Analysis of Local and Foreign Edutainment Products - An Effort to Implement the Design Framework for an Edutainment Environment in Malaysia

摘要

In the world of 'edutainment' where multimedia is the ultimate content provider, educational electronic games are a new and fun way for young children to learn concepts and processes that have usually been delivered via books within the traditional classroom. In an effort to implement a design framework for developing educational games (edutainment environment), this study selects a locally developed edutainment product and an internationally available foreign edutainment product developed for children ages four to six years. These products were selected in order to critically understand and explore the parameters of good edutainment products in an educational setting, especially in the early childhood learning environment. An analysis was conducted based on the heuristics for designing educational games. This paper reports on a part of that research work where the major outcome is to provide educators with a tool for the development of educational games. Given the current growth of smart schools world- wide, the need for such tools will become more predominate because they will allow educators to create their own educational games without having to rely on technical personnel or use a non-satisfying product that is available in the market. How such games are designed will surely influence their effectiveness in enhancing learning.