Is Edutainment an Oxymoron?

Maria Klawe,
University of British Columbia

Over the last few years, interest has surged in developing edutainment software, namely applications that possess the allure of electronic games while achieving educational goals. While success seems to have been achieved fairly easily for some of the more straightforward educational tasks such as math drills and learning the alphabet, combining the attractions of entertainment with the effective learning of more sophisticated concepts remains a significant challenge, with few clear successes so far. Little is known about some of the most basic issues, such as which user interfaces, formats, navigational structures, etc. work well with specific educational content? Which activities are attractive to most girls? to most boys? What are the most effective ways of using these materials in schools? in homes? This talk describes ongoing research on these issues in the E-GEMS project, a collaborative effort by computer scientists, education specialists, teachers, and professional game developers.

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