What is Edutainment? How is it beneficial for kids?
Edutainment is the peculiar way of presenting learning in an entertaining style. Teaching kids are more challenging than giving education to a college grade student. Their way of interpreting things and understanding should be moulded right from the initial classes. And it is highly important to build a taste or interest for learning among kids.
More than just normal classroom sessions which they find boring, it would be a good idea to bring in strategies like edutainment. It is nothing but blending entertainment with education which not only makes learning pleasurable for them but also helps them to grow up as better individuals.
This strategy takes many forms according to what is being taught and the varying interests of kids groups. Primarily, edutainment involves combinations of audio and video to classroom or outside the classroom sessions. The other important elements of this approach include games as part of learning or toys, radio, and podcasts, short film and activities or taking a visit to museums.
Edutainment strategy is beneficial for all types of learning and when it comes to kids, leisure has more role than academics. Kids would love it when learning is fun. The impact of edutainment plays a progressive role in teaching.
Engaged learning:
What is Engaged Learning? “Engaged learning is the process in which students actively participate in their learning. Rather than keeping them occupied for long hour classes, just a short period edutainment can be productive for them. They will have access to more information in minimal time when they make learning a fun.
Learning Freedom:
According to many researches, self-directed play gives the best learning time for children. Moreover, open-ended play lets them to study and grow up cognitively, physically, emotionally and socially. So allow the students to explore their ideas in learning.
Real world exploration:
Make the learning sessions more qualitative by giving time for imaginary play through which they know more about oneself and other things happening around. Rather than restricting them within the four walls of a classroom, transform learning time for real world exploration with field trips. Kids are biologically programmed to create their own innovations.
Intellectual stimulation:
Rather than boring classroom teaching and rote memorization, kids give more favourable response with activities aimed at boosting their thinking capability, problem solving and competitive mind set. Awesome storytelling sessions can be enjoyable and at the same time improve their knowledge base and learning.
Positive thinking:
Fredrickson is a positive psychology researcher at the University of North Carolina. and she published“ the biggest benefit that positive thoughts provide is an enhanced ability to build skills and develop resources for use later in life”. There are a lot of positive characters featured in videos and online games which kids can easily connect with. These video characters that promote hard work, determination, humanity and team work all are usually made part of learning sessions. So, lets make the world positive.
Experiential learning:
Adventure education and outdoor education are key forms of edutainment learning that makes their study time more exciting. Instead of classroom sessions, kids would love to have hands-on learning in kid’s museums or play area or parks to study with the nature.
Educational games:
There is a good choice of games that stimulates diverse types of learning among kids. Games involving motion control is a great motivation for them to engage in physical and educational activities. The elements such as images, sounds and animations can easily target kid’s senses and gains their dedicated interest for learning.
Enhanced attention:
Getting a kid’s attention can be a tough job and it matters a lot when it comes to teaching. Learn with fun strategy encourages them to spend more time with studies and they will have the craving for more. Kids would love to give their attention. The educational content showcased in the form of motion pictures would register the content in kid’s mind than lectures.
Portable learning:
The learning is not limited to classroom sessions and parents can make an effort to utilize the possibilities of edutainment in their free time at home or outside.
Improved social skills:
Social skills is very important for their survival and growth in the society. This best classroom engagement strategy brings in higher confidence in kids to face the challenges in society and they learn to collaborate and achieve goals. It is very important to be connected in the society.
Technology at finger tips:
The rise of mobile market has a good effect on the popularity of edutainment as the kids are greatly influenced by education apps. Most of the learning video contents online are now blended with entertainment content to make them appealing to kids. We can make our students to use educational apps under the supervision of elders.
We have plenty of ways of edutainment in teaching. Few are mentioned in this blog. This can give you an idea how to make your class creative, engeretic, entertainment and lively.
They are few more ideas like:-
- Digital Curriculum – An interesting way to complete home assignments.
- An “Out of the Box” pattern of learning.
- Problem-solving activities
- Paves way for story telling
- Flipped Classroom – Another interesting benefit of edutainment
- Learning on-the-go
The idea of edutainment is always motivating kids to learn new things without losing the fun element.
Back to Blogs