Edutainment From Television and Computers To Digital Television

Tutkimusraportteja — Working Papers 2
http://www.uta.fi/hyper/julkaisut/b/fitv03b.pdf
Edutainment
From Television and Computers
to Digital Television
Sari Walldén Anne Soronen

sari.wallden@uta.fi anne.soronen@uta.fi
May 2004
University of Tampere Hypermedia Laboratory
http://www.uta.fi/hyper/
FiTV: EDUTAINMENT 2
Executive summary
Edutainment refers to entertaining TV programs and computer
software, which are primarily meant for educational purposes.
We define the concept as educational material utilizing enter-
tainment methods and used via information technology.
In this report we describe edutainment’s characteristic
properties on television and computers, and its usage in vari-
ous forms of formal and informal education. Typically the
structure of edutainment material on television includes nar-
rative subsections and, unfortunately, their contents are often
fragmented and/or incoherent. Material of the edutainment
computer software is more personalized, because learners can
choose the tempo of usage and the level of difficulty. How-
ever, the learnability and entertaining means of edutainment
software are often too separated from each other. To combine
the features of these product lines in digital television de-
mands changes in edutainment production.
When television and computer edutainment are connected
in digital television, it causes problems but also new possibili-
ties. Edutainment in digital television could and should be tar-
geted especially to learners who are not capable or willing to
use the present educational programs. These target groups in-
clude, among others, immigrants and low educated adults. We
consider new ideas of television edutainment for these groups.
In producing interactive edutainment, learner-centered de-
sign is the advisable approach. It focuses on building inter-
active educational material that supports learners as they en-
gage in unfamiliar activities and learn about a new subject
matter. Involving learners from the beginning of the design
process forms the basement in learner-centered design.
Edutainment in digital television brings new challenges to
teaching and learning. In the future, non-formal and informal
education will likely be emphasized. In the context of formal
education, we describe a vision of multi-form teaching, which
includes contact teaching, distance teaching and self-learning
with the help of various new media. In addition to content in
multi-form teaching, the learners have to learn the usage of
the chosen media, which is evaluated with the concept of us-
ability. The importance of usability should be stressed espe-
cially with children, senior users and various special groups.
The advantage of informal education is a close connection
to the whole life of the learner, which makes it easy to apply
to knowledge and skills learned. The disadvantage is the lack
of control, so nobody checks the possible misunderstanding of
learners or activates the transference of learned material. As
a consequence, edutainment material in digital television
must contain portions to guide and tutor the learners.
UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE HYPERMEDIA LABORATORY

FiTV: EDUTAINMENT 3
Table of contents
Executive summary 2
1. Introduction 4
2. Present edutainment types 6

2.1. Education and entertainment together 6
2.2. Edutainment on TV 9
2.3. Computer edutainment 12
2.4. Edutainment on the Internet 15
2.5. Interactive television 17
3. Edutainment in education 19
3.1. Design approaches 19
3.2. A vision of multi-form teaching 23
3.3. Teaching outside formal education 29
3.4. Learning aspects 32
3.5. Learning contents 37
3.6. Different learners 39
4. Key issues for planning digi-TV edutainment 42

4.1. Challenges for teaching and learning 42
4.2. Challenges for designing edutainment 45
4.3. Challenges for the present edutainment programs 47
4.3.1. How to make good edutainment programs
for schools? 48
4.4. Challenges for new learners and content 50
5. Ideas for program types in digital television 54
6. Summary 57
References 59
Appendix 1: Educational television programs

in some countries 64
Appendix 2: Examples of educational television programs 66
Appendix 3: Examples of educational computer software 67
Appendix 4: WebQuest — a net edutainment idea 69
Appendix 5: Usability of remote controller 71
Appendix 6: Links to edutainment products 72

FiTV: EDUTAINMENT 4
1. Introduction
Edutainment refers to entertaining TV programs and computer
software, which are primarily meant for educational purposes.
The educational purpose can be related to formal education in
different school institutes or to informal learning in different
daily life contexts without systematically organized education.
Edutainment often stirs opposition among educational pro-
fessionals because the general trend of increasing entertain-
ment is considered a problem [52]. Already Postman [47]
noted on the 1980s that we are amusing ourselves to death.
He argued that television has become an intoxicating “com-
mand center” of the Western culture that has distracted from
and trivialized seemingly important aspects of our lives.
Many authors and teachers share Russell’s [52] fear that
there is a shift from vertical breadth knowledge (deep wis-
dom) to horizontal breadth (unrelated scraps of information),
which leads to lack of continuity in cultural understanding.
Learning is a psychological process, which always takes place
in one’s mind, and complicated matters cannot be learnt eas-
ily and quickly [10]. In the context of edutainment we do not
consider entertainment or amusement to have any inherent
value if it does not benefit learning. On the other hand, edu-
tainment does not need to be “funny” but it can still be
“interesting”. This property is certainly not bad for learning.
The unequal global availability of information technology
has caused justified worry about a digital divide. We consider
the digital divide a big problem also at national level (in
Finland and in the other countries). Knowledge is accumulat-
ing by its nature, and the rapid technological development has
made faster and faster accumulation of knowledge possible —
so worsening the inequality both in the world wide and na-
tional distribution of information and knowledge. It is possible
that edutainment decreases this problem because it is easier
to approach edutainment material than more traditional
learning material. When learner’s cognitive skills, media liter-
acy, and expertise on the contents increase, she can start us-
ing also more demanding learning methods.
This report is organized as follows. In Chapter 2 there is a
short survey of the present edutainment and educational pro-
gram types in analogical television, computers and the Inter-
net. Next, the suitability of interactive television for transmit-
ting edutainment programs is discussed. Moreover, we sharpen
the definition of edutainment. However, this is problematic
since there are only a few scientific studies on edutainment,
and it is not even a very commonly used concept worldwide.
For example, in Britain the phrase ‘educational games’ is used
instead.

FiTV: EDUTAINMENT 5
Chapter 3 considers edutainment in education. It includes

the whole process from design to use. Every part of the proc-
ess is considered from television’s and computer’s viewpoint.
(The considerations are made for the purpose of this report
only.) The key issues when designing edutainment content are
to know the target group and its needs, to achieve the educa-
tional goal, and to find out the suitable means to get learners
enjoy themselves. At present, formal education emphasizes
near and distance learning, but we believe that in the future,
the focus will be in distance and self-learning. It is important
to study how this change will affect the form of interaction
used in educational material in different media and with
different contents. In the future a more prominent role will be
given to non-formal learning (which takes place alongside the
mainstream systems of education and training and does not
typically lead to formalized certificates) and to informal
learning (which is a natural accompaniment to everyday life).
[61] With the general trend of increasing entertainment, the
focus of the content will move towards edutainment.
In Chapter 4 some key issues for planning digital television
edutainment are introduced. Despite the general ideas of
information society and EU’s principles of equal education
[16], there are several target groups not reached with the pre-
sent education programs. These groups include low educated
adults and various special groups, like immigrants. Similarly,
young people over 18 years old and those over 16 years old
and not in school use computer programs and the Internet, but
they do not watch television’s educational programs. Also the
continuing education for adults uses the net a lot. Interactive
television provides several possibilities to reach these groups.
The main issues are the changes in different parts of the plan-
ning processes from the new target groups’ point of view.
Moreover, we deal with improving edutainment program types
for the present user groups as well. Chapter 5 outlines some
program ideas meant for the present and new target groups.

FiTV: EDUTAINMENT 6
2. Present edutainment types

2.1. Education and entertainment together
Teaching can be defined in numerous different ways, for
example, as “an intentional interaction obeying the educa-
tional goals whose aim is to cause learning” or, following Tois-
kallio [57], in a more concise form as “intentional tutoring of
studying and learning”. Education, in turn, can be defined as
“a human activity aiming at establishing prerequisites for hu-
mans’ versatile development and growth” or shorter as “tar-
get-oriented development of personality” [57]. Toiskallio
stresses that a proper learning means permanent changes in
conscious and action. We could add that the permanent
change must be caused by experience.
Learning can be divided into four forms according to its
context and purpose:
1) Formal learning takes place in education and training

institutions, leading to recognized diplomas and qualifi-
cations and uses structured and organized learning
situations.
2) Non-formal learning takes place alongside the official
systems of education and training and does not typi-
cally lead to formalized certificates. Non-formal learn-
ing may be provided in the workplace and through the
activities of civil society organizations and groups (such
as youth organizations, trades unions and sport clubs).
Non-formal learning activities can also be produced by
the learners themselves.
3) Informal learning describes a lifelong process whereby
individuals acquire attitudes, values, skills and knowl-
edge from daily experience and the educative influ-
ences and resources in their environment, from family
and neighbours, from work and play, from the market
place, the library and the mass media (life as learning).
4) Accidental learning happens when in everyday activities
an individual learns something that she had not in-
tended or expected.
According to another classification, learning can be divided

into cognitive (knowledge), affective (emotions), and psycho-
motor (skills) (see Chapter 3.4).
One could argue that it is not possible to define entertain-
ment because to be entertained is always a subjective experi-
ence. In the context of edutainment it is fruitful to grasp the
entertainment in a broad sense. Instead of entertainment it is
better to talk about a pleasure or positive experiences that a

FiTV: EDUTAINMENT 7
learner (hopefully) gets from using edutainment. The pleasure

can result not only from the entertaining and interesting con-
tent itself, but also from the satisfaction of getting problems
solved (especially in games), the social interaction (relating to
the content) with other learners, or progressing in learning,
just to mention a few possibilities. In addition, material that
is meaningful and motivating for the learners and relevant in
their own life, often works as a great source of pleasure.
Anyway, when we talk about television programs, the word
‘entertainment’ is normally used for referring to the style of
the program where the content is represented using
characteristics and means of certain genres, like a sit-com
comedy, a soap opera, a quiz or a talk show. Although the
viewers can read the texts of television programs in many
ways and give them their own (even resisting) interpretations,
we use ‘entertainment’ here to refer to programs that are
meant to be amusing and/or entertaining by the content pro-
ducer. This is to say that if the edutainment program is
successful, the target audience should feel the program as
engaging and enjoyable representation about the topic in
question. The aim is to activate the learner and to make inter-
action between the learner and the teaching material possible
(cf. the simulation games of the Sim series). This obeys the
principles of constructivism. Edutainment programs educate
with entertainment methods.
In this report, ‘edutainment’ refers to programs with clear
educational purpose and entertaining character, such as a
Russian language television program Kapusta. Sometimes we
refer to the act of teaching and learning, and sometimes to
the corresponding material. We do not want to make any
distinction between these two meanings since in the case of
interactive television they are inseparable.
Along with edutainment, infotainment was one of the first
genres that came up with the revolution caused by interactive
multimedia in the late 1980s [25]. Infotainment material (e.g.
on TV) often resembles edutainment, especially when differ-
ent kinds of quizzes and talk shows have become more com-
mon. However, from the pedagogical point of view the differ-
ence between infotainment and edutainment is clear, since
giving single facts separately from their contexts is not teach-
ing, although it might cause informal learning. We here re-
quire that in order to be edutainment, a material, say a TV
program, must be produced for educational purposes. This of-
ten ensures that there are also other educational elements,
such as a goal, a possibility to get response, evaluation, and at
least implicit interaction, related to the material. A typical
difference between edutainment and traditional material is
that edutainment often employs a narrative approach.
It is also important to distinguish edutainment and the so-
called technotainment. The concept of technotainment is not

FiTV: EDUTAINMENT 8
as commonly used as edutainment and infotainment, but it

describes very well a certain sort of educational material
which is also said to be entertaining [38]. In this case enter-
taining refers to multimedia tricks, such as animations and
sounds. It is typical for technotainment that the used tricks do
not correspond to real world phenomena. This, in turn, is
against educational principles. A typical example of techno-
tainment is a computer program based on Astrid Lindgren’s
Pippi (Longstocking) from 1995, which is meant for young chil-
dren and in which various objects and animals make unnatural
sounds and funny unnatural motions when clicked by mouse.
Another example of technotainment is a reading program Opi
hauskasti in which tricks are used only to attract user’s atten-
tion without any pedagogical functions.
Edutainment is a new alternative to traditional education.
It can be divided according to its purpose and content:
1) Edutainment to improve users’ life control (informal

education). It is presented usually with discussion or
narrative forms.
2) Edutainment to give experiences (skills education). It is
presented usually with experiences, like simulations
(virtual mobility).
Edutainment can be divided also according to target group:
1) Motivation-oriented (users who have the same interest

regardless of their age, present knowledge level etc.).
2) Age-oriented.
A third classification can be based on the contents of the

material. This gives us such groups as school-TV programs,
games, and game tools.
A challenge in designing edutainment material is to keep
balance between education and entertainment. A desirable
aim is to implement an education material that is neither too
entertaining nor too laborious. For example, in some edutain-
ment games, gameplaying and actual learning material can be
so separated from each other that a user can go through the
game without noticing the represented information contents
completely. In such a case the entertainment replaces the aim
of learning. It is easy to agree with Lars Konzack [28, p. 47]
who has stated: “Even though we are entertained and do ap-
preciate to be entertained, or we might entertain ourselves,
edutainment must strive towards education.”
Our purpose is to study the changes in teaching, learning,
and designing programs and their contents, as interactive
television is becoming the main platform for electronic educa-
tional material. More specifically, we ask whether edutain-
ment can allure new user groups for educational material.

FiTV: EDUTAINMENT 9
2.2. Edutainment on TV
In the year 2000 the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle)
broadcasted about 700 hours educational programs on tele-
vision, of which about 70 % was meant for adults and the rest
30 % for school and preschool children. Many programs have
multimedia teaching packages (radio, television, books, WWW
pages), which make it possible to choose the proper medium
for different kinds of contents. The most popular educational
television programs are language programs which are viewed
regularly or somewhat regularly by over 200 000 people. Up to
76 % of Finns know Yle’s language programs. Television is also
used to promote other educational material than television
programs, such as WWW sites. For example, the web sites (by
the name Abitreenit) for those preparing for their matricula-
tion examination were “advertised” on television [38].
On television there are educational programs for all age
groups: for preschool children (e.g., Eskari-TV: Hoksaamo),
school children (Koulu-TV), young people (parts of Kieliportti
and Opinportti), adults and senior viewers. Among the viewers
of educational television programs there is a slight female
majority and the viewers are often in white-collar professions.
Hence, knowledge seems to be accumulating also in this
respect. Taito-TV is an exception often handling general civics
skills, like using the Internet, or specific skills, like origami.
All educational programs are sent via the Finnish Broadcast-
ing Company but many of the programs are bought from
abroad (e.g. from BBC), so educational programs’ contents in-
clude both Finnish and international cultural elements. In the
other Nordic countries, the educational television programs
are organized much in the same way as in Finland. In the UK
and USA, also the commercial channels have educational and
edutainment material of their own. See Appendix 1 for a brief
survey of educational programs in some countries.
From the theoretical point of view, television’s educational
programs are not considered as independent educational ma-
terial but as supplementary material. Moreover, programs are
often viewed for pleasure, in passing, or for updating and re-
calling existing knowledge [38]. Television’s educational pro-
grams can be divided into three categories based on their or-
ganizational teaching goals:
1) programs for those in school age are often meant to

support formal learning (Koulu-TV),
2) programs to be alternatives for traditional formal
learning which are tied to place and time (Etälukio,
Avoin yliopisto), and
3) programs to allure viewers to other forms of education
and training.

FiTV: EDUTAINMENT 10
Popular themes in informal learning are media literacy (for ex-

ample, Digi-TV’s ABC in Taito-TV, all-round education, and
programs dealing with hobbies. It is typical for most of these
programs that they aim at benefits in clear and often concise
topics, like in the language program Das ist Deutschland.
The first educational programs on television were, in prac-
tice, broadcast lectures, but viewers did not pay much atten-
tion to them. As a consequence, the style of educational pro-
grams was changed: educational contents were integrated into
program formats known to be entertaining. An early example
of narrative edutainment TV series in Finland was Nog blir det
bra by the FST channel. Its purpose was to advice viewers in
everyday life situations, such as unemployment, illness, and
various economic matters.
The internationally most well known TV program to be clas-
sified as edutainment is probably the American series Sesame
1
http://www.sesameworkshop.com/ Street1. The idea behind the show was to present a limited
pre-school curriculum via television. It is said to improve the
linguistic and other cognitive skills of children in low educated
families. The multi-ethnic and racially diverse cast created a
positive, inclusive subtext for the show. It also taught, for ex-
ample, food, dress, music and other habits of different cul-
tures. In recent years, Sesame Street has been forced to face
funding issues like many other public television programs.
Ralph Nader criticized the show in 1998 for ending a 30-year
streak of commercial-free broadcasts. It is now sponsored by
Discovery Zone, the indoor playground manufacturer. Nader
argued that impressionable children will be exploited by the
“shameless” advertising. However, many people think that the
wholesome values and learning opportunities provided by the
show outweigh this potential cause for concern.
Compared with written learning material, the strength of
television is to concretize, vitalize and illustrate the content
using the tools of audiovisual narration. Edutainment tele-
vision programs (and educational television programs in gen-
eral) are mainly based on story telling. A typical way to repre-
sent content in edutainment television programs is to blend
facts and fiction. This means that fictive elements are used
for making the educative content lighter or easier to ap-
proach, and for keeping the interest of viewers.
When educational television programs can be categorized as
edutainment, the typical means of entertainment are utilizing
the characteristics of established entertainment genres and a
humorous or entertaining style of representation. For exam-
ple, in children’s animation series Histeria! historical stories
are told in their entirety using visual and verbal humor and
funny characters. However, this kind of representation in his-
tory education may arouse a problem because it may be diffi-
cult for the viewers unfamiliar with the topic to distinguish
real and fictive events and characters from each other.

To this day, the stories in educational television programs

have been linear and they have been aimed at fairly large au-
diences. This means that it has been impossible to take into
account differences in the interests and needs of individual
learners. The role of the audience, which seems passive in na-
ture compared with using a computer, can be reckoned a diffi-
culty within educational programs in the analogical television.
The viewers don’t have a possibility to select during the pro-
gram what they see and hear, nor in which order the events
are told. Further, if the story is too gripping, the audience
easily ignores the educative content. If, on the other hand,
the story and its characters are unbelievable or too naive, the
audience usually prefers some other medium for learning the
content. And when the learner is interested in getting further
information, analogical television has no means to offer it.
However, many current educational television programs are
devised to be hybrids that distribute the content both through
television and through the Internet. This is the case, for in-
stance, in programs Walking with Dinosaurs and Tää on sek-
sii!.
Table 1: Edutainment types on television.
TYPES EXAMPLES LEARNERS REMARKS

NARRATIVES
Comedic Kapusta Adults An entertaining program that encourages starting the
drama (Russian language) studies of Russian and tells the basics of the language.
Adventure Wishbone School-age chil- The series provides an introduction to works of literature in
story (Classic literature) dren between 6 an entertaining manner; the aim is to encourage children
and 11 for reading.
http://www.pbs.org/wishbone/
Historical Hovimäki Adults A historical drama about the history of Finland; includes a
drama (history) distinct part about historical facts concerning the period in
question.
Sketch Histeria! Children An animated sketch comedy that tells historical events
comedy (history) using comic characters; fragmented information and hasty
pace of storytelling undermine the educational value of the
program.
Soap opera Carita Pintada Adults A Spanish soap opera that has been subtitled in Spanish;
(Spanish language) the series does not fulfill the requirements of edutainment
from the educative side.
SITUATIONALLY ORIENTED
Skills Taito-TV Adults and elderly The content of each episode is restricted to a specific
(practical skills) people topic; the aim is to give advice and knowledge concerning
some concrete skills.
Travels Molto Piacere! Travelers going to A series offering the basic knowledge of cultural habits and
(culture of Italy, Italy typical Italian phrases needed when traveling to the
Italian glossary & country.
phrases)
HYBRIDS
Television + Ups and downs Youngsters The TV series consists of well-known stories of literature;
net (English language) the web site includes pieces of grammar, exercises and
video clips from the series.
Television + Tää on seksii! Youngsters The content of the TV series is a mixture of facts and
net (sexual education) fiction; the fictive part is presented as a soap opera; the
web site of the program includes further information, chat
room & quiz.

2.3. Computer edutainment

Computers are used in educational administration, research,
and teaching. Hence they can play the roles of both tools and
targets. These different roles of computers are referred to
with expressions such as Computer-Based Education (CBE) or
Computer-Based Learning (CBL).
An early stage of using computers in education was related
to the so-called programmed learning, which was a behavioris-
tic learning method used in the 1950s. The purpose of pro-
grammed learning is to manage human learning under con-
trolled conditions. Typically, a textbook or a computer pre-
sents the material to be learned in a series of very small
steps, called frames. Each frame contains some information
and a statement with a blank that the student fills in. The stu-
dent then uncovers the correct answer before going on to the
next frame. In the 1970s, first computer terminals came to
schools, and at the end of the decade, micros came to
schools. The focus of the educational programs was still in
transmitting information and in controlling learning.
With constructivism in the 1980s, the learning process itself
was moved to the focus. The term ‘constructivism’ refers to
the idea that learners construct knowledge for themselves,
each learner individually (and socially) constructs meaning, as
she learns. Constructing meaning is learning; there is no other
kind. The consequences of this view are twofold: 1) we have
to focus on the learner in thinking about learning (not on the
subject or lesson to be taught), and 2) there is no knowledge
independent of the meaning attributed to experience (con-
structed) by the learner, or community of learners. Corre-
spondingly, the educational programs emphasized acquiring,
handling, storing and using information and knowledge, and
the role of the learners became much more active. Still at the
end of the 1980s, the largest part of the computer usage in
teaching was based on individual learning and as a central rea-
son for using computers was considered a possibility to in-
dividualize learning processes. This held true both in pro-
grammed learning and in many constructivist approaches.
In the 1990s there was a decisive turn. Most of the research
relating to the use of computing and information technology in
teaching began to concern the possibilities of technology to
improve social interaction between the teacher and the
learner and among the learners [34]. In the 1990s, working in
projects was the new educational trend. This meant that new
open computer-aided learning environments were developed,
and computers were integrated into other forms of learning.
There was a high demand for new teaching materials and well-
trained teachers.
Very often an educational program is defined to be edutain-
ment, if video clips, pictures, subsets of an art package in-

cluding product specific clip art or stamps, video libraries,

music clips and some basic skills materials are used (see, for
example, [41]). In this report, we apply a stricter criterion for
edutainment, since nowadays most interactive games include
the mentioned activities.
Development of graphic and audiovisual expression in edu-
cational computer games has been slower than in “pure” en-
tertainment games because the rules of design are different.
When software designers produced edutainment games in ear-
lier days, they often emphasized the story. Here lay the dan-
ger that the role of the player is confined to making a few
choices during the story that proceeds independently. [19]
Another problem in some edutainment games is the fact that
the learner can go the game through by “trial-and-error” style
without any great mental effort. This is the case when you can
play the game by guessing and clicking between alternatives
without reasoning, absorbing new information or solving prob-
lems. If the degree of interaction between the learner and the
content of edutainment game is low, learners easily feel that
their action has only trivial effect on the game and this de-
creases their motivation. And particularly a high motivation
and intensity based on strong interactivity has been stated as
the strength of computer games when they have been de-
signed for educational purposes.
Games are used more often in informal education than in
formal education. Types of educational software are divided
into the following classes [3, 23, 37]:
1) A tutorial teaches new things and tests whether stu-

dents have learnt them.
2) A drill repeats a fixed set of questions until the learner
gives a sufficient number of correct answers.
3) A simulation tries to imitate phenomena such that the
learner gets a clear picture of what is happening in the
real world. A subcategory of simulation is a demonstra-
tion, which does not allow the learner to affect the de-
picted phenomena but keep her as a passive viewer.
4) A test is meant to check the results of learning.
5) Educational games are divided into several subclasses:
a) Maze, level and problem games (e.g., Aurinko in
which a game character moves from levels to levels
and collects objects and tries to stay alive). Timing
is often critical with heavy reliance on motor-skills,
memory and planning. [41]
b) Adventure games (e.g., Suomi-Seikkailu and Car-
men San Diego in which solving problems helps the
learner to collect and utilize different objects).
c) Role-playing games (e.g., Elävää englantia, in
which the user can choose properties for her char-
acter and act in this role in different situations).

d) Simulation games (e.g., the Sim series: SimAnt,

SimCity, SimPuisto, SimEarth), which imitate the
real world situations.
e) Strategy games (e.g., Mayor in the Sim series which
offers the learner a position in which she can rule
the world).
f) Shooting/arcade games where usually moving ob-
jects are fired and destroyed. These develop fast
hand to eye co-ordination [37].
g) Creative model building is often an independent
component of the game rather than the game in it-
self. (E.g., a component of Lego Alpha).
h) Traditional games, in which the player usually plays
against a computer player, like in chess or solitaire
[41].
There are no clear research results indicating the effect of

educational games. On the other hand, they are proved to im-
prove learners’ motivation.
Many central properties of educational computer software
differ from the corresponding properties of educational tele-
vision programs. Educational computer software is typically
designed for individuals. Typical problems considered during
the design process are usability of the programs, user model,
user’s workflow, and personalization. When educational soft-
ware is used in formal education, the teaching factors are
controlled, the users are considered similar individuals, and
there is moderately interaction.
In the area of computer edutainment, a significant part of
the software is aimed at children. Sometimes edutainment has
been even explicitly defined as children’s interactive software
that combines playful activities with learning [33, p. 204]. In
children’s computer edutainment a general way to implement
entertaining content is to use characters that are meant to be
fun. In educational software they are usually animated crea-
tures that are funny assistants of the user or occasional comic
characters or even essential characters in the story. A typical
way to use characters in children’s edutainment is to choose
animals that have many human features. For example in Sim-
Puisto a player has a frog-like advisor called Risto who gives
both tips for the game playing and information about the
fauna and flora of the park (which serves as the settings of the
game). The characters can also be used as tutors who give
feedback about the learner’s progression.
When considering adult learners, the strength of computer
edutainment is the possibility to offer many viewpoints and
approaches to the same topic. It is difficult to name specific
entertainment features that are typical in adults’ edutainment
software because they depend so much on the educational
content in question. Roughly generalizing, the style of audio-

visual expression is usually more (photo)realistic and the nar-

ration is based more on verbal (audio and text) than on visual
narration. For instance, if the appearance of software is child-
like or too “sugar glazed”, the adult learners easily feel that
the content is too light and simplistic or unreliable.
A problem with a considerable portion of educational com-
puter programs in Finland is the quality of the localization. It
is not rare that foreign programs are simply translated into
Finnish without localizing them to Finnish circumstances and
culture. An example of the opposite is a CD-ROM based on the
Moomin characters.
Table 2: Some present educational game
types.
GAME TYPES EXAMPLES LEARNERS REMARKS
Adventure Suomi-Seikkailu Children from 8 Knowledge is not structured enough; advancing in the game
(geography) to 12 easily displaces the educational side. (See Appendix 3.)
Quiz Multimedia Cats From school-aged Interactive demonstration including video clips, photos,
[as a distinct part (domestic & wild children to adults animations and sound samples; a quiz concerning history
in the content] cats) and characteristics of cat breeds forms a minor part in the
whole product.
Role-play Elävää englantia Adults Versatile exercises for rehearsing reading and listening
[as a distinct part (English language) comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, and speaking; a
in the content] speaking exercise is based on role-playing.
Strategy Sokrates Students of upper The story of the game concerns the murder inquiry of Soc-
(philosophy) secondary school rates; in the beginning the player has to choose the philo-
and adults sophical viewpoint of her action; advancing in the game
requires documenting one’s own reflections; includes a
data bank of philosophy.
Simulation SimPuisto Children over 8 Aim is to construct a diversiform nature park; the game
(biology) requires the player to recognize species. (See Appendix 3.)
Experimental Valtakunta Adults, especially The virtual reality environment of the game consists of
drama [in preparation] students of theol- photographic panoramas that have been shot in original
(theology & his- ogy locations in Palestine; alternative storylines and inter-
tory) changeable narrative points of view. (See Appendix 3.)
2.4. Edutainment on the Internet

Online education is the type of teaching and learning systems
which Web-based systems are part of. Two major trends can
be examined: 1) tele-teaching and tele-learning systems, and
2) web-based educational systems. Tele-teaching and tele-
learning have their origin in video technology, which was used
for recording and storing lectures on video tapes and thus
make them available independent of the live presentation.
The lack of interactivity (between the teacher and the
learner) and the broad availability of high power communica-
tion technology led to a change in method: video cameras and
audio facilities transfer lectures online and live to distant
places where students are able to take part synchronously.
First the Internet has been experimented with for transfer-
ring the lectures. New technologies, such as ISDN and S-ISDN
have opened a new possibility of high-speed communication
facilities where this educational method is not restricted to

unidirectional use. Students are often not able to interact by

means of computer technology and/or video and audio re-
cording and transmitting techniques. Web-based educational
systems are asynchronous, i.e., they do not require simulta-
neous presence of the teacher and the students [5]. Learners
often consider the Internet an inspiring learning environment,
but without properly structured tools, it is chaos where the
learner will definitely lose her way. Perrone et al. [46] com-
pare the use of the Internet without proper tools with tele-
vision with 500 channels without any help in navigation. As a
solution for this problem, Perrone et al. [46] introduced Web-
Quest, which makes the Internet a unique platform for search-
ing and handling information.
Web-based learning environments and whole web courses
are popular nowadays but they are seldom meant to be par-
ticularly amusing. For example, features and the appearance
of the interface of WebCT, which is a multi-user learning envi-
ronment, are not very entertaining. At any rate, the users of
WebCT can enjoy themselves through communicating with
other users in discussion groups or in a chat room. In that
case, the pleasure rises from the messages that the users have
produced on their own and not from the ready-made content.
A remarkable part of the actual web-based edutainment
consists of the sites targeted to children (e.g. FunBrain.com
and Kids Web Japan). They include mini games, puzzles, quiz-
zes, tales and rhymes, and they often have a cartoon-like
colourful appearance. Instead of getting children interested in
subject matters the main goal of the sites is to offer them
“activating tools” for learning, such as playing games, doing
crosswords and exercising specific skills. These sites often
2
See, e.g., http://www.babloo.com/ or have their own subsections for different age groups.2
http://www.prongo.com/
In a web-based 3D-environment called Active Worlds 3, the
3
See http://www.activeworlds.com/ ideas of collaborative and social learning can be tested in vir-
tual worlds aimed at educational purposes. In Active Worlds,
avatars represent users. Active Worlds offers interesting possi-
bilities for online communication, collaboration, role-playing,
the exploration of new environments and introducing learners
to simulations. Educators and students can also build their
own virtual worlds where a right to use can be limited to a
given group. The sense of belonging that is often absent from
distance learning has been considered a benefit of educational
three-dimensional virtual worlds [4].
The web sites that are meant to support or supplement the
educational material, which is delivered through television,
off-line products or textbooks, form one group of online edu-
tainment content. They can be a central part of the material
entity (like in hybrids) or they can have a minor role that has
been restricted to, for instance, telling some additional or
background information about the topic or offering learners
additional activities that are impossible to implement in the

main medium. An example of the latter is the web site of the

television language program Das ist Deutschland. The site has
extra information about sights that has been presented in the
series and a mini game called Makkarapeli that tests learners’
knowledge about Germany.
4
http://www.ctw.org/ Sesame Workshop 4 has developed innovative and engaging
educational content delivered in a variety of ways — tele-
vision, books, magazines and other printed materials, and
interactive media such as CD-ROM and video games — taking
advantage of all forms of media and using those that are best
suited to delivering a particular curriculum.
5
http://www.opintoluotsi.fi/ Opintoluotsi 5 is a Finnish educational portal for adults pro-
duced by the Finnish Ministry of Education. It contains various
net courses and tools for self-learning.
2.5. Interactive television

The tradition of broadcast TV and filmmaking is strongly
rooted in narrative. The best educational TV or film offers a
motivating, gripping and captivating variety of stimulating im-
ages. Those skilled in this medium know how to tell a story,
how to intrigue, and how to convey ideas effectively. In con-
trast, the developers of adaptive educational software have
focused on individualizing the content and its presentation,
and/or adapting the parameters within which the learner or
learners work.
In addition to their narrative nature, another key factor is
that educational TV programs are designed for groups. Typi-
cally, when educational TV programs are used as a part of for-
mal education, the viewers are considered to form a large ho-
mogeneous user group. Teaching factors are controlled and
there is only little interaction. In self-learning, the user groups
are varying with varying teaching factors. Obviously, there is
no interaction when educational TV programs are used in self-
learning.
The advent of digital television, and in particular its poten-
tial for interactivity (via software and hardware built into re-
ceivers and connection with other telecommunication sys-
tems, like telephone, cable, and satellite) provides the oppor-
tunity for richer edutainment programs.
According to a digital television study [7], the uptake of in-
teractive TV learning services across the EU will be very un-
even. The study considers that the prospects for the develop-
ment of such services are high in only three countries — the
UK, Sweden and Italy — with medium prospect in another six
countries. However, this may not necessarily put the rest of
the European countries at a disadvantage compared with oth-
ers because other competitive technologies like ADSL tech-
nologies may be more appropriate and have a more dominant

role. ADSL will enable good quality full screen video and audio
through existing telephone lines. Interactive digital services
and learning environments are developed especially by BBC,
Channel 4, and Granada in the UK and DR in Denmark. [38, p.
181] Granada’s famous educational programs include, among
others, World in Action and Time Tales. (See also Appendix 1.)
Most of these interactive TV learning services are likely to
be in edutainment format. Early developers of interactive TV
learning services are likely to be public service educational
broadcasters and commercial operators who may wish to gain
a competitive advantage over their rivals. However, there
does seem to be a demand for language learning, which may
encourage the uptake of interactive digital TV. Interactive TV
may offer some innovative approaches to tackling the prob-
lems of basic skills in an informal and entertaining way. [60]
Separate interactive services, utilizing the return channel
independently of TV channel, are starting to emerge in the
form of learning resources related to the national curriculum
involving new alliances with traditional publishers. [60]
The viewers often complain that the current educational
television programs suffer from the following problems: un-
suitable broadcasting times, the amount of detailed facts,
tempo, and lacking introductory and concluding sections [60].
Many of the common problems could be easily solved by digi-
tal television. For example, the program can be stored in a
set-top box to be watched in a more suitable time, concluding
material could be offered in channel’s text-television, and
auxiliary material could be found in the Internet. It could be
also possible to listen to learning channels from digital radio.
The Finnish digital television has a cultural and educational
6
http://www.yle.fi/teema/ channel, called YleTeema 6 with a new type of language pro-
gram and several other new programs (cf. Opinportti). It is
likely that in the future the spectrum on educational programs
will widen along with the new technical possibilities. For ex-
ample, a part of language teaching programs will be originally
meant for other purposes than teaching (see Appendix 2 for a
short presentation of soap opera Carita Pintada), because in
digital television it is easy to change language (both in speech
and in subtitles). There is a huge amount of material to be
used for teaching foreign languages. Similarly, it is easy to
augment various other programs (for example, cultural pro-
grams) with game portions that promote and test learning.
Watching television has by tradition been a social experi-
ence. People tend to watch in groups, and to discuss with
each other what they have seen. This poses interesting prob-
lems from a personalization point of view: instead of adapting
instruction to individuals, it should be adapted to small
groups. Instead of user modelling we may need group model-
ling.

3. Edutainment in education
3.1. Design approaches
When television edutainment begins to approach the edutain-
ment software, the methods of user-centered design (UCD)
and learner-centered design (LCD) are useful to be involved in
the design process. According to ISO 13407 standard [21],
user-centered design means a multi-disciplinary activity,
which incorporates human factors and ergonomics knowledge
and techniques with the aim of enhancing effectiveness and
productivity, improving human working conditions, and coun-
teracting the possible adverse effects of use on human health,
safety and performance. The iterative activities of user-cen-
tered design are,
• to plan the human centred process

• to understand and specify the context of use
• to specify the user and organisational requirements
• to produce design solutions
• to evaluate design against user requirements.
Learner-centered design is an approach that extends tradi-

tional user-centered design techniques. It is based on social
constructivist theories of learning (see Chapter 3.4). When the
main goal for user-centered design is to design interactive sys-
tems that help users complete their tasks easily and effi-
ciently, learner-centered design focuses on building software
that supports learners as they engage in unfamiliar activities
and learn about a new subject matter [36, pp. 306—310, 48].
If the underlying presumption in user-centered design is that
the users are knowledgeable and motivated about their work
tasks, in the area of learner-centered design the assumption is
that the learners are work novices trying to learn about a new
domain through software and they aren’t often motivated in
the same way as experts [48]. When producing interactive
edutainment for any medium, learner-centered design is the
advisable approach.
Involving the target audience from the beginning of the de-
sign process constitutes the basement both in user-centered
and learner-centered design. After the target group or groups
have been defined, the designers must get to know the group,
especially its needs, motivations, attitudes, and usual proce-
dures relating to the domain or task in question. When design-
ing educational software, the typical problems in learning the
subject matter have to be taken into account and if possible,
the aim should be finding some alternative ways to approach
and represent the domain with the chosen technology.

If the target group is not familiar with the intended user in-
terface, it is essential to carefully evaluate if the efforts re-
quired in learning it are clearly worth pursuit compared with
using the conventional interface solutions. Along with efforts
relating to studying the subject matter, learning the user in-
terface shouldn’t be cognitively too heavy. In addition, it’s es-
sential to consider the main contexts in which the educational
material will be used. E.g., a classroom is quite a different en-
vironment compared with using the material alone at home.
Designing educational contents varies a lot depending on
the subject matter, the broadness of the content, the medium
in question, the main target group, and so on. As a starting
point, designers must consider what purpose the content is
aimed for and how the material is suited for different learning
situations. And when designing edutainment content, the de-
signers should consider carefully how to support the amuse-
ment of users without disregarding the educative side of the
content. Designers of edutainment should know what kind of
customs and preferences the group has in the area of
entertainment consumption. The wider the target group the
greater the challenge to create content that is felt entertain-
ing and meaningful. Instead of testing how the educational
goals of the material are realized, it is beneficial to test with
the target group the appropriateness of entertaining represen-
tation style, including (verbal and visual) humor, imagery,
audiovisual appearance and overall setting.
Sometimes the entertaining nature of edutainment becomes
clear already in the title of the material. Good examples are
the television program Molto Piacere! (in English something
like “Much pleasure/enjoyment!”), which is targeted at
travelers going to Italy, and Histeria!, the animated sketch
comedy aimed at children, in which the title refers simultane-
ously to the historical and “hysterical” (meaning here eventful
stories, exaggerated characters and fast story-telling) nature
of the program. This is one way to direct consumers’ and
learners’ presumptions.
Besides the title of the material, also the appearance of a
CD-ROM package, the front page of web based material, or
the advertorial of a television program should be planned well
because they constitute a first impression that is decisive
when people determine if they are going to familiarize with
the material. These features are emphasized in situations re-
lated to informal learning when, for example, people deter-
mine what kind of educational products or programs are ap-
propriate to themselves or to their children as self-learning
material. Maybe the role of the title is more central in tele-
vision edutainment, because the program choices of television
audience are often based merely on program guides that in-
clude the title of the program and the theme or title of the
episode and at most a very short description.

Designing educational programs for television has been de-

termined by the time limits of the program (which means of-
ten condensing the information into the main points), the im-
possibility to offer different levels of difficulty for the needs
of heterogeneous audience, the presentation of the informa-
tion by telling and showing in a linear order, and the lack of
explicit interaction between television audience and the con-
tent. The duration and linearity of television educational pro-
grams have defined the pace where the topics should be
learned, although utilizing a videocassette recorder has facili-
tated the situation.
One of the benefits of educational television is the ability
to take learners to unfamiliar and novel environments. This
feature is emphasized, for example, in the educational pro-
grams of history and astronomy or in situationally oriented
travel programs. It is obvious that television is a suitable me-
dium for a visually and narrative oriented content. On the
other hand, in the guidelines for using television as a distance
education medium published by Engineering Outreach [14],
the importance of showing and thinking in visual terms is high-
lighted instead of telling. The guidelines recommend to make
use of 1) pictures to show what things look like, 2) diagrams to
illustrate conceptual relationships, organizations, and struc-
ture of content material, 3) maps to show spatial relation-
ships, and 4) graphs, tables and charts to summarize informa-
tion. The guidelines also recommend to utilize the video pho-
tography to show movement for (among others) demonstrating
skills that learners are expected to emulate, for conducting
experiments in which the processes are observed, for analyz-
ing change over time, and for revealing the spatial and three-
dimensional qualities of an object. [14]
In educational television programs, the entertaining side
has not been as strong as in the area of educational software.
This can be a consequence of the fact that educational tele-
vision programs have often been meant to be supporting ma-
terial within formal education, and the main target group has
been adults, not children. For example, the series of School
Television are designed to be viewed in connection with cer-
tain school subjects, and single episodes are connected to cer-
tain lessons of the curriculum. Educational programs that aim
to cross the boundaries of traditional subjects will probably in-
crease with interactive digital television because it makes it
easier to product content where the viewer is presented with
any approaches to the subject matter and she is able to
change the language of the program if she wants simultane-
ously practice certain language.
Instead of giving illustrative information, educational soft-
ware is usually designed to test the skills and knowledge of
the learners, to give the learners some hints for making pro-
gress, to offer them different levels of difficulty, to reward

them when achieving some intermediate goals or answering

right, to give some kind of feedback about their advance, and
in some cases, to offer tools for constructing new knowledge.
Earlier edutainment off-line software was often designed
merely for practicing specific skills and offering restricted in-
formation chunks related to the subject area. E.g., early
mathematical computer games concentrated on the drill and
practice of simple number operations and concepts [27]. How-
ever, the predominant trend in current educational software
seems to be the products with broad content and many ways
for the users to practice skills and examine the issue, like in
the language program Elävää englantia. This often means that
the content is designed to present the subject area holisti-
cally, crossing the traditional borders between school sub-
jects, and to support the idea of learning by doing. The cur-
rent edutainment software is typically designed for a long-
time use when the user can easily advance at her own pace.
Web-based edutainment software has focused on the con-
tent that has been aimed at the students of elementary school
and pre-school children, their parents and teachers. The sites
are typically designed to get students more interested in the
subject matter by offering them (interactive) activities, which
are impossible to implement in textbooks, and to offer topics
of discussion and hints to the parents and teachers for getting
children more engaged with learning. In addition, they offer
advice and help to students with their homework. When the
pre-school children are the main target group, the typical goal
is to get them familiarized with the letters, numbers, colors,
geometrical figures, and other “preparatory school stuff”
through stories and gaming activities.
According to Klawe [27], in design of educational games the
key issues are a high degree of interactivity, the representa-
tion of concepts, the interface (in the sense of manipulating
concepts and directing learners’ attention), a navigational
structure and sequencing of activities, a feedback and rewards
system, and entertainment elements by which she refers to
colorful graphics, animation, sound, characters and humor.
Klawe sees that most successful interactive activities of edu-
cational software are analogues of non-computer versions, like
simulations, problem solving, matching or grouping items, cre-
ating artifacts, conducting conversations, and exploring new
environment. She states: “If the activity is not motivating in
real life it is not likely to be motivating on the computer.” She
also emphasizes that activities with explicit goals work well
for most learners.
Usability issues have been strongly linked to digital media
and its products. There are also studies, where the goal is to
define one’s own criteria for pedagogical usability (see Chap-
ter 4.2). After all, in the context of analogical TV the usability
has almost been ignored. TV has been thought to be so estab-

lished and familiar to all, and functions enabled by a remote

control so simple that improving the usability of the user in-
terface has not been considered as necessary. This is going to
change with interactive digital TV, when the audience has
more possibilities to affect the content and the user interface.
When designing educational content for digital television,
new possibilities in carrying out the content and adding the
learners’ activity during the program should be carefully con-
sidered. A central question is: when is it reasonable to modify
the linear narration that is one of the main characteristics of
the medium? For instance, we should consider thoroughly and
case-by-case whether it is more preferable to offer learners
“off-air broadcast” material that is interactive or to include
interactive elements in the stream of broadcast. If the pro-
ducers of television edutainment are interested in offering
tests, exercises and puzzles as an additional material through
digital television, they have to consider what kind of inter-
active activities are meaningful to implement with the naviga-
tion and input methods of digital television.
3.2. A vision of multi-form teaching

Teaching with edutainment refers to the usage of edutainment
material in teaching, and not to the general entertaining
teaching methods like role-plays. Besides, edutainment mate-
rial must be used via information technology.
During the last decades the rapid development of media has
caused strong needs for training teachers and changing theo-
ries of teaching and learning [40]. Different media are now
beginning to converge, and at the same time, the knowledge
and skills required by work markets are continuously changing
because of, for example, internationalization and the develop-
ment of information technology [30]. In adult education, these
changes will likely emphasize the importance of multi-form
7
Multi-form teaching is a translation (by teaching 7, which flexibly in turn includes contact teaching,
Walldén) of the Finnish phrase ‘monimuoto-
opetus’. No established English phrase
distance teaching, and self-learning with the help of various
exists. new media [44, 45].
Multi-form teaching is a concept mainly used in Finland. It
has no exact counterpart in the English terminology. The con-
cept of ‘open learning’ is the closest approximation; it in-
cludes distance teaching, contact teaching, and various forms
of independent learning [62]. The Finnish Council of Adult
Education (Aikuiskoulutusneuvosto) defines multi-form teach-
ing as follows [1]:
Multi-form teaching consists of planned schedule of contact and distance

teaching and self-learning for a specific target group supported students
tutoring and advice. If needed, multi-form teaching uses electronic com-
munication technique, telematic services, and information technology.
Multi-form teaching can be organized by several adult education units to-
gether.

The use of new media varies according to the form of teaching

(contact teaching, distance teaching, or self-learning).
Multi-form teaching has been used especially in open uni-
versity teaching, which is motivated, for example, by the in-
creased educational equality. In order to reach this goal, it
has become evident that teaching should be free from the re-
strictions of time and place. Another example of multi-form
teaching, the Etälukio project with Yle as a main organizer,
has become very popular.
Walldén believes that in the future, digital media will be
used according to their suitability for the teaching event in
question. This means that it will be built as multi-form teach-
ing in the media chain (see Figure 1, below). As a down side,
this means that in addition to the contents, the learners have
to learn with the use of the chosen media. On the other hand,
teachers have to know how to use the media, and to be famil-
iar with their possibilities and limitations in learning different
contents. The usage of media has various limits caused partly
by the properties of the devices themselves and partly by the
mistakes made when designing their usage in teaching. These
limits might imply that teaching of the contents is not success-
ful. The use of media chain also stresses the importance of
good media literacy.
The ease of learning the use of a device, especially inter-
Figure 1: Multi-form teaching in media active media devices, is evaluated with the concept of usabil-
chain (Walldén). (In a media chain, the user ity. From the point of view of usability, Internet’s problems
chooses the media that best fits to his/her
present needs and might even continue the are related to navigation (finding the information), being sure
same task via different media when his/her
possibilities to use them vary during a day.)
Mobiles Digital television

Self-learning US- Self-learning
Distance learning Distance learning
-ABIL-
Small screens Remote controller

Privacy Learners Using in groups
— Visual
— Auditory
— Kinesthetic
— Analytical
— Holistic
Navigation problems
Validity of information -ITY
Web
Distance learning
Self-learning

of the validity of the information found, and the fragmenta-

tion of the teaching experience. In the case of mobile devices,
the usability problems are related to the size of screen, the
restricted possibility of inputting text, and the difficulty of in-
suring the privacy of use.
When using digital television, a remote controller restricts
interaction. Namely, the interaction of application programs
requires the viewer to use the remote controller much more
actively than before (with analogical TV). The user interfaces
in digital TV often require heavy use of arrow keys, which, in
turn, requires the viewer to concentrate on the use of the de-
vice. (See Appendix 5.) The problems with the remote control-
ler can limit or totally prevent both learning and entertaining
with digital television. The importance of usability should be
stressed with senior viewers (foreign language abbreviations,
uncomfortable buttons) and with various special groups, such
as left-handed and those with problems in reading. A majority
of viewers use the remote controller with one hand pressing
the buttons with their thumb. Also the remote controllers of
digital television should allow this popular “thumb interface”.
Digital television may also limit the possibilities of small
children to independently use television because of their weak
sensomotorius skills and reading ability. Also the effects of
computers on the psychological development of children have
been considered a lot. Many authors are afraid that we are
moving from logical to fragmentary thinking. When a child
spends much time with the computer, it is possible that she
will even have feeling towards the device. The goal of psycho-
logical development is to get free from emotional dependen-
cies by becoming an independent individual, but a child stuck
with information technology may become, instead of inde-
pendent, dependent on computers.
Interaction is an essential feature of teaching. Teacher’s
action in this interaction is called teaching and learner’s ac-
tion is called learning. In a sense, learning is a result of inter-
action. However, it is obvious that all interaction cannot be
classified as teaching. The interaction in teaching can be di-
rect (contact teaching) and indirect (distance teaching and
self-learning).
In contact teaching the teacher and the learner have a di-
rect contact in the same place at the same time (see Table 3,
on the next page). Contact learning makes possible a personal
contact, not only between a teacher and a learner, but also
between learners. Contact teaching may contain, for example,
lectures using WWW pages, group projects in the net environ-
ment, teaching in a class watching television, or, in the fu-
ture, learning environments in digital television using artificial
intelligence as sketched by Underwood [60]. (See Chapter
2.5.) The biggest obstacles in integrating edutainment mate-
rial with formal learning are that 1) practical lesson planning

takes too much time as it can only be done through e.g. play-
ing the game (the more complex games are, the greater the
need for more teacher preparation), 2) the mismatch between
the skills and knowledge developed in edutainment material
and those recognized explicitly within the school system, and
3) the mismatch between material content and curriculum
content especially in secondary schools. [39]
Distance teaching employs various kinds of devices to help
people to be connected to each other (for example, tele-
phone, electronic mail, letters) and the connection may take
place at a different time or the same time. Interaction in dis-
tance learning is restricted [40], which implies that traditional
interaction (led by the teacher) plays a minor role and other
forms of interaction are used. It is also possible that tutoring
and study circles use the same devices as other forms of dis-
tance learning.
A popular television service is Etälukio, which includes
many of the subjects (sciences, history, psychology, etc.) of
the Finnish high school curriculum. Electronic mail and chat
channels could be used in connecting the teacher and the
learners of Etälukio. In digital television, a chat channel can
be on when an educational program is being watched (such a
product is already published by Sofia Digital). This allows a
viewer to take part in discussions while simultaneously watch-
ing the program, and so possibly receiving on-line help and tu-
toring from teacher and fellow learners.
The third part of multi-form teaching consists of self-learn-
ing periods. During these periods, a learner works with the
material presented in contact and distance teaching, does
homework assignments, and prepares for next teaching pe-
riods or study circle meetings. Self-learning can be seen to be
connected with distance learning when distance learning is
one-directional and requires self-learning, for example, in the
form homework assignment. In this case, self-learning differs
from that in informal learning where a learner works alone ac-
cording to her own schedule and goals.
Table 3: Interaction in multi-form teaching
and media (Walldén).
Organi- Form and Time and Target groups Examples of contents and media
zation means of place (see Chapter 3.6 for more
interaction detailed information)
Contact Direct or The same — Visual learners (model — Common use of television, computer or web in
learning personal learning) class rooms and study circles, OR
interaction — Auditory learners (by — Digital television, mobile or web used in
hearing, by constructing) tutoring
— Analytic learners — For example, Yle’s Kouluportti or Kieliportti
Distance Indirect / The same — Kinesthetic learners (ex- — Digital television (Etälukio)
learning interactive or different perimental learning), for — Audio learning
devices and place, dif- example, simulators — Video conferencing
material ferent time — Analytic learners — Computer-aided teaching
Self Missing / Different — Kinesthetic learners — Digital television (Opinportti, Carita Pintada)
learning materials time and — Holistic learners — Literature
and devices different — Computers, Web (EDU.fi, e-mail)
place — Audio-visual material

Besides considering the time and place and means of medi-

ated interaction there are many other possibilities to define
the ambiguous concepts of interaction and interactivity. It is
not appropriate here to go through the diverse argumentation
relating to interaction and interactivity, but it is beneficial to
introduce a few different approaches to these concepts. We
take as examples the illustrative definitions of Jens F. Jensen,
Pertti Näränen and Pirkko Raudaskoski.
Jensen [22, pp. 58—61] makes a difference between the
concept of interaction and the concept of interactivity. By in-
teraction, he refers to interdependent actions and non-medi-
ated communication between humans, while by interactivity
he refers to the media use and mediated communication. Ac-
cording to Jensen, interactivity can be gauged as “media’s po-
tential ability to let the user exert an influence on the content
and/or form of the mediated communication”. He sees inter-
activity as a continuum and describes it using Bordewijk’s and
Kaam’s taxonomy of communication patterns as a basis. Jen-
sen finds four dimensions of interactivity: transmission, con-
sultation, conversation, and registration.
In transmissional interactivity, communication is one-direc-
tional and users can choose from a continuous stream of in-
formation without a possibility for making requests. This is the
case with the educational programs of analogical television. In
consultational interactivity users can choose, by request, from
a selection of pre-produced information in a two-way media
system with a return-channel. Many earlier educational CD-
ROMs and web sites belong to this dimension. Conversational
interactivity refers to a two-way media system that lets users
produce and input their own information. For example, web
based learning environments such as Active Worlds Educa-
tional Universe and WebCT come under this sub-category. In
registrational interactivity, the media records user-related in-
formation and adapts and/or responds to a given user’s ac-
tion. In some “intelligent” educational games there are fea-
tures belonging to this dimension.
Näränen [42, pp. 57—59] categorizes the different forms of
television audience interaction. Firstly, he makes a difference
between viewer interaction and group interaction: viewer in-
teraction refers to interaction between a program and a
viewer (including families as a unit), and group interaction
means interaction between the viewers within viewer groups.
Secondly, Näränen finds central variables concerning the na-
ture of interaction:
1) asynchronous automatic interaction,

2) asynchronous human interaction,
3) real time representative interaction, and
4) real time spontaneous (open) interaction.

For instance, by real time representative interaction Näränen

refers to studio audience or viewer guests chosen in advance,
by asynchronous human interaction (in the group level) he re-
fers to moderated discussion groups and feedback discussions
relating to program, and by real time spontaneous interaction
he means viewers’ text messages, calls and video connections
that are included in the direct broadcast through different
channels. In educational television programs, these forms of
interaction have been minor to these days. Especially the pos-
sibilities of the viewers to influence on the program content,
for instance, by sending questions and comments, seem to be
very rare in current implementations. Anyway, some of the
educational television programs (like Tää on seksii) include
asynchronous human interaction via feedback message boards
and moderated discussion groups on their web site.
It is interesting that both in Näränen’s and in Jensen’s defi-
nitions the starting point is to define the designed levels of in-
teractivity in media (or on television) but they don’t tell a lot
about the interactivity interpreted and achieved through the
content by users. Using the methods of interaction analysis
(IA) Pirkko Raudaskoski has studied the actual and situated re-
ception of television and computer media. In particular, she
has studied how the artifacts of interactive media and situa-
tions of use are constituted as interactive by users. She com-
pares watching television and using a computer and finds dif-
ferences and similarities: when using computers, the user is
much more involved in making sense of the interface, but in
both situations the intelligibility of the content is actively
achieved by the viewers/users. Raudaskoski [50] states:
When the TV media has its own flow that the viewers can “participate
in” but which does not accommodate to their interaction, the computer
media in this case is a different resource: it allows participation, but
more work has to be done to achieve the order of interaction.
Raudaskoski defines two types of interactivity related to

watching television: parasocial interaction and external inter-
action. The parasocial interaction means the instances in
which the viewer “takes part” in the interaction, for example,
by commenting or laughing at something that happens or is
told on the screen. The parasocial interaction is often induced
by hosts’ or performers’ direct address to the viewers through
gaze. External interaction refers to comments that don’t di-
rectly address the ongoing happenings on the screen but in
which happenings in the earlier episodes are remembered or
happenings in forthcoming episodes are predicted. Raudas-
koski found that parasocial interaction fitted the flow of the
television program, whereas the external interaction was
sometimes a continuation from a parasocial comment or else a
separate discussion, topic of which came from the television
program. [50]

Accordingly both parasocial and external interaction are ac-

tuated by the program content. In educational television pro-
grams, it is common means to induce parasocial interaction by
addressing the viewers by looking straight at the camera. Par-
ticularly this feature is emphasized in many situational ori-
ented language programs, such as BBC’s Bon Voyage!. The pro-
gram involves several scenes where the viewers are addressed
through a gaze. The viewers are also addressed as if people in
the program were speaking straight to them. For example at
the end of one episode, actors say goodbye to the viewers (as
if) by looking at them and using different French expressions.
In general, when inducing parasocial interaction by speaking
the common phrases targeted at the viewers are “Let’s go
next”, “Come with us” or “You at home”. This kind of direct
form of address to the audience actualises a feeling of “now
and here” and simulated closeness. It relates to the aesthetics
of television that is based on proximity, participation and im-
mediacy [55, pp. 27—30].
Parasocial interaction between the viewer and the program
content resembles many features of human—human inter-
action. This indicates that the myth of passive television audi-
ences is behind the times. While the flow of the television
program doesn’t necessarily need any contributions from the
viewers, they are often laughing and talking at similar points
that people would do in face-to-face communication. More-
over, it is common to watch television in groups, in which case
the social nature of viewing is stressed. Television watching is
also generally related to other activities, like surfing on the
Internet or using the mobile phone [15]. It seems that simulta-
neous usage of different media has already become a com-
monplace. Accordingly, it is time to call into question the pas-
sivating nature of television.
Multi-form teaching, which belongs to formal education, is
likely to be a prominent form of education in the future, espe-
cially for those target groups, which are reached by the pre-
sent educational television programs (see Chapter 4.3). On the
other hand, multi-form teaching is not applicable to the new
target groups of edutainment programs (see Chapter 4.4, Fig-
ure 5), since these groups learn outside formal education.
3.3. Teaching outside formal education

In the future, non-formal and informal education will likely be
emphasized (see Chapter 2). Non-formal learning refers to
learning activities produced by the learners themselves or by
others. Typically, non-formal learning does not lead to formal-
ized certificates. Informal learning means lifelong learning, in
which individuals acquire attitudes, values, skills and knowl-
edge from daily experience. As an advantage, this form of

learning is closely connected to the whole life of the learner,

which makes it easy to apply to knowledge and skills learned.
On the other hand, nobody controls the possible misunder-
standings of learners or activates the transference of learned
material, possibly implying too individualized and varying
learning processes. In order to overcome this, edutainment
material must contain portions to guide and tutor the learn-
ers.
In this report, the role of edutainment programs is defined
by the goals of producers, and not by the actual purpose of
use. For example, a school-TV program meant for formal edu-
cation can be used as a self-learning material, but we consider
such a program as originally meant by the producers.
So far, edutainment material in different media has had a
passive role — excluding some prominent pilot experiments.
Educational television programs have mainly been viewed si-
lently in classrooms making notes, and various computer
games have been played pair-wise in the back of a classroom
or in separate computer classes. The Internet is used, for ex-
ample, in adult education as an open learning environment
(see Chapter 2.4).
The use of the Internet in the spirit of edutainment begun
with different kinds of “Trivia Hunts”, which aimed at improv-
ing the learner’s skills of searching information. A typical ex-
ample was The Internet Hunt by Rick Gates [12]. This applica-
tion made use of the most important strength of the Internet,
its open and unlimited nature. Contrary to simulation games
with limited contents, the Internet games can use the practi-
cally unlimited store of topics and information.
WebQuest [46, 65] is a popular form of connecting inter-
active simulation games and the Internet. It follows the con-
structivist theories of learning, for example, by allowing the
players to change the rules and topics of the game. This
makes it possible to learn not only design and programming
skills but also to think reflectively about one’s own learning
process. There are ready-made WebQuest games on various
topics available in the Internet [65]. Although most of them
are meant to be used in primary schools, there are also Web-
Quest games for adults to be used in informal learning.
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or
all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web.
WebQuests are designed to use learners’ time well, to focus
on using information rather than looking for it, and to support
learners’ thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and
evaluation (see Chapter 3.4 and Appendix 4).
8
http://www.yle.fi/opinportti/ Opinportti 8, maintained by Yle, is a Finnish educational
web service with the widest target group. It contains, among
other parts, Kouluportti, Kieliportti, Senioriportti, Etälukio,
Open University, and a portion for pre-school children. Koulu-
portti is meant for the pupils and teachers of primary schools.

Kieliportti contains all the material for Yle’s language pro-

grams and other material for learning foreign languages, such
as Abitreenit for those preparing for their matriculation ex-
amination. Senioriportti contains information, hints, and ad-
vice to senior viewers. It is a joint effort of Yle and an organi-
zation on adult education (Kansalais- ja työväenopistojen
liitto). Etälukio helps adult learners to plan their studies and
informs them about the programs to be broadcast in Etälukio.
Other Finnish net services for learning and teaching include
EDU.fi by the National Board of Education, Studium environ-
ment by Palmenia Centre for Research and Continuing Educa-
tion (University of Helsinki), and Mikkeli Internetix Campus by
Otava Folk High School.
9
http://www.edu.fi/ EDU.fi 9 is a portal meant for teachers and containing web-
based teaching material and information on net learning.
EDU.fi also contains a virtual network for teachers’ discus-
10
http://www.internetix.fi/ sions. Internetix 10 is an open learning environment for dis-
tance learning, self-learning, teaching, preparing various
teaching events, networking, and searching information. Cur-
rently, it contains the services for students in formal (prepara-
tion for matriculation examination, technical colleges, Open
University) and informal education (courses for adult educa-
tion on various subjects).
11
http://www.studium.helsinki.fi/ Studium 11 is produced and maintained by Palmenia Centre
for Research and Continuing Education (University of Helsinki).
It offers various services in extension studies. Studium’s vir-
tual classroom in the Internet includes various tools, like chat
channels, internal mail, diary, calendar, learning material and
12
http://www.studium.helsinki.fi/ assignments12.
kurssit/kouke/index.asp
Manninen [37] has divided web-based learning environments
into four levels:
1) a slide and information store,

2) a medium for interaction,
3) a hypertext structure, and
4) a virtual classroom.
The first level means that the Internet is used as a channel for
transmitting slides and other material. The second level em-
phasizes Internet’s possibilities as a means of communication
and the availability of real-time information via the Internet.
Hence, the second level contains chat channels and mailing
lists and link lists to sources of information available in real-
time. At the third level, a web-based learning environment is
a hypertext structure supporting learning and studying in
which the links and structures build up materials suitable for
self-learning. At the highest level (level four) the metaphor of
a classroom or school is virtually implemented. These virtual
classrooms have been constructed since the 1970s on the basis
of the so called Computer-Mediated Communication Systems

(CMCS) [19], like in Virtual Classroom [19, 43]. The present

applications in the Internet, like Lotus Learning Space, Top
Class, and WebCT provide, among other services, a possibility
to establish chat channels for discussions.
In the above classification by Manninen, Opinportti and
Edu.fi mainly belong to the second level, while Studium en-
vironment includes all the levels (Vinkkivekotin is at the first
level, chat channels are at the second level, and Virtuaali-
13
http://www.studium.helsinki.fi/ Pubi 13 is at the forth level).
kurssit/kouke/kesk/contents.asp?ryhma
More links to web pages containing edutainment material
can be found in Appendix 6.
3.4. Learning aspects

There are no scientific results on the effects of educational
television programs and edutainment in learning [38], and the
existing results on the effects of educational computer pro-
grams are not applicable for the purposes of the present re-
port. Naturally, for obtaining valid results, it is important
what educational programs are used in teaching and in what
way. Because of various practical problems in formal educa-
tion, the tests are usually insufficient. For example, a pro-
gram is used for such a short period that its affects cannot be
measured, or old-fashioned programs are used, which means
that the interface can be unsatisfying, the contents can be too
concise, or the usage can be drill-like. Only a few design
groups have used pedagogical expertise. However, there
seems to be a consensus about the result that educational
computer programs have no effects on the learning results but
they improve learning motivation.
Learning can take place in the following three areas: cogni-
tive (about knowing), affective (about attitudes and feeling),
and psychomotor (about doing). Bloom’s taxonomy describes
the deepening of learning in the cases cognitive, affective,
and psychomotor learning (see Table 4).
Table 4: Bloom’s taxonomy of educational
objectives.
COGNITIVE DOMAIN (knowing) [8] AFFECTIVE DOMAIN (feeling) [8] PSYCHOMOTOR DOMAIN (doing) [6]
1) Knowledge, recalling specific items. 1) Receiving. 1) Reflex.
2) Comprehension (“in own words”). 2) Responding (accepts the worth of a 2) Fundamental movements (crawl,
3) Application. thing, valuing). run, jump, reach).
4) Analysis (for example, can break 3) Valuing (accepts the worth of a 3) Perceptual abilities (catch, write,
down a communication into its thing). balance, distinguish).
constituent parts). 4) Organization (organizes values, 4) Physical abilities (stop, increase,
5) Synthesis (can pull together many adapts behaviour to value system). change, react).
disorganized elements as to form a 5) Characterization (generalizes 5) Skilled movements (play, hit, dive,
whole). certain values into controlling use).
6) Evaluation (makes judgements tendencies, later integrates these 6) Non-discursive communication
about the value of materials or into a total philosophy of life or (express, create, design, interpret).
methods). world view.
The psychomotor domain and categories have been less articu-

lated at the level of education than the cognitive and affec-

tive domains. The last two categories of the psychomotor do-

main are applicable in the creative and professional areas. For
example, doctor’s clinical skills, such as palpation, belong to
the skilled movements category while painting and drawing
belong to the non-discursive communication category.
In formal education there is at least one wide study on us-
ing off-line edutainment in teaching and an interesting experi-
ment on using on-line edutainment. In England, McFarlane’s
group studied the use of games among children of 4—18 years
old in twelve schools and at home. The computer usage at
home was evaluated by parents who had received advice on
evaluating and filling in observation forms. Moreover, 800 pu-
pils were asked to fill in a questionnaire. Hence, the views of
teachers, parents, and pupils were taken into account. We
think that the study was methodologically valid, except that
the choice of games was somewhat questionable. For ex-
ample, it is not proved that racing games affect the learning
of eye and hand coordination. And what is even more ques-
tionable, why weren’t provably better and more traditional
forms of learning the coordination used?
The nature of learning supported by the use of games could
be divided into following three types:
1) Learning as a result of tasks stimulated by the con-

tent of the games. The use of games as a stimulus to
associated work was mainly restricted to primary
schools. But, for example, games with simulations cor-
responding to real world phenomena can be a starting
point for general discussion. Games could be a better
stimulus for learning, if teachers were more aware of
the importance of games in pupils’ lives, and willing to
have children contribute their expertise in these areas
to the learning activity.
2) Knowledge developed through the content of the
game. Games vary as to the amount of content they
contain which is of direct relevance to the school cur-
riculum, but the amount is generally low. Even where
the context seems to be relevant to curriculum con-
tent, its contribution to the child’s learning may be
very peripheral. The best game type seemed to be
simulations. Problems in using games include lack of
time to play a game, and illogical and too concise con-
tent.
3) Skills arising as a result of playing the game. This last
type of learning can be subdivided into direct and indi-
rect learning. Skills developed by the games were de-
pendent on pupils’ age but generally they were sup-
posed to develop personal and social skills, cognitive
skills (problem solving, deductive reasoning etc.) and
knowledge of content. [39]

The validity of McFarlane’s results is decreased by the fact

that the role of confounding factors was not discussed in the
report, not even in the case of small children, although sev-
eral kinds of cognitive and psychomotor development take
place in them. Hence, it might be difficult to show what the
reason for the observed learning was. On the other hand,
McFarlane compared different types of games against each
other, which means that the possible error in the results is the
same in the case of all program types considered. Especially,
the superiority of simulation games can be considered a valid
result.
In the USA, Perrone et al. [46] have studied the use of web
pages in genuinely improving learning. In this study, Web-
Quest, the most famous form of web edutainment combining
simulation games and web pages, was used (see Chapter 3.3).
WebQuest tries to apply the basic idea of constructionism that
the best way to learn is to do meaningful tasks. In WebQuest a
learner can have the role of both player and author. In the re-
lationship with these multiple roles, Perrone et al. have con-
sidered the corresponding motivational factors as given in Ta-
ble 5.
Table 5: The roles of players and the
corresponding activities in WebQuest [46].
Role Activities Goal of learning Motivation
Player — navigation — searching information from the — engaged in game
— collecting objects from the game Internet — interest in theme material
board — learning the content by solving
— solving quests quests
— feedback to quest authors
Author — authoring quest worlds — design skills — to share new quests with others
— creating the game characters — programming skills — to build new things that con-
and rules of the game — navigation skills tribute to, or extend the game
— handling the feedback from the — reflection — to surpass previous quests
players
Perrone et al. [46] gave an example of using WebQuest in

classroom. The class is divided into groups, which specialize in
the specific parts of the material to be learned, formulate
questions concerning their part to the others (and possible
change the game board). The groups play the games created
by other groups and, afterwards, the games are evaluated and
the best sources of information in the Internet are checked.
In the case of non-formal learning — that is, in the case of
the supposed new focus area of learning — the main interest
has been in studying the learning process. Different learning
methods and materials not only cause different learning re-
sults but also different learning processes. Among the new
digital media the Internet has raised a special interest and,
nowadays, it is common to discuss net pedagogy whose theo-
retical background is on constructivism.
The starting point of constructivism is in learner’s previous
knowledge, experiences, ways of solving problems and sche-

mas — that is, how the learner understands the world. Learn-
ing is to change, to complete, and to rebuild this material.
Constructivism also emphasizes the importance of testing the
new (rebuilt) constructions. A prerequisite is that the learner
understands her own understanding or non-understanding
about the topic to be learned. Hence, self-evaluation and re-
flection are important skills in constructivism. If the learner
does not know why something must be remembered or
learned, the learning result will not necessarily allow transfer-
ence: it might be possible that the learner cannot apply it in
practical problem-solving tasks. Although learning is a
learner’s action, a teacher is needed for guiding and tutoring
the learning process by showing goals and evaluating (reflect-
ing) because even an adult learner is not necessary capable of
self-steering her learning. The teacher’s task is to design a
flexible learning environment that allows the learner to con-
struct knowledge from her own starting position. [51]
Problem-based learning is based on constructivism. Its main
purpose is to develop learner’s skills for self-steering, lifelong
learning. According to this pedagogical view, learning is a
combination of one’s own learning, working with the new
knowledge together with other learners, and group discus-
sions. As working methods, problem-based learning uses group
working, introductory and specialist’s lectures, seminars, indi-
vidual tasks, field studies, and practical rehearsals, when
needed [40]. Hence, there is only a little contact teaching,
and a lot of individual working. In problem-based learning, a
learner learns by starting from problems at hand. Problem-
based learning is widely used in learning medicine.
Sometimes, especially in practical “real world projects”,
the starting point is a problem to which no answer or solution
exists in the present knowledge or skill repertoire. Developing
new knowledge starts with a problem, which is solved in a
group by using continuous dialogue with some fixed principles.
The result obtained is more than the sum of the knowledge of
the teacher and the learners. The learning community sets the
problems and formulates the questions. (See, for example [17,
18, 58]). Each learner brings her own unique experiences to
the discussion so making the topics to be learned wider and
many-sided. Although the experiences are unique and per-
sonal, they can be divided by the other learners and the
teacher. The mere existence of experiences does not guaran-
tee learning. It is possible that they stay superficial because
they are not consciously handled. Conscious experience-
oriented learning also includes a cognitive point of view that
brings it closer to constructivist learning.
Experimental learning moves by reflecting concrete experi-
ences and actions towards the theoretical understanding and
better operations models. Learning goes on in cycles and it
can start in any place. The purpose of learning is to construct

a good (or at least gradually improving) “theory” and its appli-

cation. Mere doing (learning by doing) is not sufficient for
learning. Similarly, it is not necessarily enough to stress ex-
perimental factors or experiences, because it is not possible
to learn from all experiences, or learning from some experi-
ences can be harmful, or it may only strengthen earlier preju-
dices. A central concept related to experimental learning is
reflection, which is cognitive and affective activity in which
an individual studies her knowledge and experiences in order
to reach a new level of understanding [9]. The reflection of
learning can happen at different levels. At technical level the
learner can ask “Do I know?” or “Is this right way to do this?”.
At practical level the learner asks “Does this relate to this
context?” or “How is this interrelated to the broader context
of action?”. At critical and ethical level the learner asks:
“Why?”, “Is this of any use?”, “What effects does this have?”
or “What alternatives do we have?”.
Learning by doing in a group is called cooperative learning.
It is more a method than a learning theory. In cooperative
learning, a group work includes varying division of work and
changing roles, such as the leader of the group, the collector
of information, the supporter and the summary maker. Gener-
ally each member of the group acts alternately in different
roles whereupon anyone of the group can’t withdraw and take
a passive position. The whole group is responsible for the out-
come but everybody as an individual is responsible for her own
task. The role of the teacher is shaped in every situation on
the basis of learners’ needs. The teacher is primarily a coun-
selor and a source of strength. In order to succeed in coopera-
tive learning, a clear and shared goal or problem is important
as well as utilizing the differences of the group members (see,
for example, [29, 53]).
Nowadays the focus in adult education is in problem-based
learning and group work teaching. In the education of young-
sters, constructivist approaches dominate. In many pedagogi-
cal practices learning is separated from its natural context. In
situated learning the purpose is to place learning in a relevant
or “authentic” context. It is argued that knowledge is to a
great degree a product of the activity, context, and culture in
which it is used. That is, it cannot be taught in the abstract. It
must be taught in context. The ‘context’ is often used to refer
to a concrete environment of action. This means that the con-
cept of situation and the concept of context are very close to
each other. In situated learning all factors present in the
learning situation are considered to affect the learning proc-
ess.
The pedagogical background of educational programs varies
a lot. For example, many educational television programs are
based on situated learning. A typical example is to teach how
to ask whether there are vacant rooms in a hotel. This is a

good choice for those who are studying because they are plan-
ning a trip. On the other hand, many learners are interested in
the language in a much more general sense, and these kinds of
situations are of little use to them.
The Internet facilitates collaborative and cooperative learn-
ing. This is important since especially work markets value the
skills obtained by this kind of learning. At the same time, in-
dividuals’ own skills of learning and developing strategies are
considered to be of outmost importance. Similarly, the impor-
tance of networking and group work is heavily stressed be-
cause they require social and collaborative skills. The success
of a team is not only the sum of the success of its individual
members, but it requires also abilities on the social and col-
laborative level.
When moving from analogical to digital television, the
deepest changes are in learning to obey constructivism. indi-
vidual’s private activity, moving to collaborative learning, and
interactivity among group members. This allows, e.g., prob-
lem-based and exploratory learning, and constructing new
knowledge. Digital television also makes collaborative learning
possible by allowing increasing interaction and a learner to
profile her own learning material. Collaborative learning util-
izes the social interaction in a group of learners. This could be
easily applied in edutainment games.
3.5. Learning contents

Among educational television programs, language learning
programs are the most well-known and popular. Other popular
contents of educational television within formal education are
history, psychology, philosophy, and religion. Yle’s School-TV
includes programs almost in all school subjects. Programs in
the following subjects have web material related to them:
biology and geography, history, multicultural education, fine
arts, manual training, media education, music, environmental
sciences, manners, Finnish language and literature, and for-
eign languages. In Yle’s Etälukio, the following subjects are
learned: Finnish, chemistry, physics, literature, psychology,
mathematics, religion, philosophy, history, geography, and
biology [38]. Moreover, Yle’s service called Ylen Avoin in-
cludes the following categories: everyday-life’s history, cul-
tural history, Asian studies, European studies, global ethics,
gerontology, adult education, drama, tourism, intercultural
communication, communication, history, medicine, psychol-
ogy, sociology, mass media, and environmental sciences.
Television suits well for learning wide entireties, processes,
narratives and some concrete skills. Informal learning uses
television to broadcast more concise learning packages, like
languages programs with their tourist vocabularies and differ-

ent programs representing practical skills, which are based on

television’s possibility to connect visual examples with audi-
tory explanations.
Educational off-line computer software suits well to learn
details and processes by repeating and experimenting. Most
off-line computer programs do not suit well for formal educa-
tion although they might seemingly contain the right topics.
Popular themes in off-line computer programs are languages,
mathematics, geography, biology, sciences, and medicine. In
informal education, off-line programs concentrate on lan-
guages with different viewpoints (business, tourism), practical
skills, and hobbies. Infotainment is perhaps the most common
form in this category.
In the years 1990—95 tens of localized or Nordic edutain-
ment or other educational CD-ROM products were published in
Finland. The narrative quality of these products was mainly
high. For example, Elävät Kirjat enterprise aims to publish
products that will succeed in all the Nordic countries [31].
One of the main problems in multimedia productions is that
products require too powerful computers and the newest con-
trolling devices. Beginning at the late 1990s, so-called hybrids
have become more common. A hybrid is an independent CD-
ROM program with new portions and elements to be loaded
from the Internet [30]. Hence, the importance of the Internet
is growing also in these markets.
An example of hybrids is Tytöt — Girls CD-ROM, which is
meant for girls of 10—12 years old. There is a web site requir-
ing a password related to this product. Tytöt — Girls started a
series of products whose next link is FlirtFiles, a CD-ROM
product meant for girls in the “dating age”. In addition to the
CD-ROM and a web site, the FlirtFiles also includes a mobile
service.
According to McFarlane the most popular game genres were
adventure games, racing games, and shooting/arcade games.
Racing games are equally popular with girls and boys, but girls
are far more likely to favour adventure and boys shooting/ar-
cade games. According to the tables given in [39], it seems
that girls prefer simulation games [39, pp. 8—9 and 24]. Boys
play a wider range of games than girls, and for both genders
the range increases with age. In the interviews, pupils men-
tioned they prefer certain games because of, for example,
their presentation, structure, nature of activities or personal
response of some sort. Girls and boys in all age categories also
often mentioned graphics, color, use of characters, game
play, fun and challenge. [39]
In McFarlane’s research, game types have different defini-
tions than we have in this report. She defines edutainment as
games with edutainment activities structured with a view of
loosely supporting education, usually a combination of activi-
ties and games with overt educational intent which can range

from skill development, e.g. hand-eye coordination, to prob-

lem solving [39, p. 8]. This kind of definition is hard to con-
nect with any style of learning or teaching methods and forms.
It doesn’t differ enough from infotainment. A too wide con-
cept definition doesn’t help in planning new concepts, be-
cause it doesn’t benefit us in deductive and inductive reason-
ing.
We analyzed closely three edutainment programs. A simula-
tion program SimPuisto (see Appendix 3) is meant for children
over 8 years old, a geography oriented adventure game Suomi-
Seikkailu (see Appendix 3) is targeted at children from 8 to 12
of age, and Kapusta (see Appendix 2) is a television language
program for adult learners. Suomi-Seikkailu is an example of
the educational game in which the means of entertainment
and education easily displace each other.
3.6. Different learners

Learners can be profiled and categorized in many different
ways. The users of digital media are usually divided into
groups based on different social properties. The most com-
monly used attributes are educational background, sex, and
age. A typical viewer of educational television programs is in a
white-collar profession, and women have a slight majority
among the viewers. In Finland, only Taito-TV has less edu-
cated audience, with male majority. [38] Educational com-
puter programs are mainly meant for primary school children,
but especially many language teaching programs are meant for
adults to be used in self-learning. Educational television pro-
grams are targeted at all age groups from pre-school children
to senior viewers, but 70 % of Yle’s educational programs are
meant to adults [38, p. 183].
In the case of educational computer programs, there has
been much debate on the meaning of gender. Girls are said to
require that a game has a constructive touch. As players girls
are more persevering than boys, who desire traditional game
elements [31]. Women prefer communication and discussions.
On the other hand, both genres seem to accept quality prod-
ucts. The narrative quality is the main requirement for a good
educational software product [32]. A product should also last
in the long run; the purpose is to tie a user to the product.
Also, good usability is important for a product to be success-
ful. [32] Moreover, women use online educational games a
lot. For example, 40 % of the players of these games are
female in the USA. [31]
A typical computer edutainment type is a game for children
and teens, aged 7—16 [26]. The stereotypical picture of a boy
playing aggressive computer games alone in his room is not
fully representative of young people’s use of computer games.

In Britain children often play with a friend or family member,

who most likely is the boy’s dad (or younger brother) or the
girl’s younger brother (or elder brother). They even play in
teams. Boys play more frequently and have longer playing-
sessions than girls do. Almost 50 % of boys play every day and
clearly over 30 % for more than 2 hours at a time. [39] A ma-
jority of pupils play games at home, most frequently in their
rooms. Sometimes girls are not allowed to use family’s com-
puter. Only 15 % of girls play at a friend’s house. [63] Com-
puter games are a more embedded part of boys’ leisure cul-
ture than that of girls. Boys favour games that are associated
with their other interests, especially sports. Boys view game-
playing as a first choice activity, whereas girls are more likely
to play when they are bored or have nothing better to do.
In the chapter concerning multi-form teaching (Chapter 3.2)
we categorized learners into the following groups according to
their learning styles and habits (see Figure 1 in Chapter 3.2):
holistic and analytical learners or, on the other hand, audi-
tory, kinesthetic, and visual learners. Different media and dif-
ferent learning materials suit each of these groups.
An analytical learner prefers silent environment and con-
centrates on the tasks without breaks as long as they are
done. She learns one detail at a time and then constructs the
whole picture. She is interested in details and remembers
them easily. An analytical learner likes to work alone and pre-
fers facts, but not teacher’s private experiences. She also pre-
fers exactly set requirements and feedback and carefully dis-
posed learning material. Off-line educational computer pro-
grams (for example, Elävää englantia) with linear presenta-
tions and multiple-choice questions suit an analytical learner
well. Also educational television programs with concise por-
tions, like in many language learning programs (for example,
Das ist Deutschland), suit her well.
A holistic learner likes to hear music when studying, and
she does several tasks simultaneously taking breaks from time
to time. She first understands the entity and combines the
new things to her own experiences. She also enjoys hearing
other persons’ experiences. A holistic learner wants to see the
material from different perspectives and she makes summaries
of it. A holistic learner prefers learning environments whose
tempo can be controlled. For example, chat channels related
educational programs and educational television programs
with a lot of interviews of specialists and other learners suit a
holistic learner well.
Senses mediate information to us from the outside world
but they are also connected with our thinking, committing to
memory and processing of information. Different senses are
emphasized differently in learning processes of different peo-
ple: for someone the easiest way to learn is through seeing,
while for others it is through listening or doing by oneself.

Western culture is more and more visually oriented while, for

example, African culture is kinesthetically oriented.
An auditory learner benefits from oral guidance and she
learns by explaining things for herself in her mind. She re-
members names better than faces. Repeating is essential in
the learning processes of the auditory learner. She approaches
and solves problems by speaking. The auditory learner keeps
up with the times by listening to the radio and during her lei-
sure time she willingly listens to music. For the auditory
learner the educational radio and the language and skill pro-
grams of educational television suit well.
A kinesthetic learner learns best by doing and experiment-
ing. She remembers what she has done and said or experi-
enced. The kinesthetic learner keeps up with the times by
glancing at papers and watching television news for a few
minutes. She appreciates comfortable atmosphere and her
hobbies include some kind of sport. The kinesthetic learner
benefits from simulation programs (such as SimPuisto or Flight
Simulator).
For a visual learner the easiest way to learn is by looking at
how the things are done. She remembers faces and makes
notes about what she hears. The visual learner follows daily
news by reading papers and she spends her leisure time will-
ingly by watching television and video films, going to movies
and theatre. Straightening up the physical place is important
to her. The visual learner benefits especially from educational
television programs and animation programs including simula-
tion demonstrations (such as medical virtual learning mate-
rials).

4. Key issues for planning

digi-TV edutainment
4.1. Challenges for teaching and learning
Formal education emphasizes near and distance learning, but
we believe that in the future, the focus will be in distance and
self-learning. Similarly, non-formal and informal learning will
have a more prominent role. Digital media will be used ac-
cording to their suitability for the teaching situation in ques-
tion and, as a consequence, multi-form teaching in the media
chain will be used.
An important part of the media chain will be interactive
television, which allows more possibilities to interaction than
analogical television. Moreover, in digital television a learner
can profile programs to be more suitable for her own pur-
poses. This makes the target groups wider.
These trends raise several questions concerning the use of
interaction especially in educational and edutainment pro-
grams. At least the following questions appear:
• What type of interactive service will help people to

learn? What kind of learning experience should be of-
fered?
• In what ways can groups of learners be modelled and
how can learner communities be formed?
• How can adaptation take place in groups of learners?
• What justifiably useful can digital television bring to
teaching and learning of edutainment programs?
• How can viewer passivity be overcome (or is it even
necessary) in the context of educational television pro-
grams?
• How can a synergy between information technology ser-
vices and TV design ideas be reached?
• How to make the best use of the potential for collabora-
tive learning experiences?
There are different advantages and disadvantages related

to the usage of different media in teaching. When using tele-
vision, structuring the knowledge is easy if the linear repre-
sentation is suitable for the domain in question. For instance,
a rule of German grammar concerning the word order is bene-
ficial to be represented in certain order. However, it is diffi-
cult to give feedback if the learner already in the beginning
misunderstands the rule, because the mistake is repeated and
the whole rule is constructed incorrectly. When using the web
based learning environment, it is hard to control how the

learner analyzes information because she can surf and browse

through material too quickly or in unfavorable order. Instead,
giving feedback about misunderstanding is very easy through
the Internet.
The learning environment is changing. People are also
learning at home, at work or elsewhere outside the formal
education system. About 20 % of the Finns from 18 to 64 years
of age have studied by themselves for at least 20 hours during
the year 1999 [2]. Self-learning is especially common among
young people, and among those with high education and high
socio-economical position. The most common topic of self-
education is information technology [2].
Figures 2 (below) and 3 (on the next page) summarize the
basic properties of current educational computer software and
television programs, while Figure 4 (on the next page) shows
what kinds of challenges are found when features of educa-
tional computer software and television programs are com-
bined in educational interactive television programs.
Figure 2: The properties of the present

educational computer software.
Educational computer software

DESIGN TEACHING LEARNING LEARNER LEARNING MATERIAL
Individualizing the Teacher’s role quite Way of learning Learner’s role active Detailed contents.
content and its passive constructivism Advantage: possibility
presentation cooperative to choose the level of
— designed for Material is teaching experimental Children and difficulty and one’s
individuals behavioristically, by youngsters own pace in progress.
modeling or using Disadvantage: enter-
Usability approaches of con- The ability to use new taining means and
Workflow structivism (especially media learnability are often
Personalization constructing schema) too separated from
User model each other.
Moderate amount of
interaction
A. Formal education
— as a part of formal
Fairly short tradition education Homogeneous Geography & Biology
in edutainment pro- · Distance learning learners Languages
grams · Learning com- Mathematics &
munities Active users Sciences
— as an addition to
The focus has moved formal education
to on-line software — as an alternative
form of formal
education Quite homogeneous Hobbies & Arts
learners
B. Informal education
Direct interaction
Self-education Active users

Figure 3: Properties of the present

educational television programs.
Educational TV programs
DESIGN TEACHING LEARNING LEARNER LEARNING MATERIAL
Narrative contents Multimedia teaching Easy to use in learning Learner’s profiles General problem:
— for large groups packages model learning deficient structuring
How to tell a story of content
in an educative constructivism All ages
TV suits well for Advantage: interviews
manner? and stories connected
How to balance teaching processes,
entities and to learners’ life
learning and
entertainment? narratives The ability to use new
media
History
Languages
A. Formal education Large similar user
— as a part of formal groups
education Free usage
· school TV No direct interaction
Long and rich · Etälukio
tradition in · open university At classroom
edutainment — as an alternative
programs Skills
form Large similar user
groups Languages for
B. Informal education travellers
Free usage
At home Learners as receivers
Also in groups of information
No direct interaction
Figure 4: The challenges of educational

interactive television programs.
Educational TV programs Educational computer software
Interactive educational television programs
Central questions in sketching educational concept types:

— How to design interactive TV programs?
— Who are the users (small groups?)?
· Are the user groups heterogeneous?
· Are there new user groups?
— What kind of program types?
· Would it be possible that a single program could suit
several school subjects, for example to learn
simultaneously languages, history and geography?
· What forms of interactivity are beneficial for
learning?
— What learning and teaching theories suit to designing
interactive television programs?
· The role of accidental and spontaneous learning?

4.2. Challenges for designing edutainment

Designing successful edutainment material is a demanding
task. Deficient structuring and incoherence of the content and
lack of pedagogical approach are often mentioned as problems
of digital learning material. Educational scientists have
started to create their own criteria for developing the usabil-
ity of digital learning environments. Based on Jacob Nielsen’s
usability heuristics and David Jonassen’s guidelines of mean-
ingful constructivist learning environments, Horila et al. [20]
have developed criteria for evaluating digital learning mate-
rial from pedagogical perspective. Their criteria include
eleven factors:
1) learnability
2) graphic appearance and layout
3) technical requirements
4) intuitive efficiency
5) suitability for different learners and different situations
6) ease of use: technical and pedagogical approach
7) interactivity
8) objectiveness
9) sociality
10) motivation
11) added value for teaching.
These factors connect and affect each other and they are
often overlapping, too. The most central criteria in the peda-
gogical sense seem to be motivation, efficiency, and objec-
tiveness (here in reference to goal-orientation of the mate-
rial). According to Horila et al. [20, pp. 22—34], motivation
correlates to willingness to use material and through that to
willingness to learn. Motivation is essential in self-steering
learning. Digital learning material should awake, direct and
keep the interest of learners. Humor, concreteness, anima-
tion, music, and some kind of rewards have been regarded as
motivating features in children’s software [11, p. 258]. Horila
et al. state that efficiency also relates to the willingness to
use material. If the material is felt efficient, the willingness
to reuse material is high. Efficiency involves the feedback
about the progress of the learner. Objectiveness is always a
point of departure both in teaching and in learning. Objectives
of producers are a prerequisite for the goal orientation of the
digital learning material. Particularly in edutainment material
the objectives are not often as clearly explicated as in “tradi-
tional” digital learning material.
The usability in the sense of ease-of-use is an interesting
question within educational software. The products should be
usable enough not to frustrate learners, but they shouldn’t be
so easy to use that learners can complete tasks without fully

engaging in the work [49]. So, it is necessary to evaluate the

usability requirement about the ease of use in relation to the
educational goals of the product. When discussing educational
digital games, the discrepancy between the traditional usabil-
ity criteria and objectives of products becomes even clearer.
Games have to be challenging enough to be entertaining, in
which case their user interfaces can’t be very intuitive [23,
pp. 8—9]. This holds true in educational games, too. Cognitive
challenges and joyful experiences are difficult to provide with
a highly usable (meaning here plain, easy, and intuitive) user
interface. This also relates to the learnability of the user in-
terface. On the one hand, a resemblance of dominant user in-
terface standards is preferable in the user interface in the
sense that learning new things is always built on earlier learn-
ing. On the other hand, it is desirable to call into question the
existing standards because they don’t always offer the best
solutions for aimed purpose. [20, pp. 23—24]
Feedback is essential in learning but, unfortunately, it is of-
ten implemented insufficiently in edutainment material. De-
signing a convenient feedback system inside digital learning
material is a taxing task. Feedback should be adequate and
encouraging, and it should enable users to follow their own
learning processes. In educational games, users are often re-
warded when answering correctly, and shown right answers if
making a wrong choice, but too seldom they are given ex-
planations or background information that contribute to the
understanding the issue and its context. Especially when the
content is broad and designed to be used many times, the role
of progress reporting is salient. Feedback about learners’ ac-
tion or progress has been unthinkable and irrelevant in the
educational programs of analogical television, because one-
way transmission has not enabled data input from the viewers.
However, the situation is changing with a return channel of
digital television.
Within learner-centered design, scaffolding has been seen
as an important feature of educational software. Scaffolding is
a cognitive apprenticeship meant to help learners to do and
learn complex practices mindfully. Using scaffolding features
should be evident in educational software where the tasks are
complex and exploratory in nature and in which problem-solv-
ing skills are needed. These products provide that learners are
more like active constructors of knowledge than mere receiv-
ers of information. According to Quintana et al. [49], software
with embedded scaffolding features can support learners in
managing the work process, making sense of their work, and
articulating their understanding. Learners’ understanding
grows when they engage in a new domain and it is desirable
that their tools also grow or change with them. When discuss-
ing scaffolding, this means for example that supporting fea-
tures should fade away when no longer needed. [49]

In children’s educational computer games, a common prob-

lem is that children aren’t aware of the knowledge and skills
they have learned during the game-play and they aren’t able
to connect them with the knowledge and skills associated to
school work [27]. This probably relates to the distinct and spe-
cific role of the game world compared with the real world in
the sense that happenings during the game have a different
status than happenings outside the game [24, pp. 10—11]. In
any case, whether it is a game or other edutainment type in
question, it is important to get learners to understand how
knowledge and skills achieved through the edutainment mate-
rial can be transferred to other contexts.
In current educational television programs it seems that
fragmented content is a common problem. It would be benefi-
cial and motivating for the learners if at the beginning of the
program there were a short introductory about what is to ex-
pect and what are the main issues of the episode. The role of
the introductory and overall structure of the content is proba-
bly more important when the program is used as a self-learn-
ing material. In order to assist learning, educational television
programs should include coherent and structured content and
repetition of the main points.
In conclusion, general challenges concerning the educa-
tional material of digital television are,
1) to take into account knowledge and skill levels of the

learners,
2) to get them to commit themselves to the material,
3) to engage their attention,
4) to structure the educative information in a meaningful
way (utilizing audiovisual narrative expression and/or
the characteristics of hypertext),
5) to set clear educational goals,
6) to offer tools for reflective thinking of the subject mat-
ter and construction of new knowledge, and
7) to offer suitable tutoring and feedback (along the re-
turn channel).
If these challenges are overcome, there is a strong possibility

that users get meaningful and enjoyable learning experiences
through the content. Explicitly, the challenge of edutainment
is to utilize such means of entertainment, which are appropri-
ate to the target learners, in order to enrich their learning ex-
periences.
4.3. Challenges for the present edutainment programs

Adults may have many external and internal obstacles in
learning. External obstacles include various matters related to

social conditions (work, family), economic reasons, and other

leisure time activities (hobbies and friends). Internal obstacles
include cognitive and psychological (attitudes, self-confi-
dence) reasons. Also learner’s place of residence may limit
the possibilities to take part in education. It is possible that
edutainment programs in interactive television help to de-
crease all the obstacles mentioned. For example, it may be
possible to follow an edutainment program even if traditional
educational programs were too difficult to follow because of
family and work pressures.
4.3.1. How to make good edutainment programs for schools?

To be used in schools, educational material should have differ-
ent properties than when used by adults. In what follows, we
give various features to be fulfilled in classroom usage. The
features are given separately for computer games and hybrid
games. Many of the features mentioned hold also for other
types of edutainment programs.
The following features should be taken into account when
one is planning (or evaluating) learnable and pleasant com-
puter games for schools:
1) Simulations should provide pre-set scenarios (might be

used directly in the curriculum) that children could ex-
plore. The scenario support the learning of the basic
elements of game play without a long lead-in for set-
ting up the initial scenario. If these scenarios were ed-
ited by teachers, then they could be linked to specific
teaching points.
2) Simulations must be consistent with reality and at an
appropriate level of educational accuracy. For exam-
ple, if simulations are constructed by algorithms, it
must be told to teachers so they can be confident in
their use of the software in teaching.
3) Particularly in adventure games playability has to be
closely related to education so that the learner can’t
succeed in the game without learning.
McFarlane et al. [39] noted that games without obligatory

questions and answers tasks and timing were pleasant from
the pupils’ point of view. Moreover, they listed the following
general features that computer and hybrid games should have
in order to be used in classrooms [39]:
1) Saving and restarting is important because when the

lesson finishes, it is critical that the position can be the
starting point in a future session. (Saved scores of what
has been achieved would be useful also for the
teacher.) Children often work in pairs, so they must be
able to save more than one person’s name. It should

also be possible to save several class of separate re-

starting points, as pupils often take turns in playing a
game on the same installation.
2) The games should develop the tasks so that there is
clear progression overall. They should be adopted by
pupils at different ability levels).
3) The games should repeat practice non-identically (pu-
pils often play sequentially and so they do not always
get exactly the same experiences).
4) The games should have the facility to save and restart
games where the player left off. Or alternatively the
navigation of the game may allow one to go to the
desired part of the game on start-up.
5) Complex and longer games should have suitable pausing
points from which pupils can continue to play in the
next class.
6) The games should have appropriate information to
teachers in order to enable them to integrate the game
within their lesson planning (in an easily readable hand-
book, for instance). For example, do business simula-
tions behave according to an accepted model, or do the
objects racing round a track obey the laws of motion?
In other words, it would take too much time if teachers
analyzed many games.
7) The games should pay attention to target group’s level
in the user interfaces and avoid written or difficult in-
structions to children.
8) The games should pay attention to heterogeneous tar-
get group and school’s goals for inculcation of enlight-
ened attitudes through education, so that there is no
negative material about race, gender, or disability.
9) Role of sound can’t be significant because noisy games
are distracting to non-users where games are played in
the classroom (usually they don’t have headphones).
A language teaching programs will be originally meant for

other purposes than teaching (see Appendix 2), because in
digital television it is easy to change language (both in speech
and in subtitles). There is a huge amount of material to be
used for teaching foreign languages. The system requires an
archive containing digitized movies, TV-series, documentary
films, interviews, and advertisements in which the language to
be learned is used in its normal context. The material in the
archive must be marked up. This means that the material is
augmented with metadata indicating its topic, level (difficulty
as a learning material), interesting grammatical structures,
links to supplementary material etc. With the help of the
metadata, the system can choose for each user a suitable ma-
terial with respect to its topic and level of difficulty such that
the system could, for example, imitate the current use of

videos in learning situations. It could slow down, repeat, give

subtitles, give links to supplementary material, give suitable
exercises, and check the correctness of given answers. It
could also support the interaction between learners using the
target language.
Moreover, the system could monitor the progress of learners
and give reports to the teacher. With the help of the system,
the teacher could also check how much and in which way the
learners have used the system. (See [60] for further details.) A
special challenge in the future is to make it possible to pro-
duce TV programs that allow viewers to simultaneously learn
something, each on their own level, and each being kept moti-
vated.
4.4. Challenges for new learners and content

When starting to plan a new edutainment material, the first
questions to be asked are related to the goals of the material
(‘why?’), its target group (‘to whom?’), how to teach and what
kind of learning is expected (‘how?’), what is the content of
the material (‘what?’), and in what way it is handled (‘what
kind of edutainment?’). Figure 5 gives examples of these kinds
of questions and the corresponding answers starting with
‘why?’ and ‘to whom?’ questions, i.e., we first decide our
goals and target groups and then answer the rest of the ques-
tions.
Figure 5: The challenge of digi-TV-edutain-
ment from the point of view of the new users.
TO WHOM?
+ Low educated adults.
WHY? + Special groups: immigrants. WHEN? WHEN?
+ Reducing digital divide. + Youngsters in their spare time. Informal education.
+ Reducing knowledge divide. + Participants of extension studies Nonformal education.
+ Improving position in work life. organized by firms or public agents. Accidental learning.
+ Alluring to education and self-learning. LEARNERS
+ Integrating to society: work, social life.
+ Improvig media literacy and multi-cultural
education. HOW?
+ Lifelong education in the worklife. + Experimental learning and teaching.
GOALS + Situated learning and teaching.
+ Model learning.
+ Experimental and collaborative
WHAT? learning.
+ Media literacy development. + Collaborative and modelling learning.
+ Skills for adapting to the changes of + Cooperative and experimental learning.
information society. TEACHING AND LEARNING
+ Occupational skills.
+ Attitudes, motivations, self courages in
change. WHAT KIND OF EDUTAINMENT?
+ Finnish language and cultural habits. + Interactive movies and role plays.
+ Occupational skill packages and cultural + Simulators and role plays.
habits. + Traditional television programs augmented with
+ Tools for creating contents. edutainment portions.
+ Cultural contents. + Interactive movies and role plays.
+ Skill packs and modules. + Simulators and role plays.
+ Work languages. + Educational quizzes.
EDUCATIONAL CONTENT + Interactive movies with role plays.
+ Simulators and role plays.
TYPES

The goals follow the EU’s and Finland’s aims in developing

the information society and the objects proposed in the Liter-
acy Summit in Berlin (answers to ‘why?’ question). According
to the Summit, we need technology and information literacy
to develop our knowledge and critical thinking. These new
kinds of demands include the ability to use the new media,
like the Internet, to reach the sources of information, and to
collect, organize, filter, and evaluate information. Likewise,
we need abilities to form opinions, creative media skills to
produce and circulate contents, and social skills and responsi-
bility to understand the social consequences of our activities.
As target groups, we chose groups that are currently left
outside the educational material (answers ‘to whom?’ ques-
tions). Such groups include low educated adults and immi-
grants because of their risk to be set aside of the development
of the information society. Other similar groups are youngsters
and those in working life but needing continuing education.
In a knowledge society, education and training rank among
the highest priorities. Acquiring and continuously updating a
high level of knowledge, skills and competencies is considered
a prerequisite for the personal development of all citizens and
for participation in all aspects of society from active citizen-
ship to labour markets integration. This challenges also the
developers and designers of digi-TV edutainment material.
The edutainment material, as well as all teaching and training
material should strengthen the following skills and competen-
cies: literacy, numeracy, new skills in the learning society,
learning-to-learn skills, and the cultural and social skills for
active citizenship. [9]
There are certain subjects that suit very well to be learned
in interactive TV. Among them are, for example, languages,
history, and social sciences. On the other hand, computers are
a better medium for natural sciences and mathematics.
The heavy investment in the provision of institution-form
education for young people, which began in Finland in the
1960s, is reflected in the extremely fast rise in the educa-
tional level of the labour force (both employed and unem-
ployed) from the 1970s onwards. The number of highly edu-
cated persons more than doubled and the size of the labour
force with less than an upper secondary education was halved
in a good 25 years. By the mid-1990s, the supply of persons
with a tertiary level degree exceeded that of persons with a
below upper secondary education (see Table 7).
Table 7: Educational structure of the labour 1975 1985 1997

Level of education
force (aged 15—74) in Finland by the level
of education 1975—1997. % % %
Below upper secondary education 62.3 42.8 27.5
Upper secondary qualification 23.1 36.3 42.4
Vocational college qualification 8.5 11.9 16.9
Lower university or polytechnic degree 3.0 4.5 5.6
Higher university degree 2.8 4.1 6.9

However, a considerable portion of Finns can be considered

low educated adults, i.e. adults whose level of education is
below the upper secondary level. As explained above, there
are several external and internal obstacles in learning, and
the willingness to learn is lowest among low educated groups
(cf. the accumulation of information). In the case of low edu-
cated adults, internal reasons (attitudes, self-confidence) are
likely to be the most important. Proportionally, low educated
adults live more often in countryside where there are fewer
possibilities to take part in educational activities than in
towns.
There are almost 100 000 immigrants in Finland. Their un-
employment rate is slowly decreasing, but it is still over 30 %.
Irrespective of their level of education, recently immigrated
are often unemployed because of their poor knowledge of the
Finnish language. The age distribution of immigrants differs
clearly of that of the original residents: the biggest groups are
men of age 30—35 years and children under school age. Many
of the immigrants have a secondary or university degree from
their homelands, but a typical level of education varies from
country to country. [59]
There are well over 300 000 Finns in the age group 15—19
years. Youngsters in their spare time use information tech-
nology (computers, the Internet, mobile phones) heavily, but
they use educational programs very little in their spare time.
Especially those youngsters who are not in school any more
are suggested to be one of the main target groups of the new
edutainment material.
Lifelong learners in the work life form the main body of the
participants of adult education. Adult education and training
refer to activities organized for the specific intention of pro-
ducing learning results in adults who have, since completing or
discontinuing their studies within the school system, been em-
ployed on the labour market. A distinctive characteristic of
adult education and training is that they are specifically or-
ganized with a view to the needs and interests of adult learn-
ers. They may differ from education within the school system
in terms of the time of day when teaching is provided, as well
as in terms of the teaching methods employed. In 2000, 54 %
of Finns took part in adult education. Participation has almost
doubled in the past 20 years. [2, 13]
The willingness to take part in adult education seems to de-
pend heavily on the earlier education — the higher the earlier
education, the more likely it is that a person takes part in
adult education [2]. According to sex and socio-economical
position, the most active group is female upper white-collar
workers (86 %) and the least active group is male pensioners
(14 %). According to sex and age, the least active groups (in
age groups 18—64) are old men (55—64 years old) and young
men (18—24 years old). In all age groups, women are more ac-

tive than men, and moreover, women’s activity does not de-
crease as much as men’s in older age groups. [2]
In educational programs on analog television, as well as in
educational computer software, the emphasis has been on the
learning of an individual learner, while the Internet and inter-
active television stress collaborative learning. This makes the
learning process more important instead of the results, goals,
or rewards. In collaborative learning, each learner uses her
own special skills to widen the common understanding. All the
presented views, explanations, and arguments are handled
publicly and critically. This makes the knowledge visible. It is
typical for collaborative learning that the learning raises to a
higher level than the individual group members can reach.
Hence, we can speak about distributed expertise.

5. Ideas for program types in

digital television
In this chapter, we present program types for some of the new
target groups found in the previous chapters (youngsters, low
educated adults, immigrants, lifelong learners in the work
life, etc.) and also for the present target groups (school chil-
dren in formal education, senior learners, etc.).
In digital television, a learner can profile programs to be
more suitable for her own purposes. This widens the target
groups. For example, Underwood [60] has sketched an envi-
ronment for language learning using artificial intelligence,
which recognizes learner’s present knowledge and its specific
weaknesses. Hence, in digital television it is possible to tailor
contents to be more suitable for different learners, so widen-
ing the possible target groups. It would also be possible that a
single program could suit several school subjects, for example
to simultaneously learn languages, history and geography.
In the case of the present target groups (cf. Chapters 2.2,
3.2, and 3.3) the future trend in formal adult education will
be multi-form learning. In near learning and self-learning,
educational television programs will be augmented by supple-
mentary edutainment services or properties to be added to
the present kind of entertainment programs. The present ma-
terial in formal learning is based on so specific concepts that
their evolution seems to be quite obvious along with the tech-
nical development. For example, it will be unnecessary to use
electronic mail or normal mail to send assignments to the
teacher for evaluation when the return channel of interactive
television is in use.
As noticed in Chapter 4.4, edutainment could be utilized in
designing educational material for various new target groups
which have been difficult to reach with the traditional mate-
rial. These groups include young people over 18 years old and
those over 16 years old and not in school, low educated
adults, immigrants, and participants of continuing education.
In this chapter, we sketch program types for all of these
groups.
Youngsters. Games, quizzes, and similar edutainment types
suit well for young learners since they are used to play games
for fun. This habit should be utilized in the educational con-
text. Especially, young children, school children and youth
benefit quizzes. These kinds of quizzes fulfil the requirements
of educational material, provided that the questions and an-
swer alternatives are correctly chosen and guiding feedback is
given after incorrect answers. An example of a possible appli-

cation is a language quiz in which synonyms are searched for

given words.
Low educated adults. In the same way as quizzes and other
game-based edutainment programs could be offered to young-
sters, low educated adults could benefit from another type of
traditional programs augmented with edutainment packages.
An example of such programs could be a drama series on sci-
entists, augmented with additional information as a form of a
memory game related to the drama.
A similar idea than game-based material for youngsters
could be a series, say, on art history for low educated adult
viewers in which each separate program ends up with a quiz
requiring logical conclusions and answers augmented with ad-
ditional information concerning the topics of the questions. It
is essential that the information given is not a set of separate
facts but it is connected to wider entirety. In interactive tele-
vision, these edutainment quizzes could be interactive such
that the choices made by all the viewers could be shown as
various kinds of diagrams. Moreover, low educated adults
could benefit movies supporting role-play.
Immigrants. Immigrants are a heterogenous group benefit-
ing from program types and their combinations, suitable for
other heterogeneous groups as well. For example, the narra-
tive format suits well when learning Finnish culture.
Program types suitable for heterogeneous groups suit also
for families. For example, consider the program Saga på väg
which for children presents stories by Astrid Lindgren in their
original environment, while the adults in the family can watch
the program as a tourist guide to Skåne and Gotland, or as an
introduction to the local fauna and geography.
New technical possibilities, especially digital television,
make it possible to develop new program types also for the
target groups already reached by edutainment and other edu-
cational material. In what follows, we present a few new
program types for these groups.
A common idea in various new program types is collabora-
tive problem-solving. The group members are introduced to
the different parts of the material to be learned. After that,
they can solve problems, for example in games, by working to-
gether. The purpose is that each group member should be-
come acquainted with the whole material. When working in
groups, the social skills play an important role. A group can
work in the same place, making better acquaintances with
each other, and may be competing against other groups and
against a computer. A competition could stress the impor-
tance of each group member. The role of the teacher could be
to make sure that the right information is found and that the
roles of the group members are in balance.
Social interaction makes the learners to formulate their
thoughts as words, to argument their claims, and to defend

their opinions. Each learner should have a clear role in the

group. Moreover, each group member is responsible for the
learning and development of the other members, because
knowledge is reached for the group, not only for individual
members. Also teachers, tutors, and different kinds of special-
ists — or even digital television as an expert system — can
take part in the co-operation. A good field plan guarantees
that each group member contributes to the benefit of the
group and that this kind of contribution is really possible for
each member.
Program types for lifelong learners in the work life. Lan-
guage learning is a central part of extension studies. As al-
ready mentioned in this report, material originally meant for
other purposes can be utilized in situated language learning
environments. There is a significant demand for language pro-
grams delivered via TV. According to the EU report [16], a sur-
vey revealed that 41 % wanted more language tuition on tele-
vision and another survey revealed that 28 % of men and 22 %
of women were prepared to pay for more language tuition on
television. Perhaps of all subjects, foreign language instruc-
tion can benefit from multimedia materials most obviously.
The most difficult task for instructors is to show the deep
semantic and cultural differences hidden behind dictionary
equivalents. The genuine narrative content in TV programs
helps the learners to form a deep understanding of the lan-
guage to be learnt and the associated culture [37]. TV mate-
rials are usually produced by and for the native speakers and
for many language learners watching, understanding and en-
joying TV and films in the foreign language can be a learning
objective itself. [35]
We end this chapter by introducing a program idea of an

open learning environment for senior learners. As one can
expect, the environment is meant for informal education giv-
ing advice to the learners in their everyday needs, for exam-
ple by guiding in the use of the new information technology.
The environment can also contain groups for discussion, hob-
bies, and voluntary work.
During the previous decades, the educational level has con-
siderably increased in Finland. This has caused an educational
gap between the different age classes. This calls for educa-
tional equality between citizens of different ages. The pro-
posed open learning environments could be one possibility to
reduce the gap by giving also the senior citizens opportunities
to take part in the developments of information technology.
14
Cf. http://www.avoin.helsinki.fi/ People of “the third age” 14 devote themselves to projects that
ikis/kolmas.htm
they found interesting. Edutainment could be one potential
method when delivering the information needed in this kind of
environment.

6. Summary
Since edutainment material is easier to approach than tradi-
tional educational material, it can serve in reducing the digi-
tal divide at least at the national level. This means that in the
future, a special emphasis should be put in designing edutain-
ment material for groups that are not reached by the present
educational material. These groups include, among others,
low educated adults, immigrants, and those needing extension
studies.
Television’s educational programs are often supplementary
for other educational material. Moreover, programs are often
viewed for pleasure, in passing, or for updating and recalling
existing knowledge. Educational television programs have
been linear and they are aimed at large heterogeneous audi-
ences. On the other hand, educational computer software is
typically designed for individuals.
The use of interactive television as a new platform for edu-
cational programs can solve many of the present problems in
the use of edutainment. Edutainment of interactive television
could and should be targeted especially to learners who are
not capable or willing to use the present educational material.
When moving from analogical to digital television, the
deepest changes are in learning activities obeying constructiv-
ism, individual’s private activity, moving to collaborative
learning, and interactivity among group members. Digital tele-
vision also makes collaborative learning possible by allowing
increasing interaction and a learner to profile her own learn-
ing material. Collaborative learning utilizes the social interac-
tion in a group of learners. This could be easily applied in edu-
tainment games. Moreover, in interactive television a learner
can profile programs to be more suitable for her own purposes
so widening the target groups.
The knowledge and skills required by work markets are con-
tinuously changing, for example, because of internationaliza-
tion and the development of information technology. In adult
education, these changes will be likely to emphasize the im-
portance of multi-form teaching, which flexibly in turn in-
cludes contact teaching, distance teaching, and self-learning
with the help of various new media. Another trend is that non-
formal and informal education will be emphasized. As a conse-
quence, we need edutainment material both in formal and in
informal education. In the future, digital media will be used
according to their suitability for the teaching event in ques-
tion and, as a consequence, multi-form teaching in the media
chain will be used.
Our starting point in suggesting new concept for digital
television edutainment was the features and needs of the tar-

get group in question. In the case of the present target

groups, the future trend in formal adult education will be
multi-form learning. In near learning and self-learning, educa-
tional television programs will be augmented by supplemen-
tary edutainment services or properties to be added to the
present kind of entertainment programs.

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Appendix 1: Educational
television programs in some countries
Nordic countries
In other Nordic countries, the status of educational programs
closely resembles that in Finland. Educational television and
radio programs have augmented material in other media re-
lated to them.
15
http://www.ur.se/ur/frameset.html Swedish Utbildningsradio (UR)15 has long been the leading
producer of educational material in Sweden. It has a project,
Mediebiblioteket, for storing in digital form all video, audio
and text material, which is broadcast so that they would be
available anytime for everybody.
The Norwegian television broadcasts educational material
16
http://www.nrk.no/kanal/undervisning/ for formal education in schools16 and in Open University17. In-
skole/
17
formal education is supported in the so-called Knowledge
http://www.nrk.no/kanal/undervisning/
18
channel (Kunnskapskanalen)18, which broadcasts, for example,
http://www.nrk.no/programmer/tv/
kunnskapskanalen/
lectures on various topics.
19 In Denmark, the educational programs19 are divided into the
http://www.dr.dk/undervisning/
following topics: work, history, all-round education, children
and family, culture and media, world, programs for primary
schools, environment, and society.
Britain
Traditionally, the British TV channels have been the leading
producers of edutainment material (although the term “edu-
tainment” is not commonly used). For example, the educa-
20
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/ tional programs produced by BBC 20 cover a really wide area,
both with respect to their topics and target groups. A good ex-
ample of the width of the productions is the classification of
21
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/ the programs related to medicine:21 Addiction, Allergies, Al-
library/health.shtml
ternative Therapies, Consumer Health, Cosmetic Surgery, Den-
tal Health, Developmental Health, Disability, Diseases and
Conditions, Emotional Health, First Aid, Fitness, Food and
Diet, Genetics, Medical Ethics, Medical Science, Mental
Health, Physiology, Sexual Health, and Reproduction.
22
http://www.granada-learning.com/ Among the privately owned channels Granada22 is the lead-
ing edutainment producer. In addition to the programs, Gra-
nada also produces other educational material, such as com-
puter software and CD-ROMs.
Channel 4 produces clearly less educational material that
BBC and Granada, but on the other hand, its programs seem to
use more entertaining material than the bigger companies.
The web site of Channel 4 also contains various edutainment

23
http://www.channel4.com/learning/ games.23 A player can, for example, battle against the Spanish
games.html Armada with the help of her knowledge on history or to rescue
the lost arc from a dangerous island.
Germany
24
http://www.dradio.de/bildung/ The outstanding producers of educational material in Germany
25
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/ are, for example, DeutschlandRadio24 and ZDF25.
0,1872,1020664,FF.html
USA
The status of educational programs on the big US commercial
channels is much more invisible than on the national channels
26
http://www.cnn.com/EDUCATION/ in Europe. However, CNN has Education section26 with pro-
grams on world events and geography, science and tech-
nology, languages, fine arts and media, world history and
government, economics and mathematics as well as health
and life skills.

Appendix 2: Examples
of educational television programs
Kapusta: a program on the Russian language
Kapusta is a television edutainment program that familiarizes
with the basics of the Russian language. Each episode is di-
vided into subsections that introduce Cyrillic alphabet, some
vocabulary, and phrases related to different communication
situations. Learning is supported by repeating certain expres-
sions and phrases a couple of times during the dialogue. Close-
ups of the actors’ faces are common. In a subsection called
‘Kiikari’ (in English ‘Binoculars’), committing the words to
memory is assisted by showing the words simultaneously both
as a text and as a concrete object. The dialogue and story
telling of the program are humoristic in nature.
The educational goals of the program could benefit from lit-
tle changes in representation. For instance, at the beginning
of each episode a short introduction to forthcoming topics
would contribute to the orientation of the learners. Likewise,
at the end of each episode a brief summary would support
piecing together the main issues of the content. Inducing
parasocial interaction (see Chapter 3.2) between the viewer
and the people in the program is based mainly on invitations
to laugh while addressing the viewer through a gaze is rare.
Carita Pintada:
an edutainment program on the Spanish language
Carita Pintada is a soap opera with Spanish subtitles for self-
learning the Spanish language. As a program concept, it raises
several questions. If edutainment is based on a drama, too
strong narration may move the viewer’s attention from learn-
ing the language. Hence, the problem is to insert educational
elements, like disposition, repetition and feedback, to a ready
drama. Some authors have suggested (see [57]) that ready film
material could be used more on learning languages. This con-
tains the same problem as Carina Pintada: how to combine
educational material and the drama?
As a partial answer to these questions, we can list some
minimal criteria for an educational program: at least weak
(implicit) interaction, at least implicit feedback, delivers in-
formation, and contains repetition.
Programs failing to fulfil these criteria can cause only acci-
dental learning although they can be used to maintain knowl-
edge of a language.

Appendix 3: Examples
of educational computer software
Suomi-Seikkailu: an adventure computer game
Original producer of the game: The educational point of the game is to teach geography of
Monsterland (1997).
Finland. Story-wise, the goal in the game is to lead a search
Implementation in Finnish:
Elävät Kirjat Oy. for a scientist called ‘Professori’. A player has three detec-
tives who are under her control. She directs where and how
they move and to whom they talk in different towns. The peo-
ple the detectives meet in different places speak in dialects of
the Finnish language.
The primary educative content is stored in an archive where
there are short descriptions about different places and areas
in Finland. The player can also look for a certain topic in the
archive through the table of contents. The player becomes ac-
quainted with the map of Finland (and especially with certain
towns of Finland) because the action happens mostly on the
map.
From the educative viewpoint, the main problem of the
game is the fact that the user can play the game through
without reading all the content of the information archive. In
addition, the information is not structured very well in the
sense that it includes more fractured information than the-
matic entities. From the standpoint of playability, the player’s
actions and moves are quite restricted. This means that she
can only select from a few predetermined alternatives what
she wants to say or where and how she wants to move next.
SimPuisto: a computer simulation

Original production: Maxis, Inc. (1997). The basic idea of the game is to construct a diversiform na-
Editing in Finnish: Elävät Kirjat Oy. ture park. A player acts as a park keeper who also has to
Implementation in Finnish: Trantex Oy. recognise different North American species. The main parts of
the application are simulation of the park, games for recog-
nising species and voices of birds, a guidebook of the park
including information about the fauna and flora, and a map in-
cluding information about the population of the park. The
package also includes a paper workbook that contains activi-
ties and exercises concerning nature.
The essential element in keeping the player amused is her
active role in creating and planning her own park. During the
game, the guide called Risto speaks to the player, gives her
advice about the game and tells some useful information
about nature. This funny character is meant to entertain the

player but actually it seems to be more disturbing than amus-

ing after the first performance.
Besides offering information about nature and training in
recognition of species, the educative role of the game relates
to a problem solving and conceptualization of large entities as
well as causes and effects within them. For instance, when
the player selects plants that don’t belong to the type of na-
ture in question, they will wilt sooner or later. Or, if the food
chain in the park is incomplete, certain species can breed too
much.
Valtakunta: an interactive movie [unready]

The producers: the Faculty of Theology at A game that introduces social, cultural and political conflicts
the Helsinki University and the Media Lab
at the Helsinki University of Art and Design. that happened within Hellenism, formative Judaism, emerging
The creation of the product started in Christianity and the Roman Empire during the first century. In
1997. the game, the player encounters fictional characters who
could have lived in Palestine during the times of New Testa-
ment. A virtual reality environment consists of photographic
panoramas that have been shot in original locations in Israel.
The story includes alternative story-lines and interchangeable
narrative points of view.

Appendix 4:
WebQuest — a net edutainment idea
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all
of the information that learners interact with comes from re-
sources on the Internet, optionally supplemented with video-
conferencing. There are at least two levels of WebQuests that
should be distinguished from one another. The instructional
goal of a short term WebQuest is knowledge acquisition and
integration. At the end of a short term WebQuest, a learner
will have grappled with a significant amount of new informa-
tion and made sense of it. A short-term WebQuest is designed
to be completed in one to three class periods.
The instructional goal of a longer term WebQuest is extend-
ing and refining knowledge. After completing a longer term
WebQuest, a learner would have analyzed a body of knowl-
edge deeply, transformed it in some way, and demonstrated
an understanding of the material by creating something that
others can respond to, on-line or off-line. A longer term Web-
Quest will typically take between one week and a month in a
classroom setting.
WebQuests of either short or long duration are deliberately
designed to make the best use of a learner’s time. There is
questionable educational benefit in having learners surfing the
net without a clear task in mind, and most schools must ration
the students’ connect time severely. To achieve that effi-
ciency and clarity of purpose, WebQuests should contain at
least the following parts:
1) An introduction that sets the stage and provides some

background information.
2) A task that is doable and interesting.
3) A set of information sources needed to complete the
task. Many of the resources are embedded in the Web-
Quest document itself as anchors pointing to informa-
tion on the World Wide Web. Information sources might
include Web documents, experts available via e-mail or
real-time conferencing, searchable databases on the
net, and books and other documents physically avail-
able in the learner’s setting. Because pointers to re-
sources are included, the learner is not left to wander
through webspace completely adrift.
4) A description of the process the learners should go
through for accomplishing the task. The process should
be broken out into clearly described steps.
5) Some guidance on how to organize the information ac-
quired. This can take the form of guiding questions, or

directions to complete organizational frameworks such

as timelines, or concept maps.
6) A conclusion that brings closure to the quest, reminds
the learners about what they’ve learned, and perhaps
encourages them to extend the experience into other
domains.
WebQuests are most likely to be group activities, although

one could imagine solo quests that might be applicable in dis-
tance education or library settings. WebQuests might be en-
hanced by wrapping motivational elements around the basic
structure by giving the learners a role to play (e.g., scientist,
detective, reporter), simulated personae to interact with via
e-mail, and a scenario to work within (e.g., you’ve been asked
by the Secretary General of the UN to brief him on what’s
happening in the sub-Saharan Africa this week).
WebQuests can be designed within a single discipline or
they can be interdisciplinary. Given that designing effective
interdisciplinary instruction is more of a challenge than de-
signing for a single content area, WebQuest creators should
probably start with the latter until they are comfortable with
the format.
Longer term WebQuests can be thought about in at least
two ways: what thinking process is required to create them,
and what form they take once created.

Appendix 5:
Usability of remote controller
For controlling a digital television, we need new controlling
operations. In a remote controller, this means new buttons. In
addition to the normal number (0—9) and arrow (up, down,
left, right) buttons and basic buttons (on/off, volume, etc.), a
NorDig remote controller must contain the following auxiliary
buttons:
• a button for accepting the choices made (OK)

• a button for returning to the previous state (Back)
• buttons for starting the navigator (Navig), supertext
television (Text-TV) and Electronic Program Guide (EPG)
• four unfixed function buttons (red, green, yellow, and
blue)
• a button for starting the default application (App).
Also the Finnish digital television requires remote control-

lers obeying this standard. A schema for NorDig remote con-
Figure A1: A NorDig remote controller. troller is shown in Figure A1.
In general, a remote controller should fulfill at least the
following usability criteria [64]:
• it should fit in hand by its shape and form

• similar functions should be grouped together
• the form and naming of buttons should be simple
• buttons should be clearly separated because buttons ly-
ing too close to each other cause errors
• buttons should be clearly raised up from the surface of
the remote controller; this makes them easier to use
than those embedded in the surface
• labeling of buttons should be understandable (technical
abbreviations or English words as labels may cause prob-
lems)
• it should contain a single button (info), from which the
user gets clear help for all operations of digital tele-
vision.

Appendix 6:
Links to edutainment products
• The Gamer’s Inn:
http://www.gamersinn.com/library/edutainment/
• Broderbund:
http://www.broderbund.com/
• Oregon Trail II:
http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej08/mr1.html
• Children Vets:
http://www.e-cdrom.com/icanbeandoc.html
• Amazon Trail II:
http://www.e-cdrom.com/amtrailiibox.html
• Yellowstone:
http://www.e-cdrom.com/exyel.html
• Soul City:
http://www.bp.com/location_rep/south_africa/
soc_investment_progs/soul_city.asp
• Hand-held computers and edutainment:
http://www.stanford.edu/~jmanus/edhand/standalone_palms/
palms_as_educational_tools.htm
• Sesame Street:
http://www.sesameworkshop.com
• Wishbone (the web site of the educational television se-
ries for elementary school-age children):
http://www.pbs.org/wishbone/
• FunBrain.com:
http://www.funbrain.com/
• Kids Web Japan:
http://www.jinjapan.org/kidsweb/index.html
• Prongo.com:
http://www.prongo.com/
• Active Worlds:
http://www.activeworlds.com/
• Walking with Dinosaurs:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dinosaurs/
• The WebQuest Page:
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/
• Design of Instructional Computer Simulations:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~c07w245/
• Channel 4:
http://www.channel4.com/learning/games.html
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2. Present edutainment types 6

4. Key issues for planning digi-TV edutainment 42

5. Ideas for program types in digital television 54

Appendix 1: Educational television programs

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UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE HYPERMEDIA LABORATORY

Chapter 3 considers edutainment in education. It includes

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2. Present edutainment types

1) Formal learning takes place in education and training

According to another classification, learning can be divided

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learner (hopefully) gets from using edutainment. The pleasure

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as commonly used as edutainment and infotainment, but it

1) Edutainment to improve users’ life control (informal

Edutainment can be divided also according to target group:

1) Motivation-oriented (users who have the same interest

A third classification can be based on the contents of the

UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE HYPERMEDIA LABORATORY

1) programs for those in school age are often meant to

UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE HYPERMEDIA LABORATORY

Popular themes in informal learning are media literacy (for ex-

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To this day, the stories in educational television programs

TYPES EXAMPLES LEARNERS REMARKS

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2.3. Computer edutainment

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cluding product specific clip art or stamps, video libraries,

1) A tutorial teaches new things and tests whether stu-

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d) Simulation games (e.g., the Sim series: SimAnt,

There are no clear research results indicating the effect of

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visual expression is usually more (photo)realistic and the nar-

2.4. Edutainment on the Internet

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unidirectional use. Students are often not able to interact by

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main medium. An example of the latter is the web site of the

2.5. Interactive television

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• to plan the human centred process

Learner-centered design is an approach that extends tradi-

UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE HYPERMEDIA LABORATORY

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Designing educational programs for television has been de-

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them when achieving some intermediate goals or answering

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lished and familiar to all, and functions enabled by a remote

3.2. A vision of multi-form teaching

Multi-form teaching consists of planned schedule of contact and distance

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The use of new media varies according to the form of teaching

Mobiles Digital television

Small screens Remote controller

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