Tech-entertainment for educational events

Tech Entertainment for Educational Events

One of the most understated tenets of the new model of education is that learning should be fun. A more student centered pedagogy that incorporates technology as a fun and engaging catalyst to obtain more relevant and significant learning should also include several instances where both students and adults explicitly enjoy the learning process.

In that respect, games and simulations constitute a very valid paradigm since they allow students to learn interactively, increase their level of difficulty as they progress, work collaboratively, and learn while playing, the most intuitive and seamless way for hands-on learning.

Within educational events, it is very important that the audience, generally consisting of teachers and administrators, can engage in fun learning activities themselves, as a way to experience firsthand how a renewed pedagogy that incorporates games and other enjoyable activities can, indeed, result in deeper learning experiences.

The Learnerspace has developed and successfully ran two different alternatives for tech entertainment at conferences and other professional development events:

The Quiz Show. Utilizing state-of-the-art online interactive sites, an extended team building activity where, using their personal devices, teams answer multiple-choice fun quiz questions including videos, music, and other multimedia elements that celebrate learning into what is an exciting and fun activity. Prizes are awarded after each round and results collated so that the overall winner can emerge at the end of the event. Our database of educational questions covers all grade levels and subject areas, as well as including current events and specific education trivia.

Treasure Hunts. The old venerable treasure hunt re-acquires relevance in the context of an online concatenated series of clues that teams have to solve in order to successfully complete the quest. The stages, that are progressively revealed interactively as each team completes the previous challenge, include the use of software, downloading and utilizing apps, some fun activities related to the venue, and, in general, are developed together with the event planners in order to suit specific educational objectives and have participants learn while engaging in this fun interactive game.

Other fun and innovative edutainment options offered by The Learnerspace include the app party, where participants evaluate different apps contributed by themselves in a round-robin tournament that culminates in a winner, cooking contests that embody and exemplify design processes, design contests and other ideas that can be jointly developed with event planners in order to provide fun and entertaining learning options for participants in the event.