The global company takes otherwise dry materials usually reserved for classroom chalkboards and paper handouts and converts that educational content into edutainment—an interactive experience complete with video clips featuring animated cartoon characters, upbeat pop music and even karaoke. Americans from Generation X may remember the days of “School House Rock,” where musical, animated characters taught the rules of grammar and how the US government works. StudyJams by Scholastic plays on a similar strategy using entertainment as a means of teaching children and offers individual “Jams” centered around math, science and history.

These Jams explore basic concepts from adding and subtracting single-digit numbers to data analysis, algebra and geometry. Each of the 200 individual Jams, as reported by Scholastic, offers either an animated, instructional video clip similar to character-driven cartoon shows on Nickelodeon, a “Step by Step” tutorial on computations such as long division, and/or educational karaoke sing-a-longs about concepts like solids, liquids and gases. Scholastic also ensures the animated middle school characters are multi-cultural, hip, and likeable—thus appealing to a wide range of younger kids.

Associating the StudyJams service name with the Scholastic brand is a smart move to both reinforce the credibility of the educational content (versus a peppy but unknown start-up) and create a halo effect back to Scholastic itself—the parent company is moving into the new age of learning online with a vengeance. The brand name plays on “Jam” by extending it out to “Jam Points" and “Jam Studio.” The visuals, overall, are mainstream but engaging.

“It’s the combination of gaming, music and videos that keeps kids coming back, and the high focus on learning that parents and teachers want,” states David Moricca, Director of Consumer Learning Services for e-Scholastic. Of course for some children (including my own) math is math no matter how it is wrapped up and presented.

StudyJams by Scholastic received the 2008 National Parenting Center’s Seal of Approval and is a 2008 Webby Honoree.