Edutainment 3.0 - Express

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The best of our trends report. The traditional way.

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Actionable Insights

7 insights from the full report to propel you to Edutainment 3.0 success.

1. Encourage Engagement: At the heart of the very best Education and Entertainment is Engagement. In education, this is often best achieved by using the principles of active learning. Meanwhile, brands and organizations typically measure engagement by how often they interact with customers, which when done right, can lead to increased brand awareness. Without engagement, your Edutainment projects will fall flat.
2. Obliterate Obstacles: Edutainment can help people understand and move through topics faster. Successful Edutainment removes barriers to learning, especially in complex, technical or traditional topics.
3. Seek Balance: Never underestimate how long it takes for people to grasp concepts. Edutainment projects often focus too much on the entertainment part while leaving the education aspect feeling like an afterthought. You still need the academic rigor around what helps people retain information. Calculus is still calculus. So create a balance in your Edutainment project.
4. Emphasize Emotion: Academic rigor can suck the emotion out of a topic quicker than an ice cream falling out of the cone - sad and boring. All learning involves emotion in some way - as does entertainment. Make sure you bring emotion to the forefront.
5. Quit Playing Games with my heart: Gamification can be hugely powerful in Edutainment. It can help people learn concepts easier. But it needs careful planning and design to be truly effective. Don’t be tempted to label all your Edutainment projects as games. Make sure you have a variety of learning tools.
6. Dreams & Heroes: Your Edutainment project is the perfect vehicle to help people vividly describe their dreams and understand the paths and stepping stones others took on their journeys. This approach can help people find purpose, set goals, and make course corrections when they hit hurdles and challenges.   **
7. Think About The Big Picture: Edutainment projects aren’t a one-and-done concept. Consider what deeper involvement looks like in practice. Is it ownership? Is it based on co-creation? Is it an intangible? (for example, the community built during and after a learning experience).
   

The 3.0 Formula

The most impactful projects in Edutainment 3.0 tap into four key elements. We call it the Edutainment 3.0 Formula.

Learn more about the Magic Formula.

Guidelines for Greatness

So why should you care about all this? And how you can implement them into your own work? Here are three starter ideas:

• Embrace the tension: To be successful in applying these trends, you need to create “had to be there” moments. One approach we find effective is to think about tension. How can you create tension, anticipation, and cliffhanger moments? Think about what you want to provide upfront, but also what you may want to hold back...
• Optimize for engagement: There’s a reason we put “Engagement” right at the top of our list of Actionable Insights. Whether it’s employees, audiences, communities, or students - they’re all going to expect a different way to learn that’s accessible, inclusive, and keeps them engaged. Don’t be afraid to bring them into the experience
• New Wine, Old Oak: The concept of MetaLearn will soon be the focus of education. Whether that’s through Web3, DAOs, or GamFi, the Metaverse is likely to be at the center. However, your vision of Edutainment for your brand or organization should feel more like a Saturday morning TV show from the 90s - packed with variety, delivery modes, and personality.

What’s next? To rock the socks off your Edutainment efforts...