more sensors, sensing the location of a second contact caused by the child on the substantially planar surface of work platform; data for use by the toy processor to generate a first audio feedback response output by the speaker, the first audio feedback response indicating that the letter selected by the child corresponds to a correct response to the question or instruction; and data for use by the toy processor to generate a second audio feedback response output by the speaker, the second audio feedback response indicating that the selection by the child is something other than a correct response to the question or instruction.