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Analysis of local and foreign edutainment products--an effort to implement the design framework for an edutainment environment in Malaysia.

Article Excerpt
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 worldwide, 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.

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Edutainment can be defined as "a place where children could enjoy what they learn with a combination of many mediums (sound, animation, video, text, and images) by simply using a computer mouse to point and click on a particular picture, word, or button; and stories as well as information that will come alive on a computer screen" (Druin & Solomon, 1996). It usually exists in the form of educational electronic games. Electronic games are undoubtedly motivating; therefore, because motivation is the key to education, their intrinsically motivating nature should be of value when this medium is used for educational purposes. Most games create an environment in which the player moves along with the storyline and are based on learning by experience. The most pertinent question now is: how to design games that are oriented to education?

Developing effective materials in any medium that facilitates learning for young children requires an understanding of the principles of how children learn. Creating an environment that is able to catch a child's attention provides an environment where perception of information begins. Interactive multimedia elements that are present in edutainment, such as text, images or illustrations, animation, sound, and real-life video motion pictures, can help enhance the process of understanding the information being presented to these young children. By using an educational game that is inline with the developmental abilities of four to six year olds, children can be actively engaged in activities that develop the underlying processes and concepts of a subject.

In Malaysia, the use of educational electronic games within early childhood educational settings is a relatively new phenomenon; there is a widespread lack of access to and use of computers for educational purposes. The main reasons for the lack of access and use are, in all likelihood, due to the following:

i) Educator and community attitudes and beliefs that computer use is neither important nor appropriate in the early childhood curriculum

ii) Educators' lack the confidence and knowledge in using multimedia- related materials

iii) Lack of funds and limited computer facilities

An empirical study, conducted in a chosen district in Malaysia (Embi & Hussain, 2003), shows that preschools are gradually incorporating this innovative multimedia technology into their curriculum. It is either self-purchased from the local software company in the form of CD-ROM or acquired through the Internet, with the software provided via licensed agreement from a local company or foreign company in Singapore. Based on the qualitative research conducted at selected preschools, we have found that a problem faced in using educational electronic games is the difficulty of finding one already available in the market that adapts to the children's characteristics, to their learning capacities, and to their special needs.

In this paper, we focus on educational electronic games for the cognitive development of mathematical concepts; this is the most popular subject among game designers due to market demand, the difficulties of children in learning the concepts using conventional methods, and the ease of developing such software. For this reason, we have selected a local edutainment...

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