Melva Gifford

I had to do a speech for toast masters so I made up a new company and project. And I was supposed to tell about the company on a radio show. Here is some of the stuff I came up with.
This is a Q & A by a pretend radio broadcaster:

Q: What contributed to the creation of Edutainment?
The concept was created by the aspect of making education fun and sibling rivalry.

Q: Sibling rivalry: explain?
I have a twin brother. As siblings’ do, we fought when we were young. In high school was being picked on by someone at school. He found out about it on our drive home. He had a car then. My brother got all protective. It made me realize that family members can fight amongst ourselves but we’re family. That is part of many family dynamics. When it comes to others hurting us… keep their hands off.
This made me realize that the more ways we can make education emotionally relevant to the student by what they see, touch and do, the stronger connect that student will have on the topic of the lesson.

Q: What is the goal of your organization?
To help engage students through all sensory stimuli and via entertainment broadening their respective on topics discussed in class.
The combination of education and entertainment becomes EduTainment and thus the creation of our name. Student learning can benefit by touching upon three areas.
1. We haves students who learn things visually.
2. Other students audio-ably through presentations or lectures
3. Others learn by on hands or through physical interaction

Q: With the decrease attention span of generation z which includes camera angles that may last 2-3 sec. for TV and movies; how does your program address each of these individual learning techniques?
Some of our content is provided by the student themselves. The youth today are avid You Tube or Facebook consumers. They come across a wide spectrum of videos. Many of these videos can teach a subject related in class. Through search engine optimization data we can collect vides that get the high hits and gleam current trends. We can siphon off some of the relevant content and implement them into our lessons plans.
It adds variety in the lesson plan and the students can approach and broaden their perspective on a topic from a supposedly unrelated video and then relate the two.
Here is an example of visual education: There is a popular YouTube video touches upon a girl being bullied at school. A guy took a snapshot of her and posted it to students devices and included mocking comments. Other students added their own mockery throughout the day. The older brother, who has in the past has also done a similar type of bullying, can’t figure out why his younger sister is so depressed. He is hurt on his sister’s behalf. Suddenly bullying becomes personal as it is his sister who is getting hurt. The negative consequences of his past acts of bulling become personified.
There are some great examples of the audio or textual form of learning: Hillsdale College is famous for this providing multiple online classes on the constitution for free. People can sign up can watch a lecture about history or the constitution.
A separate university is giving lectures about copyright law. During those lectures pictures, diagrams and illustrations are provided to help inform the viewer.
With the proliferation on hand held devices, this is popular for the modern day student.
We provide web links to various media sources that are available through their online workbooks provided by EduTainment Inc. They help embellish the lecture experience by provided additions documentation on the topic being discussed in class. This is broadened by newscasts.
To break up a long lecture, the instructor might mix in a joke or a personal story. This helps make the data relevant to the listener. An alternative is to have the class break up into groups and brainstorm and collect a list in response to a specific question. Some material may also be available from web sites of professional story tellers and comedian.
An important component to learning is physical activity: One useful lesson might be lids on a bottle. This is especially beneficial for our younger students. We can break up the monzonite of a class by an active. For example let’s say we’re teaching cause and effect. What was created to address the problem of lids to bottles popping off? Contents of a bottle can be better secure with a lid that screws on. With several rotations being required to open the jar there is less chance the bottle being opened accidently. To illustrate we may have a mix of bottles distributed throughout the class. They try to open and close the different types of lids. The class can discuss the ridges inside the lid and how they work or even perhaps the position of where the mouth opening is for a drinking bottle or straw.

Q: What are some of the challenges of your services?
We seek to address the potential boredom of the students. There are multiple ways class members display boredom. One may simple zone out. Others maybe act out. For young students, they may not have the language skills to say they’re bored so they do something that might disrupt the class to provide their own stimulus.

Q: What do you recommend for teacher to counter such possibilities of boredom?
Find out what works and doesn’t work for your specific class.
Once I wanted to get the children to dress up to do a skit. They didn’t want to do it. It was uncomfortable for several members. Learning that, I found an alternative that was comfortable for all the class. It is very important for the teacher to keep track on the behavior of a class. Sometimes depending upon the type of activity it can turn a class into hyperactive rather than engaging them to incorporate the principles of the lessons.
Some of the activities they enjoy might be a reward to them when they successfully and attentively respond to the lessons that are not as popular.
If you were to create a company, what would you create? Please provide responses in the comment section of this blog. Thanks