Educate

Educate means providing teaching or training that develops someone's knowledge or skills. A media product made to educate exists so that the audience learns something they can then use, rather than simply presenting facts.

A useful test is to ask what the audience should be able to do after using the product:

• An app that teaches you to read music, with short lessons, sound clips and quizzes that get harder as you improve.
• A museum's interactive water-cycle exhibit where visitors tilt a model to make rain fall, then answer a question at each station before moving on.
• A board game for eight-year-olds where players multiply numbers to move around the board, so times tables improve through play.

Content like this is built to be learned from, which is why educational products usually include explanations, worked examples and activities or questions that let the audience check their understanding. That structure is what turns plain information into learning the audience can remember and apply.

Educate is not the same as inform. An information product makes facts available; an educational one goes further and helps the audience understand and practise them. A poster telling you when the local pool opens informs you; a course of swimming lessons teaches you to swim. Some products do both, such as a recipe video that tells you which ingredients you need and also teaches you how to knead dough.