Friday, 15 March 2013

Edutainment - How It Touches Our Lives?



The world is swooning by the concept of edutainment, and so are we. Edutainment has become the new buzzword these days, capturing the attention of everyone, from a 24-months old child to a 60-year-old business tycoon. And how?

It is because this unintentional and informal way of gaining knowledge is way more interesting that the conventional ways. And here learning is not just limited to gaining enough knowledge to pass the examinations, it is much larger than that. Countries these days are using means of edutainment to spread awareness about various fatal diseases and social issues like cancer and women abuse respectively. Movie makers and software developers now-a-days come up with entertaining products that help attract and maintain the audience, while blending in some deliberate message or sort of knowledge.

The consumer is more aware now- more aware of where he is going, what is he consuming, and what can be the possible outcomes of what he does. This is because he is open to learning now-- condition being it isn’t boring anyways! Products are being marketed in a way that the consumer trusts them completely, and gets important message in a much lighter manner. And hence, companies are raking in profits simply by presenting the consumers with sources that make sure we learn a lot while getting amused. Media has played a vital role in expanding this concept to every nook-and-corner of the world. Majority of computer games being developed these days ensure the same, and become instant hits with the people playing them. And the schools, where the future scientists and doctors of the Earth spend a major part of their day, have also come up with creative learning strategies that do not let children surround by boring vibes while going to schools.

That said, edutainment has a bright future ahead. And it is here to remain-growing bigger by the second!

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Tuesday, 12 March 2013

Edutainment: A New Buzz Word



"Edutainment" a buzzword these days, for starters, is the portmanteau formed of two simple terms Education and Entertainment. Going into details, the idea behind coining this term was to come up with more effective ways to learn things. Learning the facts in traditional ways has become so out now, and it is all about indulging in fun ways to gain knowledge. To start with, the very basic medium of edutainment are our very own fables, games and that television-set sitting in the corner of the living room. This tells that though the word is new, it is in use since time immemorial. It’s just that we have started implementing it more seriously these days. Let’s see how a fable acts as a source of edutainment, and helps kids learn in a fun way.

Story of Cinderella, which has its roots in China is one fable nearly everyone has heard of in his/her childhood. In this classic myth, a lady from the lower class, through her kindness, physical beauty, and help from others, marries a prince and lives happily ever after. The basic moral of the story is that woman's happiness depends on a man and a woman needs to be transformed to fit into that man's world. While the Asian Cinderella is characterized by her non-individual qualities, such as her daughterly piety, the American Cinderella is admired for her individual qualities, such as physical beauty and resourcefulness. Both ways, the story is designed to teach a lesson about which behaviors the culture will reward.

This was just a short and very basic example to show how edutainment has entered our lives and is helping us learn. And it is actually changing the way we as a society think-- for good. Moreover, it is even helping companies market their products.

Saturday, 9 March 2013

Edutainment - A portmanteau of Education & Entertainment



Edutainment (a portmanteau of Education & Entertainment), as the name suggests quite well, is any content that educates people while keeping the amusement quotient high. Edutainment is anything that helps one gain knowledge, but, in a manner that it doesn’t become burdensome. Though this sort of education is known to us since ages, but what’s new is the term Edutainment we have started referring to now-a-days. Thinking when did we learn something in a play-way method? Well, think about all the parables and fables? And various kid-games like alphabets and building blocks? Or even that show on the large LCD mounted in one corner of your wall?

This unintentional and informal way of gaining knowledge is what we now call Edutainment. And here learning is not just limited to gaining enough knowledge to pass the examinations, it is much larger than that. Countries these days use means of edutainment to spread awareness about various fatal diseases and social issues like cancer and women abuse respectively. Movie makers and software developers now-a-days come up with entertaining products that help attract and maintain the audience, while blending in some deliberate message or sort of knowledge. That said, edutainment has a bright future ahead. And it is here to remain.

And since, this concept soon became a hit, companies are raking in profits simply by presenting the consumers with sources that make sure we learn a lot while getting amused. Media has played a vital role in expanding this concept to every nook-and-corner of the world. Majority of computer games being developed these days ensure the same, and become instant hits with the people playing them. And the schools, where the future scientists and doctors of the Earth spend a major part of their day, have also come up with creative learning strategies that do not let children surround by boring vibes while going to schools.

This is the effect of Edutainment, and it is just growing bigger by the second, for good!!

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Wednesday, 6 March 2013

Changing Paradigms In Gaming: Edutainment The Next Big Thing



There was a time when we played games just for having fun with friends and family. Gaming has had been a peer thing till the time technology didn’t breach in to let people knit their own virtual world in these games. Electronic gaming consoles literally abandoned those backyards and playgrounds at many places. Games, like Super Mario and Contra, danced on the lips of kids for years. And all this exhilaration over gaming received a huge kick with the arrival of immensely popular gaming consoles - PlayStation and Xbox.

Till that era, gaming was primarily a matter of individual engagement and achievements. However, the big vertical shift came in when games got that social flavor added with social platforms especially Facebook. In addition to bringing the multi-player style to the core, social media enriched conventional gaming with a flurry of other networking techniques that were hitherto not explored well.

Competition was sidelined, and on the contrary to the very essence of gaming, social games earmarked “forming associations” as an important tool to attain in-game goals. Zynga pioneered the notion of such collaborative associations with its blockbuster releases Farmville and Cityville. These games encouraged users to network to perform loads of activities and feel a sense of achievement and togetherness.

Gaming stalwarts soon sensed the trend and adapted to the change introduced by Zynga. Established gaming houses started churning out engaging social games and soon it became a highly crowded domain. A recent research conducted by the casual gaming experts Newzoo reported that as many as 39% of the total 215 million hours were spent in online casual or social media gaming, if that gives you any perspective about how colossal this industry has become.

The above discussion might give you an all-well feeling about the social gaming industry, but it’s not as easygoing as it looked. In fact, unlike the erstwhile scenario, a lot depends on the content of a game. Engagement has become a much broader term. Even a simple hit-and-run game today has so much in terms of letting people network through it. And people need more than just fun to remain glued to a game. Something extra, something can give them some value.

Talking about the value part, future games ought to have a design and content flow that impart some learning in addition to all the fun and frolic. Idea here is to empower users with something they can use when they’re not playing the game. To put it in more appropriate words, games that depict both education and entertainment, together dubbed as “Edutainment”, in a proportionate mix.

Edutainment-based games have already making inroads in the social media space. Just a little inquisition will show you a handful of games, such as “Words With Friends”, that have Edutainment as the central theme. But, having said that, these games aren’t huge in numbers, but going by the current, soon you will find companies doing away with barely useful action-packed gaming and hopping into the Edutainment space to capitalize upon the opportunities in this new form of learning.


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Wednesday, 27 February 2013

LingoDiction - What All It Holds For You



It becomes one heck of a problem when one is out on a foreign land, and is not able to express his needs to the natives in their own language. And it becomes all the more embarrassing when one intends to speak something, after obviously looking into a dictionary, and the meaning turns out to be something else. 

Majority of the people who go out, for business or for leisure, face this problem, and roaming around with hefty dictionaries is no more a feasible option, when you have access to download a small translation app on your smartphone. But the major confusion then is which of the thousands available apps to choose from?

You need not to fret anymore since LingoDiction is all here to help you come over language barriers. This new app offers a wide range of features, assisting you with any sort of language-related problem you might come across while in an alien land.

With a user-friendly interface, LingoDiction has words clearly segregated into regions, and various other categories like Most Widely Spoken Languages, Romance Language, and the likes. The division of words into smaller categories helps cut-off any confusions that might arise otherwise. And the present count of the languages in which LingoDiction offers translation is 65, which is only growing bigger.

Coming over to the features it offers, the list is endless. If you find going through the categories boring, then you also have the option to select a language from the language atlas, and get going! And if you are one of those lazy souls who get weary over clicking the button to listen to the voice of words, Turbo Play is all for you. After clicking on it, you automatically get to listen to the voice of every word you click upon.

What’s more, you can always send in your suggestions to make the app more better. If, according to you, the data is not correct or is incomplete in any sense, you have the option to send it in, and then the mistake will get rectified. These are just some of the features of this unique new app, download now to explore more of it!


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Friday, 22 February 2013

A Trip to Amsterdam - RouteIt Guided To Perfection


The other day I was fussing over my strict parents for they refused when I asked them if I too could be a part of the upcoming School Expedition to Amsterdam. They told me I wasn’t supposed to be travelling without them anywhere in that age. And this is when I explored RouteIt.

Since visiting Amsterdam has always been on my wish-list, I thought why not delve into the city first on RouteIt??! I explored my way to Amsterdam, and as the world map took me to my dream city, I was welcomed with a piece of info on it. On clicking the ‘Play’ icon, I was literally taken inside the city, where the route started for my avatar (and me too!) to go round the city on satellite view.

The first halt was Hermitage Amsterdam, for which I got to know a lot from the app. After I was done with my first Point of Interest, I resumed the journey. Secondly, the app took me to Museum Willet-Holthuysen, again giving a brief on it. I even had the option to share my expedition and every stoppage with my friends. I was astonished to find out that Amsterdam even has a Museum dedicated to all-girl-things: Museum of Bags and Purses.

Every now and then, while I was on the route, it came up with options for me to interact with my fellow travelers, or to share my experience with others on the network, the ongoing competitions, and such. My next stoppage was at Allard Pierson Museum which was followed by a halt at Dam Square. I even got to visit and know about The Royal Palace of Amsterdam, which otherwise might not have been possible. And with this the mesmerizing journey came to an end.

Though it was always fun to stop at every POI for a while to know more about it, but for the less-interested souls, it even has the option to change gears. Here’s how: if you feel like speeding up the journey, you can opt for running, skating or cycling the way up instead of walking.

What I liked the most was that apart from the satellite view, RouteIt also offers Street View for life-like experience. Since it even has the option to listen to one’s favorite music tracks, whenever I felt lonely on the route (which wasn’t often), I made music my companion. All through the journey I was feeling as if I was actually in Amsterdam- because of the structured info this app provides. With this app on my phone, I had a very edutaining trip to my favorite city- the city of museums!


Download Virtual Travel App RouteIt now for new enchanting experience.

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Wednesday, 16 January 2013

Project World Tour - A Journey To Roots Through Routes



Amanda was feeling damn nostalgic today. It has been 13 years since she walked on the route to her alma mater. She could actually see a calico of her images, toying with her friends in bits and pieces, across that route. A short journey via that route rewinded her school-memories as if those were playing on a bioscope or something.

Was it with Amanda only? Or do we all share a special connection with routes? How many times have you seen yourself walking on those roads that were your inextricable companions to several destinations that you’d set from time-to-time? In fact, even if you replay your good old college days, a major part of the nostalgic drive will inadvertently cast the routes you trod with your friends.

That’s how our memories are essentially wired. We could still connect with the route we took when we went to the school for the first time. We could still live over the excitement when our bulging bags leaned out to pave the way for light trendy bags, and school uniform transformed into fashionable attires and cool accessories in college. That nervous yet ambitious walk to the office. A surreal walk with the first date on a beach or some other romantic spot. Believe it or not, you have pictures of all these, and many more life-changing routes deeply ingrained in your sub-conscious.

In Project World Tour, we have endeavored to weave those all important routes, and several others, into a series of knowledge sharing postings across multitude of platforms. The aim here is to build a community of and for travelers where they go beyond sharing about places. Instead, the community will further magnify their sharing by talking about different routes that run through as veins in any city.

Not just that, contribution in the Project World Tour can fetch you some exciting takeaways that you can show off on your friends. We are on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, YouTube, and all the popular platforms. Just enter #ProjectWorldTour in the search boxes of your favorite social media site and join the league of the extraordinary travelers waiting for like-minded people like YOU.

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Download free virtual travel app RouteIt to explore the world.