Edutainment From Television and Computers to Digital Television

Edutainment refers to entertaining TV programs and computer software, which are primarily meant for educational purposes. We define the concept as educational material utilizing entertainment methods and used via information technology. In this report we describe edutainment's characteristic properties on television and computers, and its usage in various forms of formal and informal education. Typically the structure of edutainment material on television includes narrative subsections and, unfortunately, their contents are often fragmented and/or incoherent. Material of the edutainment computer software is more personalized, because learners can choose the tempo of usage and the level of difficulty. However , the learnability and entertaining means of edutainment software are often too separated from each other. To combine the features of these product lines in digital television demands changes in edutainment production. When television and computer edutainment are connected in digital television, it causes problems but also new possibilities. Edutainment in digital television could and should be targeted especially to learners who are not capable or willing to use the present educational programs. These target groups include , among others, immigrants and low educated adults. We consider new ideas of television edutainment for these groups. In producing interactive edutainment, learner-centered design is the advisable approach. It focuses on building interactive educational material that supports learners as they engage in unfamiliar activities and learn about a new subject matter. Involving learners from the beginning of the design process forms the basement in learner-centered design. Edutainment in digital television brings new challenges to teaching and learning. In the future, non-formal and informal education will likely be emphasized. In the context of formal education, we describe a vision of multi-form teaching, which includes contact teaching, distance teaching and self-learning with the help of various new media. In addition to content in multi-form teaching, the learners have to learn the usage of the chosen media, which is evaluated with the concept of us-ability. The importance of usability should be stressed especially with children, senior users and various special groups. The advantage of informal education is a close connection to the whole life of the learner, which makes it easy to apply to knowledge and skills learned. The disadvantage is the lack of control, so nobody checks the possible misunderstanding of learners or activates the transference of learned material. As a consequence, edutainment material in digital television must contain portions to guide and tutor the learners.