Edutainment aspects in hypermedia storytelling

Abstract

Hypermedia Storytelling allows the integration of edutainment aspects on multiple levels. In addition to directly integrating the information to learn into the story, digital media allow to link story elements that create interest in a particular topic to related background information sites. On another level not only the reception of a story can be used to transmit educational content, but also the authoring of a story or the task to produce a storytelling environment itself can be used for educational purposes. We show how these aspects can be realized in the context of a Hypermedia Novel (HyMN). After describing the underlying generic storytelling paradigm, edutainment aspects are discussed with regard to several practical examples. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.