EDUTAINMENT

All work no play makes Jack a dull boy,
All play no work makes Jack a mere toy!

Some out of the box thinking process mixed the learning and play in right ingredient to provide a value addition and thus evolved the process of ' Edutainment '.

During school days, the gift that always brightened us was books. It was important for us to have some new books before vacation begins. The reading would even include the books from Grandpa’s library. What drew us towards them was not just the amount of information that we would gain but the freedom to imagine and draw mental pictures of how the characters and places would be. Furthermore, it gained those experiences that wouldn’t have been gained other ways .I remember an incident wherein, I shared the experience of bargaining in Egypt, with an Uncle of mine, who visited the place. He actually, had the similar kind of experience that I gained from one of the books.

As the demography who earns to buy those precious pieces of work, multiplies, places like landmarks and Crosswords encash it all. Thanks to those marketing Gurus who rightly determined the need years back. They packaged the service with right ingredient including the product in appropriate ambience to cater the need.

The era of information, have added to the edutainment we require. A major share of our edutainment comes from the blogs. The sole reason is the combination of information and opinion sharing. Years back, it was the editorial page which offered us the refined opinions presented within a distinguished writing style. This had its own limitation as the reader had to depend on the editor to choose the topic. Moreover, the media wars became apparent leading to a drop in the interest among its readers. We are opinionated .Yet we don’t like being preachy. We are aware that some of us know some of the things more than us. Most importantly, we want access to many good posts on the topic of our interest at the click of the mouse. Hence the blogs offer a window to share the opinion and learn at the speed of our interest.

The next come, the forums, which include both online and offline discussion boards. These conjunctions offer a mix of people who shares information with fun. It includes three types of people, one who seeks for answers, the other who have them and finally the absorbers, who might not contribute at all yet be an integral part to the forum. The process churns out considerable amount of information with development of many soft skills like community speaker or even leaders.

The next are the program on current affairs presented with a funny punch. Programs like ‘News on the loose’ on CNBC -TV18 or ‘The week that wasn’t ’, camouflages real life incidents with spoofs and offers not just humor, but informative take -a-ways.

The definition of the edutainment will remain quibble. It would be re-defined and redesigned to suit the requirements. In short , be steered by the taste and the speed with which it would be availed.