Title: Technologies to feed your mind: implementing edutainment laboratories

Authors: Lorella Gabriele; Francesca Bertacchini

Addresses: University of Calabria, Arvacata di Rende, Cosenza, Italy ' University of Calabria, Arvacata di Rende, Cosenza, Italy

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present edutainment environments devoted to educational robotics, evolutionary robotics and chaos theory, with the aim to provide ideas that can be easily reproduced in different contexts. The adopted approaches, the research settings, the technical and technological organisation, the tools used and the activities here described, synthesise the results of different research work carried out by the Laboratory of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences of the University of Calabria. Edutainment labs are part of the constructivist framework that joins education and entertainment to create rich learning environment through hands-on activities and using technologies. The design of these edutainment environments is critical because it is necessary to combine contents, tools and skills to be acquired, considering motivational components such as, novelty, curiosity, play, competition, teamwork, joyful activities. We observed how students simply learn and experiment practically advanced scientific concepts of contemporary science.

Keywords: edutainment laboratories; constructivist methodology; educational technologies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJENTTM.2021.116768

International Journal of Entertainment Technology and Management, 2021 Vol.1 No.2, pp.146 - 161

Received: 19 Jun 2019
Accepted: 24 Oct 2019
Published online: 02 Aug 2021 *

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