Learning
, as the noun, is the body of knowledge and wisdom (that which one learns); as the verb, it is the process of gaining understanding that leads to the modification of attitudes and behaviors through the acquisition of knowledge, skills and values, through study and experience. Learning induces a persistent, measurable, and specified behavioral change in the learner to formulate a new mental construct or revise a prior mental construct. The learning process leads to long-term changes in behavior potential. Behavior potential describes an individual’s possible behavior in a given situation to achieve a goal. But potential is not enough; if individual learning is not periodically reinforced, it becomes shallower and shallower, and eventually will be lost in that individual.
Education can be defined as the conscious attempt to promote learning in others. Traditionally, analysis of this attempt has centered around direct teaching on the part of teachers. In what constitutes a paradigm shift, however, people now note that learning can be promoted in ways that go beyond direct instruction by a teacher--education now centers around creating a viable, productive learning environment, regardless of how teacher-centric that environment might be.
When the term education is combined with entertainment, the term edutainment is coined. Edutainment also called "e-learning" are new methods and practices that enabled learning in faster, more efficient and more entertaining ways. The idea is usually to combine games with learning, using software or interactive courses. There are also blogs on edutainment that keep up with the latest news and updates on software, videos, and lessons that use edutainment as a basis for teaching in a more efficient and faster way. E-learning is more specifically related to "electronic learning." This may or may not be edutainment. Many distance education programs use electronic teaching methodologies (courseware) to facilitate the educational process; these programs will often talk about doing "e-learning."