EDUTAINMENT: THE WORLD OF BETTER LEARNING

“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

The children’s excitement that existed, to get back to school for the new academic year 2020-21 was overshadowed by the ‘crown of the virus’- Corona or to be more precise in medical terms Covid-19.

Past many years we have been hearing or reading about the misuse of the internet and electronic gadgets. With this pandemic, the use of gadgets just boomed. As children are exposed to viewing the screen for 5 to 6 hours, it becomes a monotonous routine as days go by. Educators need to find a way to make online teaching as interesting as they can. 

Education is the platform that makes it possible to defeat all barriers. Today every aspect of life is impacted by technology and education is no exception. The walls of the classrooms are no longer a barrier as technology enables new ways of learning, communicating, and working collaboratively. Technology is a powerful tool that can transform education in many ways. More than just normal classroom sessions, it would be a good idea to bring in strategies like edutainment.

What is Edutainment?

From the word itself we can understand, it is nothing but an amalgamation of entertainment with education. This aims to teach children by integrating academics with modern devices such as television, radio, computer, music, films, Learning Management system (LMS) websites for interactive learning, use of different apps, virtual reality, and so on. It has been proved that audio, video, and physical learning games have a positive impact on students towards education. So, the implementation of edutainment in the classroom can make learning and teaching fun.

Benefits

As every coin has two sides, there are some benefits and drawbacks in the field of edutainment too.

The first and foremost is that it improves interactive and collaborative learning and teaching methods.

It creates an independent learning platform for students and also encourages personalized learning.

It boosts creativity and visualization.

It is a paperless effort.

Disadvantages

The drawbacks of edutainment are:

Computers can have a negative impact on the child’s growth sometimes due to misleading and misguiding information.

It curbs the social interaction and alters behavioral skills in the child.

It can lead to the misuse of technology.

Even though it is paperless the execution and designing of computer games, videos, etc. turn out to be expensive. 

Classrooms today are replaced by laptops, tablets, or smartphones instead of books, blackboards, and chalk. Today, a large amount of information through books, audio, images, videos are available at one’s fingertips through the Internet. The role of online classes makes learning possible despite where the kids are. Present-day education is full of experiments to make the learning process more effective and productive.