Playing and learning on digital platforms
Edutainment – the English word for the play-and-learn concept – has always been an important business for the Kids Media division. To date the primary focus has been on analogue products such as activity packs and books, but digitalisation has now also come to this area.
Egmont has launched the edutainment program www.3til7.no in Norway. In Germany Ehapa is looking into the program’s potential for the German market, and Poland is another possible target country. A French concept, the program has enjoyed huge success because it manages to unite entertainment and education and thus encourages children to play and learn at the same time. For less than five euros a month, French parents – and soon Norwegian parents as well – can subscribe to the educational game solution, KizzTV, for their children. The program, to be launched in Norway under the name ‘3til7.no’, is intended primarily for children of preschool age – three to seven – and offers games that help them learn and practise various skills.
The program is designed to self-adapt the game’s level of difficulty to each child’s ability, and its elements can be combined in numerous ways. Every time the child completes a game in a category – for example, shooting balloons with letters to make up a word – the child reaches a new level, and the games increase in difficulty. The opportunities to improve and learn new skills are thus endless.
Technically, the program closely resembles a website and can be downloaded to either a PC or a Mac. Once downloaded, a program icon appears on the computer screen, and a single click is all that’s needed to launch the games – exactly as if a CDRom had been installed.
Parents can then compile a game pack by selecting various categories and keying in the child’s age. The child has three different games to choose from each time he or she plays, but a game that is repeatedly avoided must be played before the child can advance to the next level.
Parents can type in how long each session is to last, and the child can follow how much time has passed by watching the clock on the screen. When the time is up, the program closes automatically, preventing parents from becoming ‘the bad guys’ if the child is upset that the game has ended.
Program development in Norway has now been finalised, and the product is expected to be available there in December, while in Germany the idea is still on the drawing board.
