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Edutainment combines education with entertainment to keep people engaged. It can take many forms, from books to video games, and is profitable. However, some fear it focuses too much on entertainment and not enough on teaching. Edutainment has been around for centuries, but the industry exploded in the 1910s. While advocates argue that edutainment makes learning more enjoyable, critics worry it may be more fun than educational and could create a market that prioritizes entertainment over knowledge.
Edutainment is a form of education designed to be fun, in order to keep people interested and engaged. A wide variety of formats can be used to present edutainment, from books to guided tours of zoological parks, and this particular branch of the education world is also extremely profitable. Numerous companies make large sums of money producing educational materials with an entertaining twist, and in some regions of the world, the rise of edutainment has been criticized by people who fear that it sometimes focuses more on entertainment than teaching.
The basic concept of edutainment is quite ancient, although the word, a portmanteau of “education” and “entertainment” was coined in the early 1990s. Many children’s books in the 19th century were prime examples of edutainment, with readers drawn to colorful scenes that were used to teach them letters of the alphabet and words. Children’s books were also used as vehicles for moral and social lessons, as was the case with books that encouraged children to share, or with stories of children who ignored warnings and got into trouble. In the 1919s, however, the edutainment industry exploded and became much more diverse.
In addition to books, edutainment can also appear in the form of board games, television programs, movies, classroom activities, video games, and other formats. Edutainment can also take the form of a trip to a zoo, museum, playground, park or similar location, where students are educated about the place they are visiting while being entertained by the places. Edutainment products have also been targeted at people beyond school age: for example, fun educational posters about illnesses are posted in many doctors’ offices to teach people about common illnesses and methods that can be used to prevent them.
The goal of an edutainment product or experience is to provide valuable knowledge to the consumer while keeping them engaged with entertainment material. People who advocate edutainment suggest that when educational material is presented dryly, people tend not to listen and don’t actually absorb the material or the lesson. For example, people are usually more interested in a brightly colored brochure than a single sheet covered in densely written text.
However, some educators have suggested that sometimes edutainment can cross a line. When the material is more fun than educational, students can get lost. Even the prime focus of providing entertainment is seen as problematic in some communities, with critics suggesting that people may be unable to focus on less dynamic presentations of material because they have become inundated with edutainment. In other words, some critics think that edutainment has created its market by training people to seek entertainment before knowledge.
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