Edutainment: The future of education
By: Daniel Aboulmona
Tags: Learning, Students, Zoom, Education, Edutainment

For nearly 400 years, the education system has not been reformed. While every other institution has changed over the years, the most integral part of bringing up knowledgeable and literate human beings remains to be overlooked. Drop out rates are high, and with learning from a distance becoming the norm, the educational system has been hit with another blow known as “zoom fatigue”, making the learning experience ever more taxing on the minds of the youth and negatively affecting the outcomes. To combat this demise, the educational institution must take bold initiatives and find new ways to offer value to students…

One promising initiative is the implementation of a form of education known as edutainment.

What is Edutainment?

Edutainment combines the words “education” and “entertainment”. In practice it is also exactly that. A cross between media and content with a main objective of delivering knowledge and value in a package that is enjoyable and consumable by students to achieve higher forms of learning. While the term might sound new to you, this form of education is certainly not new in existence. It has existed for hundreds of years with traces dating back from the Renaissance era in the 15th century. The term itself (edutainment) however, was only coined in more recent times by the founder of Disney himself, Walt Disney, when he was experimenting with filming a documentary series called True Life Adventures which was commissioned in 1954 and won multiple awards. He experimented with multiple projects that followed suit and eventually the term was popularized when more academics and artists joined to benefit from this new form of learning.

Why we need it now more than ever?

The means of absorbing information and consuming data has changed significantly over the past couple of decades. With breakthroughs like the internet and smart mobile devices, people now have access to an infinite amount of knowledge at their fingertips. Unfortunately, the education system has not followed suit and did not leverage the new technologies, which is dismal at most.

The negative state of the system has been magnified greatly in recent times, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. This contributed to the transition of most institutions to the learning from a distance method. Online learning puts mental stresses on the mind that is not experienced during in-person learning. In this neuropsychological study, it says that a core psychological component of fatigue is a rewards-costs tradeoff that happens in our minds unconsciously. Multiple elements in online meetings contribute to this cost element which is linked to increased fatigue. This in turn makes the lectures harder to focus on, information harder to grasp and retain, and overall, a drag of an experience.

Utilizing edutainment can be effective in lightening the learning experience and potentially make it enjoyable again. In a randomized controlled study to measure the effectiveness of a video teaching standard precautions compared to traditional methods, respondents on average scored higher on the knowledge assessment and were also much more satisfied with this method and were likely to recommend this method to a colleague.

Where is it applied, and what are the benefits?

CrashCourse, for example, is a YouTube channel dedicated to produce edutainment content that tackles subjects such as history, science and geography by delivering rich content in an engaging, short and effective way using graphical elements, cool animations and transitions, and whimsical sound effects. However, video is only one way to harness the power of edutainment. There are many other applications such as television programs, video games, films, music, multimedia, websites and computer software. Each has its own benefits and could be used to teaching different subjects or skills. For example, puzzle games can improve critical thinking while first person shooters can improve reflexes. Since video games are interactive and heavily user controlled, it utilizes the kinesthetic portion of the learning pyramid, or in other words, learning by doing. This is known to be the most effective method of learning.

Film and music on the other hand could be a good source of teaching history, culture and even literature.

This experience can further expand in the future with the implementations of VR in education. Allowing users to be fully immersed in virtual worlds creating endless learning possibilities.

Final thoughts

The edutainment environment is indirectly intended to implement technological innovations in education. It promotes curiosity, creativity and imagination among students, but most importantly it adds an intrinsic element of motivation to learn. The education system needs to be more open to change and adaptable to the modern era, even if it means eroding the current system.