Edutainment

edutainment

According to Buckingham and Scanlon, Edutainment is “a hybrid genre that relies heavily on visual material, on narrative or game-like formats Computer Games - Education - Implications for Game Developers, and on more informal, less didactic styles of address.�? (2005: 41)

Not surprisingly, edutainment has created much discussion about its merits over the years. This entry will define the objectives of edutainment, the pros and cons of the concept and provide tangible examples of how and why it is used.

Many theorists have hypothesised on the meaning of ‘edutainment’, none so succinctly as Zuhal Okan. He states that the purpose of edutainment is to engage the emotions of the user with a balance between a computer screen full of colourful graphic and content design and interactive pedagogy to ultimately convince the user that learning is fun (2003: 255).

This not only works at an information gathering level, but increases a participant’s ability to discern information, assess it and finally and problem solve, due to its interactive format. The participant must be able to do these elements efficiently to continue through the programme.

Pros and Cons of Edutainment

Edutainment does not have to directly involve computer screens however. Other types of technological construction, which involves a high level of agency for children, like LEGO Robotics, can be included in the category (Fischer, 1993: 28).

This has huge implications on traditional schooling, where students are primarily taught through data transfer, (the act of writing on the board and Rote learning), a practice, which excludes many students who are creative, or hands on learners (Okan, 2003: 259). Edutainment allows students to explore content in a new and exciting way, letting differently skilled children to access information with the same amount of understanding as traditional data learners.

However, whilst edutainment is universally recognised as an excellent and viable option for a tired education system, some theorists have a problem with the term ‘edutainment’, saying it’s an invitation for educators to sugar-coat lessons with entertaining aspects instead of embedding entertainment pedagogies within the context of the content.

Mitchel Resnick from the MIT Media Laboratory states that entertainment is often used as an empty reward for ‘suffering through education’, teaching children that receiving an education is an unpleasant experience (Resnick, 2004: 3).

Examples and Applications of Edutainment

Nonetheless, programmed and planned properly, edutainment is an excellent form of education that has been successfully used by many education systems around the world. For example, Mitchel Resnick recently investigated the use of edutainment within Singapore (2004: 3).

Whilst Singaporean students achieved some of the highest scores in maths and science literacy in the world, the Singapore government became increasingly concerned with the lack of creativity being displayed in secondary and tertiary level graduates. To counteract this trend, some school systems experimented with the use of Robotic edutainment, where children would integrate their knowledge of maths and science into a practical, working model robot, created from LEGO. The result was children that were better able to enjoy their studies as they saw it could lead to interesting and colourful practical applications (Resnick, 2004: 2).

Edutainment is a very interesting when teaching pedagogy, incorporating traditional content and teaching methods into the new context of technology. This system is beneficial on many levels as it creates students who are willing to learn as they can see the practical outcomes of their