Re: Edutainment (was Re: Open Book)

[Doug Loss <dloss@csrlink.net>]

Marshal Anderson wrote:
> 
> OK Doug - it's not the portmanteau word I'm objecting to - I no longer even
> cringe when asked to de-plane :) It's the concept and the way it is sold.
> 
> 3) The 'edutainment industry' worries me deeply. Some very powerful media
> organisations have used edutainment in an attempt to gain entry into the
> education system. While education professionals have been quick to see
> through and reject this, it hasn't stopped a whole bunch of this rubbish
> getting into homes as parents are persuaded that they can somehow give
> children a head start with Scooby Do Vs The Periodic Table Monster et al.
> 
"Scooby Doo vs. The Periodic Table Monster"!  What a great idea!  Kyle,
do you think you can add something to GPeriodic where various elements
randomly expand into fake-looking rubber-suited monsters and
incompetently chase Scooby and Shaggy?  Oh, it wasn't meant seriously? 
Umm, sorry; I'll be quiet now.

> Carmen Sandiego is a very poor way
> to teach children the geography of the world - it throws them random,
> unrelated facts. The coincidental skills it does develop are substantial -
> database interrogation, guessing, trial and error, hypothesis testing etc. -
> but these now seem to have been lost in the 'your kid can learn all the
> currencies in the world' selling tag - a great subversion of a program
> developed 10 years ago in which the content was largely irrelevant.
> 
You're right about this.  Carmen SanDiego does, as you say, have the
potential for teaching research and the scientific method, but that's
not how it's presented.  I think this is more a shortcoming of the
marketing than the program.  If we develop any programs along these
lines, we should probably be proactive about what skills and knowledge
each program is intended to teach and make sure that all elements of the
program act to further that teaching (or at least don't act to block
such teaching).  We should also be careful to present such programs as
teaching the things they actually do teach rather than the things
marketers could most easily mention on a package cover.

> OTOH, a child using Logo will be exploring a mathematical landscape,
> generating their own ideas etc.
> 
And this is why Logo (and possibly Squeak, from what I can tell from
their website) are things we need to actively investigate and develop. 
Marshal, take a look at Toontalk <http://www.toontalk.com> and see what
you think of it.  If it seem educationally valid, some of its elements
may be worth emulating in one or another program (I'm thinking the Logo
we've talked about) we develop.

-- 
Doug Loss                 The difference between the right word and
Data Network Coordinator  the almost right word is the difference
Bloomsburg University     between lightning and a lightning bug.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Mark Twain