Either watch above or listen/download below.

For school districts weighing whether to invest in esports, the conversation often stalls at cost. But according to Jason Bond, who has spent more than 20 years focused on K-12 AV at Extron, the real question administrators should be asking is simpler: what else can that space do?

"It's dual purpose, and that's the key to the return on that investment," Bond explained to me—in person!—at an Extron open house. "You're going to use that esports space for something like graphics design or cybersecurity training during the day, and then in the evening or after school hours, it becomes the esports playing facility."

Bond, who has tracked K-12 AV trends since the early days of classroom projectors, sees esports as the latest inflection point in how schools think about technology spaces. Where AV was once primarily about equipping individual classrooms, districts are now investing in large gathering spaces, media centers, and purpose-built esports facilities — all of which require more sophisticated infrastructure including AV over IP, multi-graphic processing, and specialized audio routing.

The engagement returns, Bond argues, are measurable. Esports programs have been linked to improved attendance, better grades, and stronger community involvement. "It keeps kids in school. It keeps kids getting better grades," he says. "And it's not just a bunch of kids sitting around playing video games — there's a lot of team coordination that promotes communication and engagement."

For districts just starting, Bond's advice is to resist the urge to go big immediately. A computer lab retrofit using existing data and power infrastructure can serve as a functional first step. From there, districts can grow incrementally, layering on technology as budgets allow. AV over IP, he notes, is the foundation worth investing in early — it provides the flexibility to scale in directions a district may not yet have anticipated.

There are still plenty of misconceptions around scholastic esports: kids are just playing games, esports lead to unhealthy screen time and poor academic performance, video games are isolating and don't teach valuable skills.

The facts show different results. When scholastic esports are structured properly, many schools see student academic performance improving. Players learn valuable skills like teamwork and critical thinking, and a recent study shows that esports can also be a key component to student wellness and social cohesion.

According to John Phillips of Berrien RESA, an educational service agency serving over 24,000 students in Michigan, the true power of esports lies not in the technology, but in its ability to reconnect a generation of students who have faced unprecedented isolation.

Phillips recently was recently recognized with a Tech & Learning Innovative Leader Award for his work in scaling Professional Learning programs across Michigan and his advocacy for esports and wellness.

The Great Generational Leveler

Phillips, whose agency encompasses a diverse mix of rural agricultural communities and corporate hubs near Benton Harbor, sees esports as a unique tool for equity. Unlike traditional athletics, which often rely on physical attributes or socioeconomic access to expensive equipment and travel leagues, esports opens the door for everyone.

"It is a great generational leveler," Phillips says. "Players of any socioeconomic status can participate. It doesn't matter if the student has high or low academic performance. None of that really matters in the esports space."

This inclusivity extends to students with physical disabilities as well. Thanks to adaptive controllers and accessibility features from game publishers, students who might never make the football team can finally experience the camaraderie of varsity sports.

"We're seeing all students get involved," says Phillips. "I think that is one of the great leveling components we've had from esports. It could be the varsity quarterback or it could be a student who sits in the back of the class and doesn't talk to anybody. They get to esports and all of a sudden that's their thing."

Busting the "Basement Dweller" Myth

Despite the inclusivity, administrators looking to start programs often face a significant hurdle: the stigma that gaming promotes sedentary, unhealthy lifestyles. Phillips is quick to point out that a well-run scholastic esports program actually teaches the opposite.

"Huge misconceptions include that these students don't care about their health. All they care about is the screen and all they care about is button smashing," Phillips says. "That couldn't be further from the truth."

Phillips emphasizes that to be a competitor, students must master skills that include healthy nutrition, physical activity, and balance. He jokingly refers to the need for students to "touch grass"—a gamer term for disconnecting and going outside.

"What they don't have mastered is: 'How do I take care of myself?'" Phillips says. "How do I take care of my physical self so that I don't end up with carpal tunnel or burning out or stress injuries? How do I take care of my mental wellbeing?"

By formalizing gaming into a school program, educators can provide the structure necessary to teach these wellness habits, addressing "rage quitting" and emotional regulation in a way that unsupervised home gaming cannot.

The Research: Safety and Social Cohesion

The push for wellness in esports isn't just anecdotal; it is backed by significant research. Phillips highlights a partnership involving NASEF (Network of Academic Scholastic Esports Federations) and the Department of Homeland Security focused on reducing violence and radicalization in online spaces. The goal was to see if structured esports programs could foster social cohesion and reduce isolation.

Using the eight-step program developed by NASEF, the initiative sought to help students feel a stronger connection to their school community.

"The idea was: could putting those steps in place actually help students feel more social cohesion to the school? Could it help them feel more part of a team?" Phillips says.

By creating a supervised environment, schools can turn a potentially isolating activity into a community-building engine.

Building a Durable Program

For districts inspired to launch their own programs, Phillips offers a crucial piece of advice regarding sustainability: "It cannot be a single person's passion project."

While a passionate teacher is necessary to kickstart the initiative, long-term success requires a coalition of stakeholders, including administration, parents, and students. "If you have multiple stakeholders involved, that's going to allow for that durability factor for this to continue," he advises.

This community approach also helps in overcoming parental hesitation. Phillips suggests that the best way to win over skeptics is to invite them to get involved.

"They have to see it to believe it," he says, noting that the demographic of parents is shifting toward those who grew up with video games, making the conversation easier than it was a decade ago.

Start with What You Have

Finally, Phillips addresses the financial barrier. Many districts assume esports requires a lab full of $3,000 gaming PCs. However, the barrier to entry has lowered significantly.

"You already have the infrastructure to start an esports program," Phillips asserts. "With the advent of cloud gaming and Minecraft being on the Chromebook, that makes esports pretty universally available in schools."

He also points to low-cost consoles like the Nintendo Switch as a viable entry point for games like Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart. "It isn't as though you need to invest thousands and thousands of dollars. Don't let yourself get bogged down in what you don't have," he encourages. "Focus on what you do have and show that it can be successful."

Ultimately, Phillips believes that for esports to remain a fixture in education, it must be about more than just entertainment. It must serve the whole child.

"I'm grateful to Tech & Learning for the opportunity to share the wellness side of esports,” Phillips says. “While gaming is cool, gaming on its own is not a durable function in schools. There has to be more to the calling. Whether it's career pathways or wellness connections, those elements add the validity needed to integrate esports into both academic and social programming."

Minecraft has been a long-standing popular game in which players have the ability to create anything they can think of within the world of the game. Chicago Public Schools is putting this creative force to good use by asking students to create within Minecraft using various prompts to do so.

Here I speak with Rene Anaya, Technical Support Coordinator for the Computer Science department for Chicago Public Schools, about how the Chi-Craft after-school esports initiative came to be, how it supports both students and teachers, and how more schools can become involved.

Just a Humble Mine in the Chi

Because of its opportunities for creativity and problem-solving, Minecraft has seen innovative use in the educational space, particularly in the form of Minecraft: Education Edition. Anaya says Minecraft’s appeal and accessibility is part of what’s driving its use on the Chicago esports scene.

“All Chicago public schools, students, staff, everybody, as long as you have a CPS email, you have Minecraft Education for free,” says Anaya. “We’re utilizing this free platform on a number of different compatible devices that CPS allows us to use. So it works on Chromebooks, iPads, the oldest Windows and Mac machines.”

The Chi-Craft esports initiative has gone from 20 schools to now more than 70 schools participating, including 700 students. It’s a battle of the builds format, but with a Chicago flair, during which teams have four build-and-present challenges that they must complete over a four-week timespan. Entries are then judged on a 110-point STEM-powered rubric.

“We now call it ‘Chi-Craft’, a combination of Chicago and Minecraft,” Anaya says. “The competitive aspect is that we build challenges that we send out. It’s like a creative writing prompt, except they are to interpret it in a Minecraft world.”

The event was partially inspired by New York City’s Battle of the Boroughs Minecraft challenge. Many other schools have similarly used Minecraft to launch esports programs.

Where Do Challenges Lie?

Chi-Craft has been taking Chicago by storm, and many students have already submitted amazing pieces of work to compete with others in the yearly event. But as more students and teachers become interested in joining, Anaya says the focus is to help grow the scale of and support behind the initiative.

“One thing that we did that we didn’t do last year was we weren’t funding teachers,” says Anaya. “So that may have helped to increase our numbers. Here in CPS, we had some budget cuts, and that was to a lot of our school activities. So we wanted to incentivize [the program]. We wanted to tell teachers that we had their backs.”

Teachers and coaches are provided professional learning from partners, including the New York City Public Schools and Microsoft, as well as tutorials, documents, Google Classroom, and available office hours. Support is also provided via formats such as chats, Google meetings, and school visits.

Another obstacle to tackle revolves around equity.

“We don’t necessarily have a disparagement of race,” Anaya says. “Chicago is a very diverse city. But we do have inequity in esports. [Some believe] it does a bad job retaining female and non-binary students. So we notice it. As it goes with age, a lot of our younger girls are still interested in Minecraft. When they get older, they feel that esports is not their space. So we partnered with GirlsWhoGame [to help combat that].”

How to Throw Your Hat Into the Chi-Craft Ring

Getting your school involved in Chi-Craft isn’t as complicated as you might think.

First, schools have to choose between using their own funding to run the esports group on their grounds or applying to have Chi-Craft fund them instead. The school would then have to get two to five students to join the esports team, and complete the proper paperwork to register the team.

“Make sure you pick out a snazzy name for your team!” Anaya says.

One important thing schools should do in order to participate is to make sure they have Minecraft on their devices and that the devices can run Minecraft well. As long as those criteria are met, Chi-Craft can send participating schools the build challenges and they can get started.

Chi-Craft is proving to be a wonderful way to get students involved in exploring their creativity while building interest in social connections and interest in the world around them.

• The Benefits of International Esports for Students
• Minecraft: Education Edition Lesson Plan

If you're looking into buying a school epsorts system then you're in the right place. This guide aims to lay out all you need to consider to get the best setup for esports in your school or district. So from buying a single machine to kitting out an entire district, there should be plenty to consider and to help you below.

From thinking about how to run an esports program and what are the best gaming systems for school esports programs, there's a lot to know before buying. A good place to start involves thinking about this not as an esports program alone but as an investment in STEM learning. So it's important to ask what you're looking to achieve with this program before you get started.

For example, is this solely focused on gaming or are you setting out to teach more about areas such as coding, streaming, video production, animation, and beyond? Knowing this can help you make the right setup decisions at the start so it's possible to change and expand as needed in future, without costing too much.

Read on to consider a few important areas before starting your school esports system.

Power and cooling

Before you can start to think about machines, you need to ensure the space you have is suitable for esports hardware. The two major concerns here are power and cooling.

Make sure you have enough socket spaces available not only for computers but also monitors and potentially projectors, speakers, and modems too. And that the electrical wiring is setup to bear that load when it's all running at once.

Cooling is very important as the machines themselves may have measures to keep overheating at bay, but if the room space is too hot even that won't be enough. A cool machine is one that runs optimally, which is imperative in quick-reaction gaming online. So central air conditioning that can work to keep the room at one temperature -- even when filled with hardworking machines and bodies -- is a must.

Hardware options

Once you come to the buying stage for machines you'll want to consider a few main issues: the computer itself, the monitor, a comfortable and supportive seat, and headphones/microphones. Plus, the keyboard and mouse or gaming controller combination, which can also play an important role.

For the computer you'll want to ensure there is a powerful graphics card running alongside a fast CPU and plenty of RAM for optimal performance speeds. For a PC you'll want to aim for an Intel i7 at least with a minimum of 16GM of RAM. For the graphics card, consider an Nvidia or AMD option.

If you also want to use the machines for animation and design then an Intel i9 is advisable with at least 32GB of RAM. In both instances, at least 1TB of SSD storage is also advisable.

Monitors will need a high resolution of at least 1920 x 1080 but also, ideally, a fast refresh rate and wide range of colors. This will allow for high-speed gaming but also the option to work on animation and image editing with the clarity required.

Peripherals

While these are called peripherals, the keyboard and mouse are integral parts of the esports setup as they're the pinch point through which the gamer and machine exchange information -- at very high speeds.

For this reason you'll want to go for a mechanical keyboard in which the keys are not only responsive to the touch but also have the hardiness to offer longevity even with extended use.

A gaming mouse also helps as it can offer more sensitivity, responsiveness, comfort, and buttons than a standard option. These are also built to a standard that to last longer, which means the higher up-front cost ends up working better in the long run over a cheaper option.

A decent headphones-with-microphone setup is a good investment too as it allows for communication that's clear and is comfortable for longer periods of time. Again, spending more should also mean these last longer, even when being used by different-sized people that adjust regularly.

Software

The software is nearly as important as the hardware running it. For a PC setup you'll want to have the latest Windows operating system running for maximum efficiency as well as compatibility with games.

Pre-install all the launchers you need for the games you're going to be using. That could be Minecraft Launcher, Epic Games Installer, OBS, or all of these and more. You may also want to consider your animation courses and offer CADD, Adobe Cloud, Maya, and the like.

Once you're setup it's advisable to create a disc image so you can always get back to that ready and pure state, should you need to. You can then image all the machines manually or push through the network so you're ready to go and updates are easily installed.

Ongoing support

Longer term you'll need to manage issues such as storage and course content. If you plan to record gaming matches, for example, you may want to invest in the setup of some off-site storage, perhaps cloud-based, to ensure you can record without filling up and slowing down machines locally. Google Drive or a NAS setup can work well to assist here.

Using an LMS can also help as a way to offer course content as students progress. Using a system such as Gameplan allows you to select esports instructions and content for coaching before assigning that to students. This can be customized before being assigned and can be used again, perhaps after editing, for future lessons and students, too. A great way to save time in the long run by getting setup early.

• Best Gaming Systems for School Esports Programs

GameMaker is a video game development tool that is designed to make creating 2D video games easy. This makes it a favorite for educators, who can use it to teach video game design and game-based projects in other subjects. 

GameMaker, which is free for educators and their students, recently introduced Space Rocks, a game design tutorial and lesson program that will guide students to create their own asteroid shooter game after three lessons. 

Frank Moody, education liaison lead at GameMaker, and a former K-12 classroom educator and technology director, shares how to use GameMaker and Space Rocks to teach video game design. 

What is GameMaker? 

GameMaker is a video game tool that allows indie developers, professional gaming studios, and educators and their students to create video games and make any available across platforms. Educators can use the tool to teach Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) standards and encourage student engagement and creativity. 

“Kids want to create, they're naturally makers, especially when they're young. They want to build things,” Moody says. “They want a hands-on process and then they want to see the fruits of their labor. So when you see a kid and they make something on the screen, and then they control it, they light up. Then when they share it with their friends and have their friend come over and play, it’s really incredible.” 

What is Space Rocks?  

Space Rocks is a game design tutorial for GameMaker that will teach students how to design their own asteroid shooter game in three lessons. The tutorial teaches CSTA standards and provides students with an introduction to computational thinking concepts and game design principles with a variety of written and video-based learning materials. 

“We wanted to create something that wouldn't be in the way and that would be easy enough for a parent to use for homeschooling,” Moody says. 

At the same time, they designed the tool as a jumping-off point for educators. “Teachers know their students," he says. "We wanted something that teachers could expand on. We're not trying to write their curriculum for them, but we're trying to give them ideas and resources.” 

How Do You Sign Up for GameMaker and Space Rocks

To sign up for a free GameMaker educator account, teachers can visit this GameMaker’s site for schools and follow the four-step process that begins with creating an account with Opera, which owns GameMaker. 

Educators and their students can then build browser-based games that can be shared on GameMaker’s gaming platform. This is all free regardless of class size. 

However, to share games to mobile, console, and other gaming platforms, requires the purchase of a site license. 

What Are Some Reasons to Teach Video Game Design?  

Beyond computer science, the narrative structures inherent in gaming can be used to teach a variety of skills. Moody says he’s talked with educators who use game design in conjunction with project-based learning. He says these types of uses are more practical now that learning how to design a game is easier and that learning game design is about more than the technical and coding components. 

“The end goal here is not for every student walk out a game designer,” Moody says. “Game design can be a great career,  but we also think game design can be an incredible vehicle for teaching all kinds of skills -- art, sound, collaboration, empathy. When you're designing a game, you have to understand what your player is going to be going through. What is the experience where they coming from?”

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• 3D Game Design: What Educators Need to Know

Offering a wide variety of experiences and enrichment activities in and out of the classroom for students of all abilities is key to leveling the playing field. Esports, in particular, can provide engaging opportunities to help all students build skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving. 

Dr. Janet Fike, superintendent of the Morris-Union Jointure Commission in New Jersey, as well as her passionate team (including Evan Abramson and Denise Smallacomb) at the Development Learning Center of Warren, discuss adding esports to the Center’s impressive offerings for students with autism and autistic-like behavior. 

 Esports & Autism: If You Build It, They Will Benefit!

It is one thing to create innovative programming that can be adapted for students of all abilities, but inspired by a dream of what could be, Fike’s team put their grant money where their mouth was and built an esports arena to give students the full experience.

“We were the grateful recipients of a $50,000 grant and whenever we get donations, we like to put it to purposeful things we can remember, that are evergreen and last forever,” says Fike. “We started to talk about building a dream—building an esports arena. Last summer we opened this amazing facility. All typical kids play, the goal was to be able to give the students an option for something that’s normal.”

It was this type of progressive thinking and belief in students that led to the country’s first arena dedicated to esports for kids with autism and autistic-like behaviors. 

“There are so many things people think our students can’t do, so they are immediately discounted,” says Fike. “But some of our students are very fluent in technology and became enthusiastically involved in the project. For me it became a leveler. Our kids can compete. It’s been wonderful. Our kids proved all the naysayers wrong, as they often do. If we listen to naysayers, we are never going to be better than we are. We didn’t and I credit it to Evan Abramson who kept saying. ‘We can do it, they can do it!’”

A Dreamer Become a Designer 

New to the district, Abramson had no preconceptions about what could or couldn’t be done and fully believed in the students from his earliest days. 

“He bonded with students and talked with them—they already knew the lingo and he kept telling them we are going to build this and the kids got so excited,” says Fike. “The important thing is we can’t listen to people who say our kids can’t do things. We have to keep pushing that envelope.”

“They jumped in immediately,” says Abramson. “We had to first get our staff to believe our students were capable. We approached the teachers first and got them excited about the program. We brought them out to a college esports to actually play so they could see what was possible. Once they believed, we had each teacher bring their kids up into the lab. Certain students would be really successful, some would be okay, some it just wasn’t a fit which is fine and what we expected.”

The district averages 60 to 65 students coming into the arena on a weekly basis. 

“A lot of people told us we were crazy when we started doing this, that we had no idea what we were doing,” says Fike. “We heard a lot of ‘they can’t do it’, what are you thinking, it’s a waste of money. We just quietly said, ‘We’ll see, just watch us.’”

Start Small for Success 

An important element of successfully rolling out the esports program was to involve all students in the effort, regardless of age or level. After all, even MLB players don’t walk into a 30,000 seat stadium to first try their hand. 

The district has two buildings, one serving PreK-5 and the other grade 6 and up, which is where the arena was built.

“We built a “training center” in the PreK-5 building,” says Abramson. “We wanted to get our students building those soft skills involved in being on a team from a younger age— teamwork, communication—skills they might not typically get to do on a daily basis. In the training center, we use Nintendo Switches. They are playing collectively on a much smaller scale so when they do go to the Warren arena, they are ready to go in and play.”

This approach allows the district to prepare students for a future comfortable experience in the larger arena, devoid of too much stimuli which could be distracting or create a stressful environment. Younger students who are excelling can also visit the large arena.

It Takes a Village to Build an Esports Program 

An integral part of DLC-Warren’s success has been partnering with others in their own community and others. 

“Denise has connected with other schools in the area who have esports teams and they come over and engage with our students,” says Fike. “This is right in so many elements. And our students can finally go home and do something that their typical sibling engages in.”

“We never know what the potential of our students is until we try it,” says Smallacomb. “Society tends to not offer everything to all students equally, so we need to. It lets us see where a child’s interest lies, because it is very easy not to offer access to the same things as their peers. We can then see where they can go with it.”

Smallacomb says simply playing esports is not the only avenue to find success or enjoyment for students. Even if they can’t be fully independent in playing, they can watch a meet or take part in other ways. 

“There are so many careers related to esports and in the esports world,” says Smallacomb. “Our students can have a hard time being out in public or doing things with a lot of stimuli or unfamiliar people watching. What is really great about esports is they can produce a game or moderate a tournament from the comfort of their own home and environment. It’s perfect for our students, they can be successful in a way that feels good for them.”

The district is also trying to form a partnership with a local university who has video production equipment as well as connect with the local public school district discussing how students can write about matches in the school newspaper or learn about marketing of the team, with a goal of becoming a fully productive esports team. Being able to go into an arena at that university level and even watch it offers an excitement for students almost as much as actively playing it. 

“The conversations they have with each other when they are playing on the same team with each other, it's so gratifying to see,” says Smallacomb. “When our parents came in for the opening, the parents and siblings of the students eyes were really opened and you could see them almost tear up— it was the first time they could see their sibling as someone they could play with on the same level skillswise, exposing them to so many different avenues.”

“It’s all about innovation,” says Fike. “We don’t want our kids left behind, and if we continue to play Candyland and board games, it makes them look different from everyone else. We have been creative and tried to be innovative with not only esports—our kids do yoga and martial arts.”

Simply, they let the kids play. 

“They might do things differently, they might struggle in some areas where typical kids would not, but they can get there in their own way,” says Fike. “I see a lot of people buying into ‘they can’t do this.’ To listen to that would be taking away an opportunity for these students they will never have again to show what they can do.. We blew the stereotype out of the water and I am so proud of that.”

Dr. Janet Fike will be a presenter at Tech & Learning’s upcoming regional leadership summit in New Jersey.  

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On June 12, hundreds of New York City students, educators, families, and esports enthusiasts converged on the Intrepid Air and Space Museum in Manhattan for the finals of the first annual Minecraft Education Battle of the Boroughs-Mayor’s Cup. The event was a culmination of a months-long competition in which 2,000 students battled in their individual boroughs to advance, using Minecraft to reimagine New York City with inclusive, future-ready city spaces. 

Competing face-to-face in teams of five, students tackled challenges facing the metropolitan area by designing such amazing features such as more inclusive community centers, environmentally friendly structures, safety improvements, and much more. Along the way, they got to showcase their critical thinking and collaboration skills, as well as explore the critical issues affecting them and their communities–all while enjoying the fun of esports. The top teams from each borough advanced to the finals.

“We developed some scenarios and tasks for the students to compete and their build challenges were all around sustainability and environmental conservatism,” says Randy Asher, Deputy CIO, School Planning, Modernization, and Partnerships, for NYC DOE. “And then as the kids did this, there was a cycle for research and then a period of time, but a live build and then a period where they had to present their work, which is also an important skill set and some of what we want to prepare them for an industry.” 

At the finals, the five borough champions competed in the junior and senior divisions as their classmates, families, and friends cheered them on. The day also included notable speakers and gamers, a vendor zone, college and career information, a DJ, and prizes.

The 2023 Battle of the Boroughs-Mayor’s Cup winners:

Senior Champions (Grade 6-12)
Block-Hampton
John Dewey High School in Brooklyn

The Block-Hampton team from John Dewey High School was one of the more experienced teams going into the event, having started as a Minecraft club during the pandemic. “Originally, I just made it as a way for kids to de-stress and relax,” says coach and chemistry teacher Mashfiq Ahmed. “After school, they would log in on Minecraft and socialize because they didn't really have that opportunity during remote learning.” From there, it grew into an esports program that also does charity fundraising, professional development, and even has presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. 

Despite that experience, participating in the Battle of the Boroughs final was surreal, says Ahmed. “I remember my kids walking into the Intrepid and seeing the stage and all the computers and the audience, and they were like, ‘Oh my god, this looks so professional!’”  

Even with the pressure of the live crowd, shoutcasters, and other competitors in the space, Block-Hampton rose to the occasion, displaying strong creativity and attention to detail. “What really blew me away in particular, and I think what blew the judges away too, was in their build they had this one little community center building, and they decorated the interiors with such detail and information about different cultures, which was one of the themes in the prompt,” says Ahmed. “They had chalkboards describing the different food and everything about these different cultures, and each floor represented a different continent–you had one for Europe, South America, Asia, etc.” 

The team also included accessibility features such as charging stations for electric bikes and a hydroponic fountain. “It was amazing,” says Ahmed, who acknowledges that he was very anxious awaiting the results. “And then they announce the winner and they say our Brooklyn Block-Hampton team and at that point . . . I think there's like footage of it all over Twitter of me just screaming and reacting and jumping in the air. And I ran to my team, who was all the way on the other side of the stage, and we started hugging, and they're crying and screaming and stuff. Like that was like one of the best moments of my life, witnessing that. It was just so memorable, with the loud music and all these people taking photos, somebody came up to us with a mic for interviews, and it really felt like we won the Super Bowl or something! All that was missing was just like confetti falling from the sky.”

Junior Champions (Grade K-5 Division)
58's Shining Stars
P.S. 58R Space Shuttle Columbia School in Staten Island

The all-female P.S. 58's Shining Stars, led for the day by assistant principal Lori Ann O'Connor who was standing in for coach Staci Balice, built a sustainable, accessible, resilient, and equitable world on a ferry that incorporated transportation that would not contribute to poor air quality. They used red stone to create power hubs for their world, and had electric buses, bike lanes, charging stations, walking paths, an area for service dogs, edible gardens, and a lot of trees and plants to filter air. They also incorporated water features to serve as air purification systems, while buildings and streetlights were powered by solar energy. 

Following their win, students met with elected officials, local media, and vendors, and went home with a trophy, certificates, Xboxes, customized game controllers, and other gifts. They also won LEGO kits and Microsoft gaming memberships for their school.

“It was a great day for P.S. 58 and our borough,” says O’Connor. “We are so proud of this winning team! They truly are shining stars.”

Building Partnerships 

The event came about as a result of a partnership between New York City Mayor Eric Adams, NYC Public Schools, Minecraft Education, and C40’s Reinventing Cities initiative. It also kicked off New York City’s inaugural Summer of Games festival, a series of gaming events to showcase the city’s growing gaming community and industry. 

Multiple divisions across the NYC Public Schools also had to collaborate to make the event happen. “I think the fact that it was a collaborative multi-divisional effort is also something that we want to celebrate,” says Asher. “Sometimes when there’s multiple divisions involved, that's a little hard to coordinate, but all the teams worked together really seamlessly. And that was a powerful piece of this.”

Asher also credits his vendor partners for stepping forward on the day of the event to provide computers, gaming chairs, displays, equipment, and more. “Whether it was the controller or a bag of merchandise or a chair or some token or whatever, that they were giving to the students is appreciated because there's no requirement to do that,” he says. “But it was a nice gesture and helped bring kids together and feel like they were a part of something.”

Building Learning and Career Opportunities 

In addition to the obvious focus on problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills, using esports and a competition such as this creates numerous opportunities for students to build skills in other areas. And Minecraft, in particular, can be a really powerful learning and teaching tool, says Asher. 

“It's the one we chose to work with because it's got such a flexibility among different grade levels and what students can learn using it,” he says. “So for us, it was really a good opportunity to really extend opportunities for more kids. And that's really what this is about. How do we give them a chance to compete in something that they might be doing anyway? Kids are passionate about this, but when you start working at a competitive level and start working with teammates, you learn a new technique to do something and you learn a new skill or you want somebody who found a more elegant solution to something you were trying to solve for. And that becomes iterative and it becomes a learning process.”

The learning opportunities weren’t restricted to the competitors. In addition to direct participation, students were involved as shoutcasters (esports announcers) and other support positions that can become career paths. 

“There are all of these industry pipelines that you can enter from so many different lenses,” says Asher. “You can be on the design side or the interface side, or you can be the guy behind the scenes coding, or you can be doing the game graphics.”

Students weren’t the only ones learning. “Originally I started this for the kids but I've learned so much from them through this experience,” says Ahmed. “I've learned to embrace game-based learning and edtech more in the classroom because of it. And it was really cool because Minecraft in particular, so many kids are familiar with it. And I always tell teachers who might be hesitant, you’ve got to leverage that student expertise, which is really powerful because they don't usually get that opportunity in the classroom. It gives them some agency and accountability and when you put them in those roles.”

At the end of the day, the event was a terrific success for all involved, even those students who didn’t walk away with the championship.

“Not everyone can win, but everyone can learn,” says Asher. “And that's kind of the joy of this. That's the kind of outcome we were hoping for.”

The best gaming systems for school esports can help to make all the difference in a student and school's experience of the ever-growing world of esports. Not only will the right rig help students win games but it can also help push the school forward in national standings.

When it comes to STEM learning and social skills enhancement, more and more research reflects positively on esports. From K-12 to college, this covers a wide age range and many students, regardless of physical limitations or skills, may already play, making it an easy transition to get socialized in teams. 

Building a gaming rig, or at least setting up one, can be a valuable part of the process if students help, providing an opportunity to learn about the machines and how a system is put together while allowing them to feel ownership and develop practical tech skills and ability to fix issues should they occur.

Here's what to know about buying a school esports system.

Here are the best gaming systems for esports in schools, not only complete systems but also the key parts that make for a good setup.

• How to Build an Inclusive Esports Community
• Esports: How to Get Started with Cloud Gaming
• How Esports Can Support Equity

Best Gaming Systems for School Esports: PC Gaming System for Schools

Dell G5 Gaming Desktop

One of the top-end gaming PC systems, which remains far more affordable than most, is the Dell G5 Gaming Desktop. This is a single desktop tower-style computer that's powered by a future-proof 9th Gen Intel Core i3 at the basic end or up to an i7 if you can afford more power. Though with the backing of 8GB of RAM as a minimum and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics processor, even the most basic setup will handle all games with ease. 

Of course, you can always lower the graphics to play more intense games in the future, meaning this will last. But for the foreseeable future this offers more than enough power to handle any gaming challenge your students wish to take on. You will still need to pair it with all the other kit to get gaming. More on that below.

Asus VP228HE gaming monitor

The important part is the gaming machine, as previously mentioned. The monitor, while also important, doesn't require the same investment. For example, 4K gaming screens aren't really needed to help a student have an effective online match. Lag time can be more important but with the Asus VP228HE that's not an issue.

This monitor offers a Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution, 60Hz refresh rate, and 1ms response time on a 21.5-inch screen. Alright that's not the largest, but with most students playing close to the screen, it's plenty. This is one of the most affordable monitors you can buy and it will get the job done. Save money here and invest that in the best desktop machine you can afford to go the distance.

Dell G7 15 Gaming Laptop

One way to avoid the expense of a desktop machine, display, keyboard, and mouse all separately, is to go for a gaming laptop. This also provides the freedom to move it to other rooms, use for other classes, and to allow students to take on tournament visits or to practice at home, if needed. 

The Dell G7 15 is an affordable yet very powerful option that should see you through for a good few years of use. You get Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics, a large 15.6-inch display, and a LED keyboard, all of which weighs in at a go-anywhere friendly 5.5 pounds.

Kingston HyperX Cloud Alpha Pro Gaming Headset

A gaming headset is often classed as optional extra in a gaming setup, but for the real benefits of esports in schools, you'll want your students connected for vocal interaction. This is a very top-end model with a lower-than-most price. Yes, there are cheaper options available, but then again, any headphones with a mic can do the job – we're laying out the best gaming-dedicated options here.

This investment gets you a dual-chamber design that results in deep bass notes and superb highs without distortion. It's also made with an aluminum frame, so it's solid and built to last. 

Logitech G512 Gaming Keyboard

The Logitech G512 gaming keyboard is a fully fledged mechanical affair. That aluminum-magnesium alloy construction means it's built to last the violent button bashing that a gaming session will deal out. Since it will be getting a lot of use, across many students and years, it's a great choice for those who want to invest in something durable.

On top of that, this is built for gaming with multicolored backlit keys that have three mechanical settings, including clicky and tactile feedback. It also has a USB pass-through, allowing you to run the mouse through this – so students can bring their own and easily plug in if needed. It also makes for easy charging for a device such as a smartphone – a very welcoming feature for students. 

Razer Abyssus Essential Gaming Mouse

Gaming specialist Razer offers a do-it-all gaming mouse in the Abyssus Essential that, as the name suggests, doesn't break the bank. This affordable option doesn't scrimp on features with LED lighting, adjustable weights, and a good selection of buttons.

Plus, no worries about customizations, as with more high-end gaming mouse options. You can save a few bucks here while also saving on the hassle of managing and handling more complex devices.

Best Handheld Gaming System for Schools

One great way to keeping gaming simple, affordable, and easy to share is to get a handheld console. The Nintendo Switch is a prime example as it can be plugged into a display for big screen gaming or used on the go with its built-in screen. Up to four players can game at the same time locally, making it a great option for in-school use if a network connection is a problem. 

Since many students may already own this console, it's a great way to integrate with what's already there, allowing those students who can't afford one to join in. Switch games aren't cheap, but since it is super simple to use, savings come on maintenance in the long term.

Aside from gaming, the Nintendo Switch also offers plenty of educational titles, and allows students to compete in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a widely played and popular esports game unavailable outside the Nintendo world.

Best Gaming Bag for Schools

As featured in our best laptop bags for teachers, the Case Logic Laptop Case is ideal for students carrying a laptop and peripherals too. This features protective padding as well as a dedicated sleeve to protect a laptop or tablet. It also offers lots of pockets so students can carry chargers, peripherals, and more, all without movement that may otherwise cause damage. 

Carry handle and shoulder strap options are available, as well as enough space to tote books and more. Everything is water-, tear-, and drop-resistant with high-quality zips made to last. You also have enough size to fit an 18-inch laptop while being light enough for all-day use. It's not the cheapest out there but it's worth the price.

• How to Build an Inclusive Esports Community
• Esports: How to Get Started with Cloud Gaming
• How Esports Can Support Equity

Scholastic esports is unique in that schools, educators, and students have to contend with for-profit companies attempting to monetize the space in ways much different than seen in traditional school sports. Companies such as PlayVS and the newly partnered Playfly Esports and High School Esports League offer “turnkey solutions” for schools with esports programs, which means they will provide the competition, schedule, and host events such as playoffs and state championships. All the schools need to do is show up and play.

Typically, in traditional scholastic sports, state athletic associations oversee sports in their state with guidance from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). The NFHS sets competition standards and best practices on a national level, and then the state athletic associations govern sports among their schools at a state level.

Here’s where things get messy. Where traditionally state athletic associations have organized events and overseen traditional athletic competitions using various forms of sub-committees and adjacent coaches associations, around half of the nation’s state athletic associations currently contract for-profit companies to provide esports for their member schools. Back in 2018 the NFHS Network, the for-profit counterpart to the NFHS, named PlayVS as the official esports provider of the NFHS, which is why they have the market share in scholastic esports with 21 of the nation’s state athletic associations under contract.

The two largest for-profit competition providers in scholastic esports have pricing higher than educators may be used to:

PlayFly Esports, who has recently partnered with Generation Esports and their High School Esports League brand to “...operate and service Playfly Esports high school state association partners” in Arizona, Washington, and Louisiana, charge a flat fee of $1,800 per school per year for the first three years. The annual membership includes: 

• Unlimited number of student participants 
• Live and interactive workshops for teachers, coaches, and administrators
• Access to customer success and support teams  
• Fall exhibition and a full spring season of formal competition, including weekly streamed/produced matches 
• Access to national competition via High School Esports League 
• Teacher’s guides for Generation Esports’ Gaming Concepts curriculum (the entire curriculum is an additional cost) 

PlayVS schools will either need to pay $80 per player, per game, per season, or purchase an unlimited single season pass for $1,500 or unlimited school year pass for $3,000 per school. For that price tag, the PlayVS website states schools will receive:  

• Official publisher partnerships 
• NFHS and state recognition 
• Exclusive in-game perks 
• Automatic league scheduling
• Prizing opportunities  
• Teams led by verified faculty 
• Free hardware and software 
• Dedicated PlayVS account rep
• Priority tech support  

Scholastic Esports Costs vs. Traditional Scholastic Sports 

What may stand out to educators is that these for-profit companies are charging for esports what most state athletic associations are charging for participation in all sports. At these price points, schools are paying as much or more than what districts pay for all of their students to compete in sports for the entire school year.

In New Jersey, Washington, Iowa, and many of the other states I could find information on, state athletic associations generally charge a flat fee for schools or districts to participate in traditional sports. On the low end, the Iowa High School Athletic Association only charges $25 per school and finds sponsors to cover the rest. The Illinois High School Association charges between $500-$2,000 a year per school based on enrollment size. In New Jersey, annual dues to the state athletic association, the NJSIAA, are a flat $2,500 per district regardless of size.

Two interesting case studies:

In Washington, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) charges based on school enrollment. Depending on the size, schools pay from $350 to $3,800 to participate in traditional sports. WIAA, however, also offers esports to its member schools at an additional cost of $60 per student; an additional fee no other sport is charged.

The California Interscholastic Federation, who recently awarded the nonprofit North American Scholastic Esports Federation the right to run their esports offering, is charging a flat $100 per school to compete in scholastic esports this year. 

What Should Be Done About Scholastic Esports Monetization? 

When I asked educators around the country about how these companies are monetizing esports, how the price points would be viewed by their district, and how they would monetize esports, there were a lot of strong feelings. One recurring sentiment is that these price points were too high for how new scholastic esports is, or as Texas educator Patrick Neff put it, “Scholastic esports is 1922 football, but we are being asked to pay 2022 football prices.” 

Other thoughts on monetization in esports included:

• Companies should charge less if they are going to charge on a per school basis. Many educators put the price point at $300-$500 per school.
• Many noted a need for a difference in pricing between middle schools and high schools.  
• Schools/districts should be charged, not students/parents. 
• Companies in the space should have an educator advisory board to help them operate in the best interest of students and schools. 
• The use of free teacher labor some companies are depending on to grow their business is unacceptable. 
• Because of the college scholarships and career opportunities in esports, basic competition should be as cheap as possible, if not free. 

If basic competition was cheaper or free, what else could companies monetize? Jason Dilley of the Washington State Scholastic Esports Association best summarized the gist of the conversations I had:

Aspects that can be monetized:

• Apparel
• Streaming
• Conferences
• Summer camps
• Content / media (though there was uncertainty and trepidation about how to navigate name, image, and likeness [NIL] rights of students) 
• Platforms
• Equipment
• College recruiters
• Special events/tournaments 
• Curriculum

Aspects that should have a cap on monetization: 

• Participation fees
• Platform membership 
• Ticket sales

Aspects that shouldn't be monetized:

• Student data

An interesting, seemingly unexplored idea: many state athletic associations have a type of revenue share with their member schools who host tournaments or events on their campus. There is social value in having face-to-face competitions. Many companies have a referral program, but could companies give back by helping schools/educators host more local/regional esports events?

It’s hard to say whether or not the for-profit companies in the scholastic esports space are providing enough bang for the buck. On the surface, their prices seem high, especially when compared to what state athletic associations may be charging schools to play traditional sports. 

On the other hand, there are a lot of “hidden costs” that come along with traditional sports, mostly in money spent on transportation and equipment. But again, scholastic esports may not have a transportation cost (yet), but esports could come with significant equipment costs for schools who want to go the top-of-the-line equipment route.

At the end of the day, people will pay for a service if they find value in what is being offered. We know scholastic esports is booming, but the K-12 esports landscape is far from settled. With two major for-profit companies, a host of up-and-coming for-profits, and a growing number of nonprofit organizations operating in the scholastic esports space, it will still be a few years before we see how everything plays out. 

• Scholastic Esports: Current Trends and the Future
• The Benefits of International Esports for Students

School leaders who are hesitant to get started with esports or aren’t sure what game to get started with are often overlooking an easy point of entry for their competitive team or club: Minecraft. 

What makes Minecraft a great entry point for esports?

Minecraft is Everywhere! 

Minecraft, the ubiquitous block-building sandbox game, is available on every major platform: console, PC, and even Chromebook, which uses the Minecraft: Education Edition of the game. 

Microsoft recently made things even easier for schools who might want to get started with Minecraft on PC by taking the two PC versions of the game, Bedrock and Java Edition, and combining it into one standalone version Minecraft: Java & Bedrock Edition for PC. Players who owned either version of the game were given this new, one-and-only version of the game for free. This move makes it easier for schools who want to get started with Minecraft on the PC since they won’t have to choose between these two very popular versions of the game, they only need Minecraft: Java & Bedrock Edition for PC to accommodate all students. 

Minecraft: Education Edition (M:EE) is the version of Minecraft made for schools, and while it is available on PC, it is the only version of Minecraft that works on a Chromebook. While harder to play against other schools, M:EE is a great option for Chromebook-only schools or schools who are looking to get started competing in-house with intramural tournaments. M:EE is also the best version to use if students are going to be playing from home as it does not require a server to play remotely. Someone just needs to host the world and invite the players to the game.

With Minecraft being available on every major platform with a relatively cheap point of entry of $30 per account and Minecraft: Education Edition costing as little as $5 per student per year (or even free as M:EE is included in many volume license agreements) it is a relatively affordable entry point for scholastic esports.

Play Your Way 

It should be no surprise that the king of the Sandbox Minecraft’s flexibility is what makes it a great point of entry for esports. No matter what version of the game you participate in, there is a robust esports scene. Games such as Spleef, Bed Wars, and Capture the Wool are worlds that can be easily downloaded, imported, and played in-house or against other schools if you are part of a scholastic esports league such as Garden State Esports.

This more traditional, school vs. school, head-to-head style of esports isn’t the only popular way to play the game. In the same way you may compete against other schools in mini-games such as Sky Wars, you can also compete against other schools in live build challenges. In a build challenge teams show up, are given something to build such as a theme park or statue of a superhero, and then must finish the build challenge in a certain amount of time. Afterward, judges pick the winner. 

Build challenges don’t even have to be live! Teams can be given a build challenge and as long as needed to submit their build for judging, which allows kids more time to work and collaborate on builds and even allows build challenges to exist during the school day as part of the curriculum, not just as an after-school activity.

Schools that are looking for competition and don’t have a place to play should check out the North American Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF). NASEF is consistently producing high-quality Minecraft-style events not just for American students but on an international level. Their international competitions such as Farmcraft and the Rube Goldberg Challenge meet many STEM learning standards, and thanks to the international flavor, opens up opportunities to learn about other cultures. NASEF will even give schools M:EE accounts to use if they don’t have them.

No matter how you choose to play, Minecraft is a great point-of-entry for schools looking to jump into scholastic esports! 

• What is Minecraft: Education Edition?
• The Benefits of International Esports for Students
• Minecraft: Education Edition Lesson Plan

Aidar Abdullin’s interest in mentoring students in international esports has little to do with, well, gaming. 

“I’m not a gamer myself,” says the elementary school teacher at the Al-Bayan Bilingual School in Kuwait. Instead, Abdullin is passionate about the ways in which esports and international gaming competitions help students develop leadership and other life skills that go beyond the particulars of a given curriculum and help prepare students for future success. 

The North American Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF) organizes several international events including the upcoming MENAcraft, a Minecraft competition that will feature teams from the U.S., Middle East, and North Africa. 

Educators and students who have participated in such events say international esports help students learn about other cultures while developing real-world skills.

Learning From International Esports Competitions 

Satomi Itagaki’s students at the Rissyukan High School in Yanaguchi, Japan, recently competed in NASEF Farmcraft 2022. The event challenges students to successfully create farms and grow food in Minecraft. To learn more about agriculture, Itagaki’s students visited a farm. “They talked to farmers about the current issues,” Itagaki says. 

The students put this knowledge to good use, coming in third place in the competition in the senior division. Students said – via email and with the help of a translator – that participating in the event helped them improve their English and get a broader perspective on the world. “I think I’ve become a global person. I’m glad I got involved,” Yuuka Okada said. 

“I can use English now, just a bit,” Momoka Lori said. 

Ayako Nakahara learned about no-till farming, a method of farming that decreases erosion.  “Since it does not use machines, it is kind to the soil and CO2 emissions can be suppressed, so I think it will suit the world in the future,” Nakahara said. 

Students in the U.S. also learned a lot from the experience. 

“At some point, they realized that they're not just playing video games anymore, that they're actually learning things and enjoying it, and that's where the joy comes as an educator – watching that experience happen,” says Jeanna Dawson, owner of Eastside Esports in Atlanta, which works with kids after school. 

Preparing for International Competitions 

When Dawson’s students learned they would be participating in an international competition with other students, they discussed how they would approach a cultural exchange. “They were like, ‘What exactly do we want to share? We have to be specific in what we share,’” she says. They were also eager to learn about other cultures. 

Dawson is the state lead for MENAcraft in Georgia and can assist other teams in the region who are looking to get involved. There are similar region leads for other parts of the U.S. and world. 

Educators looking to launch a general esports program should reach out to people who mentor existing esports programs to get tips on best practices. While many educators who facilitate esports are gamers, Abdullin stresses this is not a prerequisite in developing esports coaches. 

“If you're not a gamer, it doesn't mean anything,” he says. “You just need to organize the students.” 

Once you do that they can help lead the program where it needs to go – and that might just include participation in a global competition. 

• Developing Esports Coaches
• Best Gaming Systems for School Esports Programs

Part of my ongoing professional development as a traditional sports coach was to attend yearly seminars to stay up-to-date on best practices in coaching and clinics to learn the latest and greatest techniques and drills for football and wrestling. These seminars and clinics were not only expected of me, but also budgeted for by the athletics department and approved as professional development days by administration every year. 

The culture in my district of taking athletics seriously and investing in the development of coaches paid off. Every year our athletics teams were competitive and we sent an above average number of students to play at the collegiate level. In the 12 years I’ve coached, we even had a half dozen of our student-athletes go pro.

Most parents never batted an eye when they learned their athletes were expected to practice six days per week, including over school breaks (no family vacations for varsity athletes!). Athletes rarely complained about coming in over the summer for ‘voluntary’ workouts and mandatory summer sessions, which usually started with a couple weeks of ‘triples.’ Everyone understood that putting in this work is what it took to be successful.

While I’m still involved in traditional sports, I’ve also started an esports program at my school. Like traditional sports, there is no shortage of opportunities at the collegiate level and beyond for talented esports athletes. A growing body of research shows that esports athletes who put in the same amount of effort and dedication into their game of choice as traditional athletes do into their sports will see similar improvement in their ability. 

But in scholastic esports, we are not yet seeing the same dedication in developing the coaches required to support these efforts. What should that look like?

Developing Esports Coaches: Stick to the Basics 

The true purpose of a coach is to make students better people for having been through their program. Most kids won’t go on to play in college or the pros, but most will remember how they felt and the life lessons they learned while under your care. So just as in traditional school sports, providing a strong foundation in basic coaching principles is where we need to start. Unlike traditional sports, however, esports coaches don’t typically have that coaching background or expertise.

Believe it or not, most esports coaches aren’t high level gamers. In fact, most aren’t gamers at all, nor have they even coached before. Besides being an esports coach, I also run Garden State Esports, a nonprofit scholastic league for schools in New Jersey. Of our 200+ coaches, more than half have never coached before nor consider themselves a gamer. What they usually are is the favorite teacher who these kids went to and asked to be the educator in the room so they could start an esports team at their school. 

This is fine as the many of the same principles that guide you as a classroom teacher can guide you as an esports coach: organizing activities, listening to student voices, and making everyone feel safe and a sense of belonging. 

Esports Athletes for Others 

Racist, homophobic, and mysongistic behavior in gaming has been tolerated and accepted as just part of video game culture. As esports coaches, bringing gaming into the classroom allows us the unique opportunity to reach students and help them understand the harm that kind of behavior has on a person, why it won’t be tolerated, and how to create and defend esports spaces to keep them inclusive. Including bystander intervention training and safe space training to coaches will allow them to pass on these best practices to athletes. 

For those ready to jump into this type of work, Garden State Esports has created the Esports Personal and Performance Improvement Curriculum (EPPIC) that has this type of training. At a minimum, reviewing general best practices around digital citizenship may be beneficial for new coaches. 

Understanding Opportunities and Best Practices 

The opportunities for talented gamers might be obvious, college scholarships and pro contracts, but did you know that there are scholarships and jobs in the industry for shout casters, production managers, journalists, and exercise scientists? You don’t know what you don’t know. We need to make sure esports coaches know the current trends as well as where to look and what is available to students. 

A minority of college and for-profit esports recruiters are reaching out directly to students through social media, circumventing school, coach, and parent oversight. Some invite minors into their Discord to interact with of-age members of their esports team, again, usually without oversight. At the pro-level, athletes say that predatory contracts run rampant. 

Consequently, we have to help coaches understand best practices in helping students secure these opportunities. We need to help coaches articulate to parents why they need to be aware of these situations and how they should involve themselves as their child is considering playing at the next level.

Improving and Scaling

Finally, after we have made sure that we’ve met the most important needs of our athletes – a sense of belonging, safety, and helping them grow socially, emotionally, and academically – we can help students ‘get good.’ 

The last piece of the equation then is helping coaches understand the games the kids play, how to get better at these, and how to ensure when their best players graduate there is a talented player ready to take their spot. 

The reality is, most scholastic coaches may never be good at the games or even want to get good at the games they coach, but a basic understanding on the roles, positioning, and meta of a game will give most coaches enough content knowledge to coach-up a team.

• The Do’s and Don’ts of Scholastic Esports Programs
• Best Gaming Systems for School Esports Programs

Following the rapid escalation of omicron cases across the UK and around the world, Bett 2022 is postponed to 23-25 March and will continue to take place at the ExCeL London. Read more. 

On 19-21 January 2022 and for the first time, Bett is thrilled to launch Esports @ Bett in association with British Esports Association, a non-for-profit national body that is helping to educate parents, teachers and policy makers on the benefits of competitive video gaming.  

Esports can hugely benefit students and act as a super power, to encourage learning, promote teamwork and enhance communication. With 73.8 million concurrent viewers at a recent World Championships, esports is a hugely popular recreational activity that also offers many job and career opportunities around the world. 

What is esports? 

Esports is competitive video gaming, where people of any gender or physical ability play against each other online and at live spectator events. It is very inclusive and can be played by both amateur and professional players. 

In the UK, esports is classified as a game, like chess, and not a sport. With a community of around 222.9 million individuals, it has become more mainstream and the industry continues to grow year on year. 

Getting in the game: broadening student engagement 

Not all young people enjoy traditional team activities such as sport, music, art or drama that are built into the school curriculum. Esports offers a fun and stimulating environment that engages a wider demographic of students who can meet new people and develop existing friendships.  

In moderation, and as part of a balanced lifestyle, esports is a beneficial alternative to watching passive media, like TV or using social media. It directly links to computing education, STEAM subjects, the development of digital skills, cyber skills, and digital literacy. It also promotes character development in exactly the same way that traditional team-based activities do.  

British Esports has even partnered with Pearson to introduce the esports BTEC, the first qualification of its kind in the world with a skills-based focus launching back in April 2020, with more than1800 students currently taking part in the BTEC over both Level 2 and Level 3.  

With more than 70% of schools now considering an esports programme, and with the expectation that the global esports market will triple by 2025, Bett is proud to be supporting such a fast growing and innovative industry.  

Esports @ Bett: the epicentre of all things esports  

Bett in association with the British Esports Association will be launching a multidimensional exploration of the growth of esports, enabling educators, leaders and parents alike to experience and understand its potential within education.  

Landmarked by a central feature on the Bett show floor in the South Hall, this dedicated space will be the epicentre of all things esports, providing a hub within which visitors can participate in gaming, experience real time product demonstrations and hear from industry experts: 

• The esports feature will include a dedicated theatre offering educational talks on the benefits of taking part in, or having, an esports offering at schools.   
• Visitors will also have the opportunity to experience and see demonstrations of the tech used in esports and during live competitions from key partners like Lenovo, Acer/Planet9, Republic of Gamers and more.  
• Every afternoon, join to watch exciting live tournaments for school groups across the UK followed along with live professional commentary. 

Come and visit Esports @ Bett across 23-25 March, with live tournaments, hands-on tech and exciting keynote speaker sessions. Registration to visit here  

The esports industry provides myriad opportunities for career and technical education due to its wide range of available career pathways. One obvious program choice is computer science; after all, without developers to create the games, there would be no esports to play. However, there are other ways programmers are needed in esports, including the development of custom Discord bots.

Bots are not unique to Discord. They have business functions in any industry that benefits from automation of simple, repetitive tasks. For example, a banking application might need to listen for a user to add a document that sets off a chain of events requiring input and approval from many departments. A medical chatbot might be used to triage the symptoms of a patient before directing them to the appropriate personnel for their needs. Learning the basics of bot development will provide students with a job skill they can take into any future role.

Bot development also covers several bases for computer science standards such as the CSTA K-12 CS Standards. A bot is a perfect way to learn and implement the steps of the software development life cycle; employing Discord as the vehicle is an easy way to get a student’s peers using and reviewing their bot’s functionality for ongoing development. Additionally, many bots will require some form of data management and will also provide opportunity for conversations on security from the very first time the student copies their bot token to paste into their code. As with any socially-minded project, students will be presented with the ethical and cultural impacts of their work.

Getting Started

Despite all of the reasons to use Discord bot development as a real-world implementation in a CTE classroom, resources toward this goal are scarce. There are many tutorials of varying quality available in a quick Google search, but they are all geared toward users with some experience in programming, IDEs, and other background skills. It can be a lot to process!

The first thing to consider is which language to use. While there are official Discord implementations available for around a dozen languages, JavaScript is a great choice for beginning programmers. Resources such as codecademy provide accessible ways for students to get started writing quickly. It is also a good language for CS programs that include video game design, as it transitions easily to learning C# for Unity or C++ for Unreal Engine.

Once a language is chosen, the next step is to select the best tools for development. Visual Studio has a Node.js extension that will let many established CS programs add another development tool without adding another environment. Node.js allows for simple installation of the Eris library to a project (unlike its namesake, Eris interacts with Discord to make things run more smoothly for the developer). Discord.js is another powerful library choice.

How to Create Discord Bots

Creating a bot to run code and a server to run it in is fortunately quite simple. Most students won’t even need any assistance in setting up their own server. However, it is important to confirm they have permissions to Discord before starting the lesson; some districts block it by default, so it may take time to make a case to IT for opening it up and to allow them to do so in a way that fits with their policies and workload.

Armed with basic JavaScript skills, an IDE, and a testing environment, it becomes easier to narrow down the options for online tutorials to adapt or be inspired by for creating lessons on Discord bots in the classroom. Looking at the examples can still be a little daunting: simply getting a bot to respond with a traditional “Hello World” can take ten to fifteen lines of code. However, even this provides an excellent lesson in coding etiquette through reading and writing commented tutorials.

From this point, it becomes a matter of determining how many weeks of class time can be devoted to bot-writing, because the possibilities are endless! Students might work on a wide range of projects. An interest in building a community might lead to a bot that allows a user to automatically choose roles in a way that is unique to their server’s needs. Casual game players might build a simple game such as tic-tac-toe to entertain users while they wait for a match to start. Budding tournament organizers might create a bot to streamline stage bans in a competitive match.

Once students have the hang of creating Discord bots, their new skills can be put to use outside of the classroom. The school’s esports team is a great place to start; undoubtedly there are many fun ideas they can come up with through polling the other members. On a broader scale, servers developed around state or national scholastic esports organizations could also make use of custom bots to help run seasons or tournaments or to enhance their communities. Some, such as the Missouri Scholastic Esports Federation, are already incorporating Discord bots into competitions for students interested in esports as a career in a role outside of playing the game.

Regardless of which direction they choose to take their new skill, a Discord bot will be a valuable experience to add to a student’s portfolio when presenting themselves to future employers.

Want to learn more about how esports can benefit students? Visit eduesportsexpo.com for more information and to register.

Amy Harris is a mom in her tenth year of teaching CTE Computer Science, and has been the adult in the room for Hart Career Center’s esports program since its inception in 2016. She is also a director and the treasurer for the Missouri Scholastic Esports Federation.  

On the back of the COVID-driven esports industry boom, national adoption of scholastic esports has continued to grow at an astounding pace. Scholastic esports, video game competitions between schools, has not only provided students with the same social and emotional learning (SEL) benefits of traditional athletics, such as improved teamwork, leadership, and a sense of belonging, but esports is also being used as a lens to teach everything from career and technical education (CTE) to literacy and STEM to students from kindergarten through high school. 

It should come as no surprise that teachers are the ones doing the groundbreaking work in scholastic esports, but what is surprising is the level to which they have taken their passion for esports. Shunning for-profit esports leagues to ensure the best possible student experience, teachers in more than fifteen states have started their own grass-roots nonprofit organizations to oversee esports competitions in their state. I am one of those educators.

When COVID hit, I decided to start Garden State Esports, a free-to-join 501(c)(3), to help students stay connected through gaming and to help schools in New Jersey use scholastic esports as a platform for ALL students to grow. I quickly fell in with the other state organizations, who together serve almost 40,000 students. 

With access to such diverse perspectives and understanding of what scholastic esports should entail, who better to ask for an update on the current state of scholastic esports and the emerging, exciting trends they’re seeing. 

Scholastic Esports: Dramatic Growth and Deep Connections 

"I don't think anyone should be surprised that esports is taking off in schools,” says Mike Dahle, who has seen his organization Wisconsin High School Esports Association grow more than 500% since 2018. “We know an overwhelming majority of our students are gaming and this uses it to a positive. It creates a structured approach teaching our students teamwork, collaboration, accountability, responsibility and all those other good things. And for many students, this is their only extra curricular that connects them to their school community, which for many districts getting 100% of students involved in extracurriculars is a major initiative."

Last spring when most other sports were cancelled because of COVID, Nick Rider of Esports Ohio had more than 3,000 students across 140 high schools competing from home. Those students were surveyed and it was revealed that 75% of Esports Ohio participants were competing in their first-ever sport. 

Now that most schools and activities are beginning to trend back to in-person, Esports Ohio wants to continue to grow the connections and sense of belonging many students developed during COVID. With in-person play now possible, Esports Ohio has setup regional leagues so schools could play against other nearby schools. They’ve also partnered with several universities across the state so that these regional leagues have a place to play in-person finals. 

Beyond the excitement of face-to-face competition, Rider hopes that students will have the opportunity to meet and grow relationships with the peers they’ve been competing against throughout COVID.  

Prepping the Future Workforce 

Tony Gragnani from Missouri Scholastic Esports Federation is not only seeing the same growth as Ohio and Wisconsin, but they are also one of many state organizations putting new or extra emphasis on educating athletes on the career pathways available in the esports ecosystem. “MOSEF continues to see tremendous growth,” Gragnani says. “We are adding new schools almost weekly. What excites me the most is the opportunities we are creating for students through esports. Our students are doing everything from shoutcasting and graphic design to digital production and statistics through esports.”

The Illinois High School Esports Association is also focused on empowering tomorrow’s workforce. “Not only will IHSEA continue to offer opportunities for students to build community through our online spaces and compete through our tournaments, but we are most excited about new opportunities for students to get involved with IHSEA as an organization,” says IHSEA co-founder Todd McFarlin. “These opportunities include the addition of various internships with IHSEA to gain hands-on skills training that will be useful beyond high school.”

Washington State Scholastic Esports Association Executive Director Jason Dilley is also using esports as a vehicle for CTE. “Ultimately, WSSEA's mission is to help students grow not just socially and emotionally, but intellectually and professionally as well,” says Dilley. “That’s why we’ve partnered with Highschool.gg to provide CTE competitions in shoutcasting, video production, and other up-and-coming, lucrative careers in the esports ecosystem. These CTE competitions will expand our audience that can access and benefit from esports while also giving students authentic career experiences to prepare them for work in the field."

Social and Emotional Growth 

Garden State Esports’ neighbor to the west, the Pennsylvania Scholastic Esports League (PSEL), also continues to grow in popularity. Led by Kammas Kersch, PSEL is supporting more than 100 schools across the Commonwealth. Kersch says administrators and school leaders are seeking ways to get students involved and engaged in their school communities and scholastic esports is helping to make that happen. Esports clubs are being used for more than gaming. “Scholastic esports is a place for students to learn valuable social-emotional, technical, and problem-solving skills,” says Kersch. “We are connecting students to college and career opportunities to help them discover their passions and prepare for their futures through esports.”

Nate Thompson, from the Indiana Esports Network, agrees with Kersch’s belief that scholastic esports has the power to grow students socially and emotionally. IHSEN recently announced that they would be adding Unified Esports, in partnership with Special Olympics Indiana, to IHSEN programming. “The Unified Esports Experience will allow students to meet and connect with peers they may not normally get to interact with,” says Thompson. “It’s a win/win for everyone involved because now students will get to see ALL of the students in their school and not just who they see on a daily basis.”

My own organization, Garden State Esports, will be working with Rutgers University on two different studies that will measure the impact of our SEL curriculum, the Esports Personal and Performance Improvement Curriculum (EPPIC), on a student’s social and emotional growth. We believe that our curriculum will show student growth in CASEL’s 5 Core Competencies and improved attendance, behavior, and learning outcomes.

The incredible growth of our esports communities nationwide is a byproduct of passionate teachers doing the work. As scholastic esports trends continue to evolve, it is becoming more clear that there is a need for the work being done not just in the classroom, but at the state level as well to ensure our programs are safe, inclusive spaces in schools used to help kids achieve more. I’m lucky to have the expertise and passion of these other wonderful leaders to tap into and, like many scholastic esports programs around the country, we are excited to take the work we are doing together to the next level. Big news to come!

• Best Gaming Systems for School Esports Programs
• Scholastic Esports Poised to Grow in India with New Partnership

India is poised to be a major player in the future of esports. 

“By the end of the year, India will have 628 million gamers, and it is the fastest growing esports market in the world,” says Ravneet Gill, founder and CEO of Eduent, an India-based organization that works with schools to build an educational foundation for esports. “More than 50 percent of the population is below 22 years of age.” India also has approximately 770 million internet connections, which is more than twice the U.S. 

“Of the next 1 billion new internet users that will come on stream, 62 million of those will be in India,” he says. “So you have a young population, you have internet connectivity that's going through the roof, and you have youngsters who are technologically very comfortable.” 

The country has also emerged as a center of animation production, and then there is India’s cultural and artistic heritage 

“India's mythology, India cinema, ‘Bollywood’ as it's called, really lends itself beautifully to gamification. So I think in many ways, this is almost a marriage made in heaven,” Gill says. 

But he wants India’s youth to do more than embrace esports, he wants students to learn from gaming and to use it to help it fuel collaboration, tech skills, and ultimately, employment and innovation. To that end,  Eduent has partnered with the The North America Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF) to become the organization’s Indian affiliate, and is launching this fall in nearly 2,000 schools.

Education Embedded in Esports  

Part of what brought the two organizations together was NASEF’s commitment to connecting learning and play. 

“In most cases, when one goes to observe a competition in esports, you generally see five-on-five, six-on-six, two-on-two, whatever those numbers are, and it's very limited to just the observation of kids playing on computers,” says Gerald Solomon, founder and executive director of NASEF. “In our world, in how we embed learning into play, we require that the students actually demonstrate concurrently with the gameplay the artifacts of their learning.” 

He adds, “Our approach is not just about how to play a game -- that's really secondary in many ways, it's the attractor no doubt -- but how do you use that attraction for the student who is a casual gamer, is not a competitive gamer, but really enjoys it and wants to be part of this club concept, this universe, this community, that we're creating.” 

For example, a student who has an interest in art can pursue logo design, or jersey development. Or perhaps one is drawn to the organizational side of esports events. “All of that gets demonstrated and shown during our competitions,” Solomon says. “Our competitions are very different from the typical competitions one sees in esports. So through that students get to see other students, they build a community, parents get to see students and say, ‘Wow, it's more than just sitting in a computer playing games.’ And educators get to see how you can use the lens of esports as a pass through and vehicle to expose kids to these other opportunities.” 

Gill believes this approach is exactly what esports in India needs to foster more support from parents and educators. “One of the challenges which we find in terms of esport is how do you bring in the older generation into the fold of esports?” he says. “If you want balanced development of esports, and you want it to become really healthy and mainstream in education, I think buy-in from the parents is very important. Still across the world, a lot of parents feel that it can get addictive, it is harmful. So we want to be able to educate people through this process, to be able to provide the research that goes into this program.” 

India is currently promoting Digital India, an initiative that aims to transform the nation into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Gill and Solomon are confident the partnership between their organizations dovetails with that effort. 

“If you look at the whole philosophy of NASEF, in terms of their esports education, it is to go beyond the game,” Gill says. “To look for opportunities -- how do you create professions out of that, become entrepreneurs, become innovators. And I think that's exactly what India needs.” 

• How to Stay Healthy While Competing in Esports
• How to Build a Higher Ed Esports Program

Who: Katie Salen is professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California at Irvine, a member of the Connected Learning Lab, as well as Chief Designer and co-founder of Connected Camps, an online learning platform powered by youth gaming experts. 

What makes summer camp so appealing and memorable for kids? Fun activities and creative or wacky contests are usually central, but the counselors are even more important. Youth love to be led by near-peers who are relatable, fun, empathetic, and challenging.

Esports is proving to be a perfect venue to provide lasting impacts through near-peer coaching and mentorship. Let’s look a little deeper using Connected Camps and NASEF, the North America Scholastic Esports Federation, as an example. The two nonprofits partner to provide coaches to high school esports teams. The coaches are enthusiastic about esports and technology, and they come from top university programs in computer science, game development, economics, sports performance, and design. They’re trained to connect their esports skills and interests to larger-scale personal development work with players. This includes emphasizing the importance of communication, stress-busting, and relationship skills during practice and competitions.  

Finding Shared Interests 

Competitive esports is relatively new, and few parents of today’s kids grew up in the esports world. Coaches can provide valuable support and structure here. They help impressionable tweens and teens learn principles of online safety, positive player behavior, and healthy participation. This also includes safety basics such as carefully choosing who you play with (a benefit of organized leagues such as NASEF with its required code of conduct), not sharing personal data with people you don’t know, and following community codes of conduct.

Students learn how to be good citizens as coaches help them develop team skills, including collaboration and interpersonal communication. They learn to keep emotions in check when they make a bad play or their team loses. They also learn how to acknowledge and celebrate the play of their teammates, or even that of opposing players. This isn’t just better for the team, it also helps the individual become more resilient and focused on being a leader.  

Shared interests are the foundation of these mentoring relationships. Whether it’s laughing together over a popular new meme or speaking the same language about strategies and heroes in a video game, rapport and trust can be built quickly. I worked with colleagues at the Connected Learning Alliance to evaluate findings on young people’s learning as it relates to their relationships and interests. 

The Connected Learning Alliance published this report, which includes: 

Affinity networks open unique avenues for young people to find their people—peers and mentors who share an identity or interest. These networks are tailored to bonding around a specific interest… Learning is transformative and resilient as youth connect with mentors in the context of shared activities and meaningful projects. Supportive relationships and peers and mentors are particularly important in programs serving youth who do not have strong supports for their interests at home, and who are pursuing rapidly changing fields in areas such as digital media and technology. 

Making Direct Connections 

As high schoolers connect with their college-age coaches to learn about esports techniques and strategies, they also gain insight into the future. They can query someone who is just ahead of them about university coursework and the college experience, such as athletic participation, dorm life, and free time. The coach earns trust by helping the student improve gaming skills, then is able to provide meaningful advice in an authentic way. 

Emily Leckie is an esports coach for high school teams through Connected Camps. She says that the first step to coaching or teaching, even in esports, is to find out what’s important to the players. Her role is to impart values such as teamwork, trust, and communication to the youth, but she sets the foundation in what matters to the kids. 

An important aspect of her work with students involves goal-setting. “Understanding what my players want helps provide focus,” Leckie says. “When asked, their responses are usually fairly vague (‘I want to improve’), or specific but with no clear path forward (‘I want to win the tournament’).” She suggests helping players break things into manageable steps to increase the likelihood of success. Here’s more of her advice on helping students with goal-setting as an esports player.  

Building Partnerships and Programs 

UC Irvine has a powerhouse collegiate esports program, and it was the first public college in the country to offer scholarships to esports players. A team from UC Irvine and NASEF worked together to develop an Esports Ambassador program that connects students for near-peer mentoring relationships. 

“The primary thing schools need to focus on is the student experience, both for the college students and the high school students,” says Tyler Ciciarelli, who heads up the program. “Everything can be a learning moment as ambassadors share a commonality of esports and gaming with younger students.”

Here are Ciciarelli’s tips for building quality mentoring connections in an esports program:

• Make sure all expectations are communicated clearly between the college and the high school. Small things in a college setting could have a large impact at the high school level. 
• Determine what kind of events the college students or ambassadors will run. For example, livestreams can provide help on a single topic, Discord Hangouts can hold a combination of discussion and gaming. 
• Set specific times and days for mentors to play games with students. It builds rapport similar to other "big sister/brother" programs in which the two might go toss a football or eat together. 
• Some of the best programming involves a discussion session of 45 minutes to an hour, then playing a few games of something afterward (while the ambassadors keep the conversations going without students really realizing it). Many games allow people to easily talk while playing; utilize those to have fun while keeping the insightful conversations going. 
• As with any program involving minors, be sure to train mentors on basic safety policies. Cover appropriate usage of Discord, messaging, and other apps. Be aware of student settings when recording or livestreaming events so that no personally identifiable information is displayed. 
• Ambassadors/mentors should be fingerprinted or Livescanned. Set policies regarding whether mentors can go to the school or meet students in person. 
•  Check out Anykey for esports-centric training on diversity and inclusion. 

Partnerships between high schools and colleges can also be leveraged to establish mentoring around career pathways and exploration, research shows. For example, near-peer mentors can be motivators for mentees by helping them to envision what their life could be like if they applied themselves, according to Forbes. Students who work with near-peer mentors are more likely to “value and persist through academic difficulty” and feel more motivated overall, as documented in Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

Here’s one example of how this is working: the Pennsylvania Scholastic Esports League (PSEL) is the NASEF affiliate for Pennsylvania and is led by Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU). Harrisburg University (HU) and the CCIU have a long-standing relationship collaborating on a variety of student learning projects. Over the last several months, PSEL and HU have developed an exciting partnership that enables both organizations to provide additional opportunities to students and educators.

The HU Storm, Harrisburg University’s varsity esports team, is a two-time National Esports Champion. A mentoring program has been developed that combines PSEL’s knowledge of esports and career readiness at the high school level with HU’s experienced support of college esports teams and programs. Through this growing partnership an Esports Career Day was staged last December, with more than 200 students, educators, and parents joining the event. Attendees heard from professors and students at HU, who shared what it is like to compete at the college level and take classes in the esports management bachelor's program. The high school students in attendance enjoyed getting to hear the student perspective and learn about the internship opportunities and experiences available through esports.

For educators who are considering bringing esports programs to their schools, our experience shows that support from college students as near-peer mentors can be key to a successful program. Their coaching can help build more than game skills, it can provide a foundation for meaningful growth in the process.

Katie Salen is a professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California at Irvine, a member of the Connected Learning Lab, as well as Chief Designer and co-founder of Connected Camps, an online learning platform powered by youth gaming experts. She is founding Executive Director of Institute of Play and led the design of Quest to Learn, an innovative New York City public school, which opened in 2009. Salen is co-author of Affinity Online: How Connection and Shared Interest Fuel Learning (NYU Press), Rules of Play, The Game Design Reader, Quest to Learn: Growing a School for Digital Kids, and editor of The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning, all from MIT Press. She has worked as a game designer for more than 15 years. 

• 5 Tips to Improve a Scholastic Esports Team
• How to Build an Esports Community

If you’re already in the scholastic esports space, you’ve found out how rewarding it can be for both you and your students. It’s likely, though, that you’ve had to do a lot of on-the-job learning as you tackle setting up an esports club, scheduling practice, and running tournaments.

Dr. Miles Harvey, NASEF Scholastic Fellow and teacher of Media Literacy at James Monroe Middle School in Ridgecrest, California, and his students boast an impressive record of 55-12 over the last two years in Rocket League. He offers his advice to help get your scholastic esports team to the next level. 

Note: We refer to relationships in this piece as an educator/student relationship, but these tips can apply to other competitive esports environments outside of school clubs.

1. Create a virtual community for your students 

Having a virtual community for your students or team is one of the most important things for you to do as an educator.

In gaming, communities are one of the most basic building blocks for players. Many games will offer in-game options for this, such as clans or guilds, but there is a need for a community outside of the game as well. Students want a space in which they can chat with one another, hang out, and yes, even share memes.

Virtual communities also help with things such as scheduling and creating new friendships, and are one of the best ways to communicate with students outside of school. I can guarantee you no student will be in a Google Classroom at seven o’clock, but you can be sure they’ll be on Discord and willing to talk with you.

Remember, gaming is a social experience that started as couch co-op long ago. While technology has moved us away from couch co-op in most cases, that social aspect has remained.

If there isn’t a space created for students, you’ll see these students, who are often the ones who already feel underrepresented, retreat back into obscurity. Gaming and esports clubs allow these students to demonstrate their talents in ways schools have generally not championed.

2. Make sure you have more than just players 

Esports orgs are more than just the players and esports clubs are exactly the same. Make sure you have students filling roles such as president, treasurer, graphic designer, shoutcaster, or any multitude of roles.

You’ll have to play to the strengths of the students who join your club. If someone is good at music, have them create intros and outros for your stream. Give them a microphone and some time to create custom sound effects for when a player gets a hat trick in Rocket League. If someone is good at writing, have them do the copy for tournament flyers or school announcements about the matches.

In doing this, you’ll allow these students to explore different opportunities within the space and develop unique skill sets that can be utilized both in and out of the scholastic esports environment. It is important to have your students rotate roles, though. Don’t worry, they’ll eventually gravitate to what really interests them, but you have to make sure they’re exposed to it first.

I’ve found that roles in esports clubs also give students a sense of purpose. It lets them know why they are there and that they are a valuable part of the team.

If you’re not sure of the roles students can have other than those listed above, here’s a quick list of possibilities: PR manager, social media poster, researcher (on other competitive teams), tournament coordinator, IT tech, video editor, chat moderator, interviewer, merchandise designer, and streamer.

3. Have a practice day that is separate from game day 

Practice days are one of the most important things to ensure your team will improve. These allow your students to reflect on what they’ve learned and practice new techniques and strategies.

But why is it important to separate it from game day? A lot of it comes down to just not having enough time. When game day comes around there are a million things that need to be done by both you and your students. The stream needs to be set up, mics checked, attendance checked, you need to coordinate with the opposing team, graphics have to be loaded, and you have to let everyone know you’re playing. This is all before the match even starts.

If you and your students are practicing on a match day, many of those things can be overlooked or completely forgotten. Just as with traditional sports, you don’t do a full practice before a match. You have your athletes do a quick warm up just to get them in the zone. In esports, this can take many forms. 

You can see in this example from the professional League of Legends scene. As noted, players will do this to get into the groove of hitting and dodging skill shots.

Two Korean League of Legends pros warm up before a match 

4. Have a plan when you have your practice day 

Some clubs will only have 45 minutes to meet while others may have a few hours, which means it’s important to make the most use out of your limited time.

I always come into the practice session with a plan. I’ll usually start us out with some sort of video on Rocket League that shows off a skill they may want to work on. After that, it’s on to reviewing some of their own game footage. Then it’s time for some structured play. Others may call this purposeful play. What this means is that your students are going into game time with a specific goal. It’s not to just play the game. They’re applying what they’ve learned in the review session to the current session.

This is no different from any standard basketball practice, for example. You’ll need to have some players work on the fundamentals, such as dribbling or free throws, and others need to work on moving the ball around the court. For Rocket League, that has taken the form of learning how to properly navigate the field in concert with your teammates. Too often I have seen our players nearly crash into one another while playing.

Don’t be intimidated if you aren’t as good or better than your students at the game in which you’re competing. I employ the same conceptual elements that I use to teach my class to break down the different aspects of Rocket League. It’s about managing your students and putting them in situations to grow.

Students often don’t realize it, but scholastic esports is one of the best ways to trick them into learning. They come to the club excited to learn something new about the game. It could be something such as how to angle your car in Rocket League from a specific spot to get a shot on the goal or how much damage a character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate needs to take before they can be launched off the screen. Both of these examples use math and don’t elicit the usual complaints when you try to teach it.

Students like having a routine, so make sure you give them one. Do not waste their time or yours.

5. Promote your players, club, and stories on digital media 

At the basic level, you need to buy into the esports club. To take it a step further, you need to be their champion.

It’s often said that gamers can smell b.s. from a mile away in the gaming space. Students are no different.

You need to be there for them on game day wearing the esports team jersey. You need to be the one to make sure the school announcements don’t forget the esports club and that their accomplishments are highlighted. You need to be telling the other staff about game days and get them to attend.

I like to think of Coach Klein in The Waterboy. He goes out of his way to champion Bobby Boucher and talks to his mother over dinner about being on the football team. That extra mile that you often see movie coaches take is one you may have to take. Parents can often be skeptical about the merits of esports, so it’s your job to go to them and explain why it’s good for their education.

While it seems like you give a lot, the students will give it back to you. When you don’t know how to do something, such as properly set up a Discord channel or block people from joining, your students will be there to teach you how to do it. They will back you up when you run into your own problems and go the extra mile to help you out. I like to think the relationship between students and teachers in esports clubs is closer to 50/50. Each of you will bring your own skills, experiences, and talents to the table that truly complement one another.

With these five tips, you can take your existing or new esports club to the next level.

• How to Build a Higher Ed Esports Program
• How to Build an Esports Community

Esports, planned video game competitions where teams of athletes meet on virtual playing fields across a variety of games, is booming in popularity. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in higher education. More than 200 colleges and universities across the US are now offering millions in scholarships to talented esports athletes. With the rise of collegiate esports, it was only a matter of time before scholastic esports made its way into high schools. 

Earlier this year, Barnegat High School started their esports journey by joining Garden State Esports (GSE). GSE is a free-to-join nonprofit run by educators that helps schools start esports programs by providing the leagues, learning, and community they need to be successful. Last month, to kick off their Spring registration meeting, GSE President Chris Aviles challenged the more than 80 districts that currently make up GSE to leverage a 2017 law that says any student who participates in an “interscholastic extracurricular activity that includes competitions” is eligible to earn a varsity letter, to make their own esports programs varsity eligible. 

“The reality is that not having a varsity esports programs is an equity issue. Students who don’t have the opportunity to earn a varsity letter for esports will be less likely to earn scholarships,” said Aviles, a teacher who also coaches his own school’s esports team. 

Barnegat High School became the first to meet the challenge. Beyond preparing students to compete for $16 million in scholarships, a varsity program allows schools to leverage eligibility requirements like attendance and grades to help motivate students - something Barnegat chose to do by adding a GPA requirement to varsity eligibility when the board approved the motion on January 27th. 

Barnegat Athletic Director John Germano views it this way, “We want to approach esports like traditional sports: by taking a kid first approach and providing them with a safe, exciting, competitive, and positive atmosphere. If this is something they are really into, then it is my responsibility to provide them with the support they deserve.” 

Coach Joe Saar agreed with coach Traci Sellers when she said, for students to really feel that they are a part of their school they have to get involved. Our new esports program is going to open the door for a whole other group of students to capture that feeling and earn an a letter that may help them compete at the collegiate level."

Garden State Esports is also partnering with New Jersey City University’s esports program, just off a championship win. Through this partnership, NJCU will provide "near-peer" coaching by placing their own student-athletes in middle and high school esports programs throughout the state. 

"It's a really exciting time for esports in New Jersey," says NJCU co-head coach Joshua Case, who also works to facilitate GSE's near-peer coaching program. "Through this partnership, GSE members get the best coaching available and we get to recruit locally. It also helps our student athletes, as they are eligible for work study money through this." The program so far has had interest from school districts all over the state and several of NJCU's esports athletes.

Aviles, who founded Garden State Esports after seeing his own students blossom, after starting the first middle school esports team in the country for the Fair Haven school district said, “the partnership with NJCU is a first of its kind and a win-win for everyone involved. Many of our coaches are teachers still learning about gaming and esports, so to be able to support them by providing talented collegiate athletes is wonderful. Students also get to learn from college life and majors they may be interested in while working with NJCU players.”

Esports can provide students with an educational experience that goes well beyond gaming.

“Everything I do today I owe to getting involved in esports,” said Kathy Chiang, assistant director of UCI Esports. “A lot of my professional skills come from leading guilds and raids in video games.” 

Chiang and other leaders of successful esports programs in higher ed discussed the skills gaming can build and the ways in which successful esports programs can attract students to campus in a recent panel at Tech & Learning’s Leveling Up: Esports & Education Conference & Expo.

Christine Weiser, content and brand director at Tech & Learning, served as the moderator. Her questions focused on four key areas surrounding building an esports program. 

Watch the full session here. 

What Infrastructure Is Needed to Launch an Esports Program? 

Universities don’t need a state-of-the-art esports arena to get a program off the ground, said Chris “Doc” Haskell, associate professor and head coach of esports at Boise State.

“We don’t all have to look like one another,” said Haskell, who was the 2020 College Esports Coach of the Year. The gaming space is there to serve students and the needs of our campus, and not to create “an arms race of equipment,” he added. 

Successful esports programs have launched from within underutilized campus spaces with minimal tech. “You need people to play games, you need something to play, and something to play on,” Haskell said. “Your space can be up to 70 to 100 gaming PCs and state of the art, or it can be a room of six or eight PCs that meets your needs. It is what your campus needs it to be.” 

But don’t forget about tech altogether. “Work with your IT department and facilities folks who can really help you out and make sure it’s going to be a successful space that the students can utilize,” Chiang said. 

What Career Paths Can Esports Facilitate?  

From fostering skill sets such as sound, coding, and game design, to developing leadership, marketing, broadcasting and even legal skills, esports has plenty to offer participants beyond just athletic dexterity, said April Welch, associate vice president of strategic initiatives and director of esports and digital arts at Illinois Tech.

“We have a law school and legal aspects of esports, and game design and creating games are very interesting right now,” Welch said. “How do you negotiate contract deals with these big companies that are looking to find a way to invest or figure out how they can best engage with the esports community?” 

Careers can be found on the accounting side of esports as well. “This is an industry that is connected to every other industry that we have on the career front,” said Welch. 

At Illinois Tech, Welch said the campus gaming community is working closer with the off-campus community and helping foster diversity and engagement. “We have an amazing opportunity to connect our gamers and our students to the broader community, and teach unity, and teach skills that you need to actually get a job.” 

Large game developers and other companies are interested in working with college esports programs, and there are opportunities to create career pipelines for students.

Nyle Kauweloa, head of the University of Hawaii at Manoa Esports Task Force, said that Hawaii is the subject of a great deal of interest from large companies, in part because it is located between the large gaming markets of Japan and the U.S. 

When the state and his university works with large companies, however, they make sure that these companies are investing in local talent and resources. “It’s not so much that they come here and plant their flag and do something and then leave. We want to make sure that they’re engaged with production companies here,” Kaweloa said. “They are not here to just do an event or to organize a tournament but they really are there to build out repositories of knowledge for our local economy.” 

How Can Programs Root Out Toxicity and Encourage Inclusivity?

Most esports enthusiasts will tell you that the esports world is not as toxic as non-gamers might have you believe but no-one disputes that there are pockets of negativity, bullying and worse. To combat potential toxicity, the panelists recommended establishing an esports community as an inclusive one from the start and having participants take AnyKey.org’s AnyKey pledge, which requires a commitment to fairness and respect, and taking a stance against harassment and hate speech. 

“The AnyKey pledge says we're going to take control of our environment and we're not going to have a culture that is toxic and violent and dangerous for people, and makes people feel uncomfortable. People like me who are African-American, people who identify differently with their gender,” Welch said. She added that it requires students to say, ‘I’m going to be the one that stops the bullying.’ 

Kauweloa said that esports facilitators have had to be even more proactive in combating negativity since the pandemic began. “Because things have moved online, communities no longer inhabit a shoulder-to-shoulder or face-to-face space, and it's even more of an imperative that you nip this in the bud,” he said. “So much of campus culture has become Discord culture. And so one thing that we do have to take into account is how do you manage toxicity, harassment, racism, and prejudice within a platform.”

Beyond weeding out toxicity within your community, you also want to make sure your community is welcoming and open to everyone. “When you notice different types of people in leadership, it really makes a really big difference on what sorts of people are comfortable joining those clubs and also participating in those activities,” Chiang said.

Chiang added that while in a perfect world having nights open only to specific groups of players might not be necessary, in the non-perfect world we inhabit she has found it can help different groups feel welcome in the community. “Last year we partnered with our LGBT Resource Center and we created a trans gaming night, and we got a lot of positive feedback from that,” Chiang said. “People said that they wouldn’t have come into the arena unless we had that event, but after that event they felt more welcome to come in during other events.” 

Haskell said he’s witnessed firsthand how seeing diverse leadership fosters diverse student participation because students realize that “there’s a seat in there for me. It is critically important that we make seats available for leadership of people that we want involved in our organization.” 

How Has Covid Impacted Your Programs? 

The generally held belief is that esports was ideally situated to handle Covid and social distancing, but the reality is more nuanced. 

“The meme is that esports is recession-proof and is Covid-proof,” Kauweloa said. “In actuality, not all communities are transitioning well.” 

While esports players can still play and connect, not all games and programs are a good fit for an online-only format. “It depends on the game, it depends on the community. For us, the fighting game community has not done well because they depend so much on co-located gaming,” Kauweloa said. 

While some aspects of gaming might be Covid-proof, “The students are not Covid-proof,” Haskell said. “Their families are not Covid-proof.” 

Haskell said that his program and many others have worked to try and support students through these difficult times and keep them connected with the community. In that regard, many esports programs have been successful during Covid. “What's unique about esports is that we have been able to remain connected and still organize activities that you can't do with some of the physical sports,” Haskell said.

Welch said that her program was actually able to help build connectivity on campus beyond the esports community. For instance, the esports community helped organize an online chess event, which she said let many professors get involved and fostered a campus environment online. “We're not going to train anybody to play League of Legends or Overwatch, but they can play chess,” she said. “We have professors who are now doing tutoring and sessions on Twitch because they learned it from us. So I think there's a great service to the community. Our esports communities are supporting the escalation of the adaptation of technology. We're pushing the envelope in so many ways.” 

• How to Build an Esports Community
• The Do’s and Don’ts of Scholastic Esports Programs
• How to Stay Healthy While Competing in Esports

Esports provides a perfect opportunity for students to build community and friendships, play, and learn in a hybrid model or even completely virtually. 

Community, at its core, is focused on social identity and is where a person develops a sense of who they are based on their membership and affiliations with others, said Tunisha Singleton, professor of psychology at Fielding Graduate University, during Tech & Learning’s recent Leveling Up: Esports & Education Conference & Expo. 

“It's very much clear tribalism at its finest, us-versus-them at its core,” said Singleton. “With the evolution of media and technology, it's crucial for us as educators and tech leaders in this space to adopt this belief that technology shouldn't be used as a replacement of human connection. Rather, it should be intended to boost it, and should be complimenting it with convenient fun and original ways for us to engage with one another.”

With that also comes the responsibility of making sure that any esports community is accessible to those who are ordinarily marginalized, said Singleton, and that there is some level of media literacy and digital ethics, and that is also rebranded in a way that's positive and indicative of the learning and connective opportunities that are provided for it.

Singleton and other educators involved in esports discussed the key aspects of creating a safe, diverse, and inclusive gaming community.

Watch the full session here 

Key Takeaways

Defining an esports community. When it comes to defining community, Rudy Blanco, Director of Entrepreneurship and Gaming Programs for The DreamYard Project in New York City, recalled a conversation with a LGBTQ+ youth caucus group. “We asked, ‘What is our community like?’ and it was like, ‘Y'all are my chosen fam right now,’ and that’s what community was at that moment for that group,” said Blanco. He further defined a community as a group who agree to a relationship in which they can all explore new things, grow together, and support one another. An esports community can also set general guidelines but ultimately needs to be aware of how race, gender, and sexual identity will impact the way rules need to be shifted.

When first creating an esports community, it’s important that everyone agree to a certain set of standards, said Samantha Anton, COO of the North America Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF). “You know, is there something that we can refer to and say, ‘Hey you doing this is not okay because we've told everyone this and we've given this opportunity for you to learn more about why we do this,’” said Anton. “And then you can also evolve your guidelines so that it makes sense for your community.”

By establishing a set of standards and sharing it with everyone, students and teachers can know what the standards are, and also have a mechanism to report any incidents. “It's not that bad things won't happen,” said Anton. “It's how we respond to those things and move forward that's really important. And if you don't provide a place where people can let you know what's going on, then you're kind of just turning a blind eye to your community on how you can really be making sure that they are comfortable with how things are going.”

Teaching defense. As important as it is to build safe esports communities, it’s also important to empower kids to defend esports spaces, said Chris Aviles, a teacher at Fair Haven School District in New Jersey and founder of Garden State Esports. “We need students to understand what those safe spaces should look like and then what to do when they encounter somebody who's trying to poison that space,” said Aviles. “They need to be empowered and feel brave enough to stand up to them because it's one thing for me to give some PowerPoint presentation about safe, inclusive spaces but it's completely something different when somebody actually says something ignorant.” Those skills can help in defending other competitors who may be victims and serve students in life beyond school. 

Proactive steps. NASEF offers a code of conduct, which is a good starting point for anyone looking to establish standards of what conduct is appropriate and inappropriate. “And then it's really in how you enforce it,” Anton said. “You can't just create these standards for a safe space and say that you’re done. You need to be responsive and invested in it, and constantly changing what needs to be changed.”

Keeping the code of conduct visible and malleable is important, as is having a restorative justice piece, said Aviles. “When something happens, I work with the kids to understand how they hurt somebody,” said Aviles. “And then the big question is, ‘How are you going to make this right?’” Restorative justice practices that exist in traditional education also work well in the esports space.

Giving students the authority of ‘If you see something, say something’ and the ability to protect victims is critical in building an esports community, said Singleton, and part of the process is inclusion. “Not everyone can relate to being female,” she said. “That's why you have to have bipartisan and other marginalized communities get involved at the development level so that everyone can start to understand what's a threat and what is a trigger.” 

“We started experiencing the most change when we started taking esports participants in ninth grade and even middle school, and teaching them our social-emotional values,” said Blanco. Dream Yard focuses on how to moderate these kinds of discussions, how to identify moments of triggers, how to alleviate certain issues, and how to resolve conflict through social justice. “When their viewers are telling them, ‘Oh that was messed up,’ or when the community is telling them ‘Yo, check yourself,’ we've done our job.”

Gaming girls and representation. With the majority of esports participants male, there’s a lot of work to be done to make tournaments a positive, inclusive coed environment, said Anton. “Everything that we need to be doing should be with diversity in mind.” 

Developing a safe coed gaming space needs to be a proactive process, said Aviles, who talked about reaching out to a girl who enjoyed gaming and had two brothers who were already participating in his program. After the girl had a positive experience her first year, she recruited other girls to play the following year. As competitive esports is a relatively new phenomena, patience is key. “It can oftentimes be frustrating and we have to give ourselves time to let those safe space seeds grow,” said Aviles. “Once girls see somebody breaking the barrier, if you will, then they will come.”

That kind of female representation can’t be underestimated, said Singleton. “It has to be intentional, so you can see that others have done, like, ‘Oh snap, okay, I can do it. I too can be a part of this, it might be fun for me as well.’ So it's just about changing that culture, and we have to invite people who ordinarily have just been looking into the space. It's now part of the responsibility of being in this space.” 

“If you are not seen doing this, you can't see yourself doing this,” agreed Blanco. “You can't put yourself in here, no matter how much the media is talking about Ninja, or how esports competitions are making it big time now.” Recently, Dream Yard has started working with young women who are interested in streaming and want to learn the entrepreneurship of gameplay. 

Getting started. “I don't think anyone can really start an esports community just by themselves,” said Anton, who recommends first taking stock of the resources available and your strengths and weaknesses, and then communicate and work with those students and teachers who are passionate about esports. 

If you’re launching any sort of esport program, be sure to check out trustworthy organizations such as NASEF and other school districts, said Aviles. “Not everybody has the best intentions of students in mind,” he said.

Focusing on your values to create a community and an esports environment that reflects that is critical, said Singleton. “How do you actually support diversity and inclusion, what are you doing--show me the receipts!” she said. “This is a great opportunity to now get creative and reimagining and producing curriculum in a space that is way more immersive and impactful and something that can be translated offline as well.” 

Also consider getting started with students who are passionate about tech besides competing, said Blanco. “Esports is so much more than just the game piece,” he said, adding that there are opportunities for camera people, reporters, casters, and other game-related jobs. “Let students come to that on their own and I think that that's the best place to start. Find a way to connect your passion with gaming to their passion, and then just follow it.”

• The Do’s and Don’ts of Scholastic Esports Programs
• How to Stay Healthy While Competing in Esports

Esports and academics continue to become more integrated every year. For some school districts and their schools, it’s a relatively easy task to accomplish with lots of support. For others, the resources to draw from may not be as robust or as plentiful.

James Wood, a 2019-20 NASEF Scholastic Fellow, now a Scholastic Mentor, is a middle school math teacher from Achieve Charter School in Paradise, California. There, he was deputized by the Butte County Office of Education to create the esports program for the local area.

Wood offers some simple do’s and don’ts from his own experiences setting up and running an esports program that has quickly grown from his local region to encompass multiple states.

I started my esports program by basically being deputized by the Butte County Office of Education to make an esports league because there wasn’t an existing structure in place. If you’re in a similar situation to me, you really need to start with the basics, so you don’t get overwhelmed. 

The Do’s 

Do have a timeline. A timeline is one of the most important things to have in the beginning. Participating schools will need lead time to implement everything you’re going to want to do, so account for that. It could be anywhere from two weeks to a couple of months to really get things going.

Do decide in the beginning what game or games you’ll be playing/offering. Students will all have their own preferences for what they like to play, but there are a lot of things you need to take into account as an administrator or teachers hoping to start a program. For me, I teach sixth to eighth grade math, which means my students are around 11 to 13 years old and that we need to avoid games that are more realistic in their violence, such as Call of Duty, Rainbow Six Siege, and even Overwatch. Staying away from first-person shooter games can also make it a lot easier if you’re fighting with a school district to implement an esports program. They’ll often be a lot more receptive if the game is Rocket League or Super Smash Brothers, in which there’s little to no discernable violence.

Do make sure whatever you pick is accessible to your students and your school. Some games may only be playable on PC or cost $60 per license, which may not be feasible for your students or your school district. Cross-platform games are king when you have fewer funds to work with. We chose Rocket League as our game, which satisfied the district, was cheap when we got it (Rocket League is now free-to-play), and is completely cross-platform, meaning that any console or device can play against any other.

One other really nice thing about Rocket League is that there’s no voice chat function. Students will chat if there is an option and eventually that has the potential to become a problem, no matter how much you try to put protections in place. It also adds a layer of protection for your students, so keep that in mind. 

Do check out scholastic esports organizations. NASEF is one organization that has a lot of free toolkits and guides to help you get started. Many of the NASEF affiliate-run leagues also have similar tools and resources that they can share with you as our community is incredibly helpful and open about sharing resources with one another. 

Do make sure you have as many student-led jobs in your clubs as possible. Remember, this is a learning experience for them that will give them skills for their future. If adults are doing all the work, then your program isn’t doing its job. Administrators, teachers, and parents should be there as a safety net to put out the fires when they occur.

Let your students set up the brackets, let them run the tournaments, let them do the marketing for it. Just be that presence that makes sure everything is in compliance and doesn’t get out of hand. Esports provides career opportunities in every industry, so encourage students to explore that as well.

Finally, do make whatever activity you’re doing consistent with regard to a schedule. This is beneficial to students and the parents who are used to knowing their kid has X activity on Y day. A set schedule will help you with attendance, which can be an issue if the schedule is random or unpredictable, and give parents a feeling of legitimacy around your club/program. 

The Don'ts 

You’re likely going to make mistakes along the way, that is a near certainty. Hopefully, though, I can help shed some light on a few things you shouldn’t do.

First up, don’t think your students understand everything relating to technology just because they’re young. One myth that gets repeated all the time is that the younger generation understands technology like the back of their hand. That’s just not true. Students can be just as inept as adults when it comes to tech; for example,  it could be something as simple as registering properly for a tournament that stops them. Try to make things as simple as possible. Being able to record a video cast of how-to do something is an excellent way to head off these issues. 

Don’t expect things to go smoothly the first couple of times around. Much of your learning, and your students’ learning, is going to come from trial and error. Scholastic esports is one gigantic trial by fire right now and winging it the day of a tournament is not a great way to approach it. Plan for as much as you can so you can tackle the unexpected as it happens while the tournament or event is going, such as what to do when a controller dies or if the internet goes out.

Don’t ignore programs such as Discord if your district will allow you to use it. Discord is ubiquitous throughout the gaming and esports world. It’s an incredibly powerful tool for creating like-minded communities, for chatting, for voice chatting, and sharing. However, I’ve seen what happens when you have unfettered chat rooms that can be largely anonymous--it can devolve extremely fast into something that will get students expelled and programs shut down. Many clubs successfully use other platforms such as Google Classroom to share information and message only teachers, so keep that in mind if Discord doesn’t work out. 

As a teacher or administrator, make yourself familiar with Discord and become comfortable using it. Even if you do not use Discord with your students, most leagues and fellow teachers use it for match scheduling, communication, and helping one another, so familiarity with it is a necessity. If using Discord with your students, make sure there are very clear rules and they are enforced. I deputized a few students to assist in this and set up restrictions on the Discord server so only I could invite new members, the ones I verified were my students in my program.

I know this is a lot to take in if you’re looking to get an esports club or program running in your school or local district, but it’s worth it. The “esports edu” community is great about sharing advice and resources; you can also get free help from NASEF and their Affiliate leagues. Scholastic esports is a great way to connect with students who are already playing these games.

If you’re not quite ready to run your own district-wide program that’s not a problem. Look at what programs are already up and running and reach out to those administrators. See if you can join their program or if they’ll help you set your own up. You’re not alone in this and the esports community is extremely helpful when it comes to sharing information and setting up leagues.

James Wood teaches math to sixth to eighth graders at Achieve Charter School in Chico, CA, and he has a passion for all things gaming. He loves to play games with his family on the weekends. At the schools where he has taught, he has started gaming clubs, esports teams and leagues, board game clubs, and even hosted a middle school esports invitational tournament.  

• How to Stay Healthy While Competing in Esports
• Best Gaming Systems for School Esports Programs

Leveling Up: The Esports in Education Conference and Expo will be held virtually on Friday, December 4, 2020.

With a full day of engaging discussions on esports and education and the ability to browse the most innovative esports products in the expo hall, you won’t want to miss this free event!

Here are the products and services you must check out at the show.

For more info on these products, register for Leveling Up.

HP OMEN 25L

The OMEN 25L Desktop PC has a power processor and graphics, for play Day One. And with being easy to upgrade and OMEN Command Center, it’s crafted for the long-term.

Extron XTP Systems

XTP Systems deliver a scalable, future-proof AV infrastructure that accommodates uncompressed 8K resolutions, 4:4:4 color space, and high frame rates.

HDMI Forum

The Ultra High Speed HDMI Cable Certification Program supports HDMI cables that comply with stringent specifications designed to ensure support for all HDMI 2.1 features including 8K@60 and all Enhanced Gaming Features such as VRR, ALLM, and Quick Frame Transport.

Kramer VS-34FD

VS-34FD is a 34-port 8K ready multi-format modular matrix switcher, supporting HDMI, HDBaseT, DGkat, fiber optic, DVI, VGA HD-SDI, as well as analog and digital audio. 

To see all of these products and more, register for Leveling Up at eduesportsexpo.com.

The North America Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF), a partner with Tech & Learning's new Leveling Up Esports Conference & Expo, has announced it will be transitioning to an independent non-profit to continue growth and expansion of the unique education platform.

Through its scholastic esports programs, NASEF has bolstered STEM learning and interest by giving students opportunities to learn and apply skills that are relevant to careers in gaming and other fields. A research team at the University of California, Irvine, demonstrated many measurable impacts on students, including: 

• NASEF students change their views of science overall, increasing STEM Engagement and STEM Career Interest, and their understanding of STEM Value. 
• Students in NASEF increase social awareness of others and relationship skills, largely due to the active role of NASEF coaches and GMs. 
• Students from lower-income schools showed greater educational gains than students from higher-income schools. 

The new independent nonprofit World Wide Scholastic Esports Foundation will be led by a team with experience in esports, technology, and education. The combined industry perspectives will enable NASEF to continue on its growth trajectory. 

Effective January 1, 2021, NASEF will begin operations as an independent entity operated by WWSEF. Core partners will continue their engagement with NASEF. These include: Connected Camps, the Connected Learning Lab at UC Irvine, the Orange County Department of Education (California), and UCI Esports. Interim support will be provided by NASEF's creator, the Samueli Foundation, to provide a seamless transition of programming as well as global expansion. 

Todd Harris is CEO of the new WWSEF. He co-founded Hi-Rez Studios, an industry-leading video game developer, and is also founder and CEO of Skillshot Media, which operates competitive video game competitions. “The esports industry has been thrilled to see NASEF’s growth, as it educates youth about the entire ecosystem of esports and the wide variety of career options. I’m excited to work with the NASEF team to continue to connect play and learning for kids around the world,” he said.

From highly organized events, to tournaments watched by millions, esports is now top of the curriculum at high schools, universities, and now in K12 classrooms across America—which is leading to huge opportunities for AV professionals.

AV Technology, SCN, and Tech & Learning have gathered esports experts for a single-day event on Dec. 4 to give an in-depth insight into the esports audience and how integrators can deliver an esports program to their customers using the latest technological advances. 

Watch the video below to get a quick look at Leveling Up 2020. 

Featuring a virtual exhibit hall from key esports vendors like HP, Extron, Kramer, and more, attendees will have the ability to peruse the most innovative esports products during this single-day event. The exhibit hall will also be open for four weeks after the event, allowing AV professionals to learn more about these products at their leisure.

Here’s a rundown of what's scheduled for Leveling Up: The Esports and Education Conference & Expo. 

Opening Keynote: Esports is More Than a Game: Building an Online Engaged Community

Lori Bajorek is president of the National Esports Association. In her keynote speech she will share first-hand experiences and how the National Esports Association (NEA) is committed to building an online engaged community focused on education, as well as diversity and inclusion. During her 12-year tenure in esports Bajorek has helped pave the way for women in esports and student gamers with disabilities, while promoting a healthy gaming lifestyle beyond the game and encouraging students to play with a purpose. Esports is the great equalizer, whereas all students can be involved in this community, working as a team, building self-esteem and confidence regardless of physical ability or social acceptability. Bajorek will share real-life examples of success stories and advise how esports can play a key role in our current educational challenges, as our students learn in a virtual world.

Click here to learn about Bajorek's thoughts on the value value of esports in education.

How to Get Started with Esports

More and more schools are realizing the benefits to having their students participate in varsity-level esports events, but don’t know how to get started. This session covers what you need to know to get your school competing — from finding the right league to working with AV integrators to build a proper esports arena for your district or university.

Esports in Higher Ed: Making Your Campus Stand Out

This panel will showcase examples of the most cutting-edge esports arenas in higher education and take you through the process of how they got there.

Afternoon Keynote: Understanding the Injury and Health Profiles of Esports Players

Traditional sports medicine has a long history of research related to the best practices needed to keep players healthy and protected from injuries. But when the New York Institute of Technology launched an esports program, Dr. Hallie Zwibel, the university’s athletic doctor, realized there was very little research about how to protect esports players from physical and mental injuries. His team began surveying players and esports squads at colleges across the country and found that many players were not following simple healthy guidelines such as regular movement, adequate hydration, and good sleep habits. They discovered that the sedentary nature of playing esports resulted in obesity (two thirds of esports players are obese), as well as back and neck pain, shoulder and wrist pain, and eye fatigue. In this keynote, Dr. Zwibel will present tips and best practices to help players and coaches better understand how to minimize the physical (and mental) injuries that can result from esports.

Best Tech for Dynamic Esports

This panel will discuss how to build the needed infrastructure for an esports league, your arena, and you team during COVID. Speakers include experts from Extron, HDMI Forum, and more.

Enhancing the Audience Experience with 'Next Reality' Technology

Today the physical experience is no longer separate from the virtual one—we are now living in a hybrid environment, and it’s time to enhance the experiences of live audiences while simultaneously engaging with those that are remote. Diving into the hot topics of AR and VR and producing content for the digital open world, experts will discuss the evolving future of the esports market. Participants will walk away with an understanding of trends and predictions for the market, how the esports audience compares to other traditional markets, and lessons learned from concepts and examples of esports deployments.

Keeping Students Connected Through Esports: Building Community and Culture in Virtual and Hybrid Learning Environments

Esports provides a perfect opportunity for students to build community and friendships, play, and learn in a hybrid model or even completely virtually. In this session, we’ll provide guidance to schools and CBOs on how they can plan for an uncertain school year ahead which may include traditional face-to-face, hybrid, and virtual club interactions. You’ll also hear how esports are a great way to support Social Emotional Learning, and develop important career skills.

Don't Miss Out!

Registration for Leveling Up: The Esports and Education Conference & Expo is free for integrators, consultants, technology managers, educators, and the like. 

Visit eduesportsexpo.com for more information and to register.

When the New York Institute of Technology prepared to launch its esports program a few years ago, Dr. Hallie Zwibel, the university’s team physician and director of its Center for Sports Medicine, had one initial question: What is esports? 

Finding the answer to that question was easy, but his follow-up questions about the well-being of esports athletes were more difficult to pin down. “We quickly realized that you couldn't just retrofit a model for a traditional athlete to an esports player, right?” Zwibel says. “It wouldn't make sense to do training to prevent ACL tears for an esports player.” 

But when he went to consult the medical literature on esports player health, he found it nonexistent. 

“The only thing I could find was about whether esports was a sport or not, which is academically interesting, but didn't help me whatsoever, in terms of the practical nature of what I had to do,” Zwibel says. “We decided to take on the challenge ourselves, and start to do that foundational research that explores what the health and injury concerns are.” 

Examining esports players versus control groups, Zwibel and his team found that most appeared to have healthy BMIs on the surface. However, by using a body composition scanner, which measures muscle mass and body fat, the team discovered that esports players were more likely to be overweight or obese than non-esports players. 

“That sedentary behavior, that lack of movement, is taking a toll on the body,” Zwibel says. 

Esports athletes also frequently experienced eye fatigue and lack of sleep, plus back and neck pain, and shoulder and wrist pain. 

These types of risks are common among esports players, says Chad Weeden, director of Rochester Institute of Technology’s Esports & Cyber Security Range Production Operations. Like Zwibel, Weeden believes more needs to be done to encourage healthy behavior among esports athletes, especially as esports increases in popularity at grade schools and universities. 

“There is a large swath of colleges, I’m talking hundreds, that have spring-up programs,” Wheden says. He adds that many of these programs operate by saying, “‘We’ll grab six athletes, we’ll give them a coach and we’ll call it an esports program.’ They have no idea what they’re doing.” 

Running a safe and productive esports program requires more of a commitment, say both Weeden and Zwibel. The good news is that encouraging safe practices among student-athletes is fairly intuitive. 

“The remedies aren't terribly revolutionary at this point,” Zwibel says. “Some stretching, making sure you're moving around. Making sure you’re not staring at a screen before bed. These things aren't groundbreaking in themselves. But the fact that they haven't been part of the standard or the culture in that community, is why it needs to be spoken about and talked about.” 

Healthy Practices for Esports

One of the first steps to a healthy gamer is a healthy gaming space. 

“Make sure you're limiting glare, that your screen is eye level, with a certain amount of distance between you and your screen,” recommends Zwibel. “Try to have an ergonomic chair, making sure your keyboard is ergonomically designed. We also recommend taking a standing break at least every 45 minutes. And between 20 and 40 minutes, we recommend eye stretches, just to relax the eye muscles.” 

At RIT, “We encourage our athletes to do wrist, fingers, and hand stretches in between sessions,” Weeden says. If it’s a longer session, students are advised to take a break and conduct those exercises. 

Athletes are also encouraged to get at least eight hours of sleep per night, which has been proven to help performance in other sports, and engage in some physical exercise such as walking or running. 

Weeden also says mental health is a focus, and he teaches athletes to learn how to handle stress. “Not all of these athletes have competed in traditional sports in which they're always in front of an audience,” he says. “So it's a different type of stress when you put people on the stage and play in front of an audience, especially at the collegiate level, if they're not used to it.” 

A key for any esports program is to treat it seriously, says Zwibel. 

“If you do invest in a program, especially if you're competitive at a varsity or high school level, It requires attention and should be held to the same standards that you would hold a traditional sports team to, with the appropriate oversight, with the appropriate mentoring and coaching,” he says. “It shouldn't be left alone by itself, which it often is due to lack of understanding.” 

• Best Gaming Systems for School Esports Programs
• What is Esports and How Does it Work in Education?

The San Diego Diplomacy Council’s Fall Signature Event – Global Game On: How Video Games Promote World Peace & Diplomacy – on Friday, Nov. 13 at 5 p.m. PST will focus on how digital diplomacy and video games help close divisive gaps around the world.

In the Zoom event, co-hosted with San Diego chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), attendees will be transported from war to peace: Panelists include Lual Mayen, who fled war-torn South-Sudan and spent 22 years in a refugee camp. As founder of Junub games, Mayen now creates video games that build peace. He will be joined by Kate Edwards, a specialist in content culturalization and 27-year veteran of the gaming industry who currently serves as executive director of the Global Game Jam, the world’s largest annual game creation event; and Dr. Constance Steinkuehler, an American professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, who currently researches the cognitive and social aspects of video games and gaming, and previously advised on policy matters about video games and learning in the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House Executive Office. The event will also feature two representatives from the U.S. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, with welcome remarks from Assistant Secretary of State Marie Royce and moderation by Joshua Shen, strategic designer for interactive media and games.

Then, in partnership with the North America Scholastic Esports Federation, attendees can witness the concept in action, as high school students in San Diego and Mexico participate in the empathy video game “Among Us,” to promote global dialogue and collaboration.

The North America Scholastic Esports Federation will also be partnering with Tech & Learning for the new Leveling Up: The Esports Expo & Conference on December 4th. This event is free for school staff. Learn more here. 

Esports is among the fastest growing industries in the world—and there’s no better time than now to get involved.

On De. 4, AV Technology, Systems Contractor News, and Tech & Learning will co-host a one-day virtual event—Leveling Up: The Esports Conference & Expo—for integrators, consultants, technology managers, and educational professionals that will explore the tools, trends, and experience in esports and education.

What’s esports all about? According to Lori Bajorek, president of the National Esports Association, competitive gaming is more than just a hobby; it’s a catalyst for the development of life skills for a whole generation of young people. “We say ‘play with a purpose,’” she said. “It’s creating an online community of inclusiveness and diversity where we all feel we can win and grow together.”

Bajorek, who delivered the keynote address at the 2020 AV/IT Summit in August and will deliver the keynote at Leveling Up, has years of experience in building structure around foundational youth activities. When her son was in kindergarten, she began partnering with others in her area of Upstate New York to form an afterschool program to cultivate his love for Legos. A few years later, when he became engrossed in Minecraft, she teamed up with Minecraft Education to develop programs and run camps to encourage growth through the game. “I loved the concept of how it was utilizing spatial manipulation and computers, at such a young age,” she said. “And the move into esports [from there] happened very organically.

• What is Esports and How Does it Work in Education?
• How It's Done: eSports In School? Game On!

As her son grew, so did her involvement in gaming programs. Eventually she quit her job selling insurance and focused full-time on esports, launching a nonprofit organization. “I started seeing this amazing evolution in using gamification in the classroom and working with partners such as Microsoft, Minecraft, and some of the bigger ones in the earlier days,” she said. The challenge, at the time, was a lack of unified infrastructure. “There was no pathway to success for esports—I don’t think ‘esports’ was even a word at that point. It was more of a conversation I was having with schools, parents, companies like Microsoft, asking ‘Where are we seeing this going?’”

Bajorek found an answer through the National Esports Association, an entity through which she could help establish a formal curriculum around gaming. Before she arrived and became its president in April of 2019, the organization was “a lot of gamers who thought they knew what they were doing, but who really needed help and guidance and a platform,” she said. “I took the idea and helped to develop the infrastructure and define what it actually means to be the National Esports Association. What do gamers need? What do educational institutions need?”

The association’s primary focus is to help schools establish a foundation to get their esports programs off the ground. This often begins with the most basic of consultations. “When you go into a high school, for instance, and ask, ‘What games do you want to play?’ [sometimes] they’ll say, ‘We want to play esports,’” she said. “So it’s in its infancy.

“Then we talk about their esports lab. Are you playing in your cafeteria? Are you converting your computer lab into a gaming lab? What games are you actually going to use? Do you have someone who is coaching? It’s really developing it all from the ground up.” At the college level, Bajorek said that schools tend to be more informed—with many looking to recruit players on scholarships—but still need help establishing the proper infrastructure.

To help accomplish this, the association works with a number of technology companies, including distributors like Ingram Micro, integration firms like AVI-SPL, and AV manufacturers like Crestron. “That’s something that I’ve had to become an expert in,” she said. “Working with companies like Ingram Micro, but then also the integrators, is so important. I need them desperately. To be able to make a phone call and say, ‘I’ve got this school that really needs your help and guidance.’”

Bajorek said it’s crucial that more companies in the AV industry establish divisions focused on esports, and encourages them to reach out to the National Esports Association for guidance. “That’s one of the things I like working on with companies, helping them develop the educational platform for the people who are selling their products,” she said. “Most what we do is just on the educational side, but that’s what’s so important: understanding how this works in the classroom so you can figure out where your products actually fit in, and where you can help strengthen the mission of what it is that esports is trying to do.”

And in the end, that mission is all about the players. “How do you create that esports structure for teaching healthy gaming habits? How do you integrate gaming into the classroom? And how do you use it to help the digitized youth of today become the future leaders of tomorrow?” she said.

Hear more from Bajorek at Leveling Up: The Esports Conference & Expo on Fri., Dec. 4. 

Registration is free for qualified attendees. To register or learn more, visit eduesportsexpo.com.

Esports is one of the fastest growing industries worldwide -- and making up 61% of the total audience, 13 to 24 year olds are driving the growth.

To explore the tools, trends, and experience in esports and education, Tech & Learning, Systems Contractor News, and AV Technology are co-hosting a one-day virtual event for K-12 and higher education professionals on December 4, 2020. 

The “Leveling Up: The Esports Conference & Expo” will feature dynamic expert speakers from the esports community, including keynote speaker Lori Bajorek, President of the National eSports Association.

 Topics will include: 

• How to start an esports team 
• How esports can support social-emotional learning 
• How to build an inclusive esports community 
• The best gaming systems for esports in education 
• How to connect students virtually through esports 
• AV and esports 
• And more!

The “Leveling Up: The Esports Conference & Expo” program is designed for leaders in K-12, higher education, and pro AV integrators. The event is free for qualified attendees, who can register here.  

Interested in presenting? Submit your proposal before October 2 here.  

Esports has become a proven opportunity for students to develop skills, follow career pathways, and potentially earn scholarships. Find out why so many schools are now supporting gaming within the classroom at “Leveling Up: The Esports Conference & Expo” on December 4! 

• What is Esports and How Does it Work in Education? 
• How Esports Can Support Equity 
• Esports: How to Get Started with Cloud-Based Gaming, Such as Stadia, in Schools 

Esports can be transformative for every student in the school, according to James O’Hagan, director of digital and virtual learning for Racine Unified School District in Wisconsin. 

“Start with the ecosystem around esports, which is broader than the focus on games, players, and equipment,” O’Hagan said. “Think beyond the games. It’s not just a STEM activity. There are other benefits, such as developing social-emotional skills for health and wellness.” He recommended that the students on the team represent and reflect the cross-section of students in the school. 

O’Hagan made his comments during Tech & Learning’s recent Virtual Leadership Summit, as part of a lively panel featuring esports educators who discussed issues around esports, including equity. 

Watch the full session

O’Hagan also recommended taking what kids are doing and combining it with how you want to teach, and to be clear about what you want to accomplish. 

In Racine the goals were to:

•  Redefine the athletic culture 
•  Increase student participation opportunities through diversity 
•  Increase college and career pathways 
•  Promote good physical and mental health 
•  Honor the importance of play 
•  Support the district’s strategic goals through esports 

Choosing Diversity and Inclusion 

Former middle school teacher Carrie Linden is an advocate for esports. Her focus is on diversity and inclusion—making programs inclusive so they represent the student population. During the session, she said that the games environment is quite broad with content creation, production, management, and coaching opportunities. Building these aspects into your program allows for a wider array of student interest. Not all kids self-identify as gamers, so it’s important to build a diverse and inclusive program, she said.

“Although Fortnite has been allowed in many schools, many third-party shooter games are not allowed,” Linden said. “Look for alternative titles, such as Minecraft, to make the games diverse.”

Real diversity is a commitment. “Just letting someone show up does not mean that you are

creating an environment that makes them comfortable—girls or LGBTQs, for example,” Linden said.

Linden advises schools to look at what kids are playing and to make sure their program reflects that. “Put in the time to do your research, change, and adapt as you need to,” she said. Make different demographics more visible when marketing your program.

“Everywhere you’re promoting, do student surveys,” Linden said. A pool of students who aren’t getting their needs met might exist, and surveys will allow you to learn why not. Ask questions, such as:

•  What do you play? 
•  How long do you play? 
•  Who do you play with? 
•  Why haven’t you joined the esports club/team? 

Finding and Working with Partners 

Chris Aviles, edtech coach at Fair Haven (NJ) Schools, started his first middle school esports team three years ago. They didn’t have any competitors in the area so Aviles reached out to Rutgers University, and they played several matches. The middle schoolers began chatting with the college players in a Skype call after the game was over, and asked about what the college students were studying, what their career goals were, and more.

“Esports is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world,” Aviles said. “We keep talking about STEM jobs, and here is a perfect opportunity to learn STEM skills.” He appreciated that the Rutger students took time to mentor his middle schoolers. 

“My kids can follow their gaming passion right through high school and college,” he said. “There are also more traditional jobs within the esports world; it’s not just gamers.”

Aviles’ students were also able to talk to Stockton University’s esports players and about career paths. Some students self-identify as gamers but others are not sure about it. On a campus tour of Stockton, who had recently partnered with the Army, the middle schoolers were able to see a career path into the Army.

“Adults dismiss gaming too easily,” said Aviles. “It is not a waste of time. Find a way to validate what kids are doing.” Aviles pointed out that there are kids with physical or learning disabilities that keep them from playing regular sports who would be interested in esports. 

“It’s important to keep in mind that more than anything, esports is about making kids feel like they belong to something,” he said. “Gaming doesn’t have to be toxic. We are educating the whole student and using social-emotional skills to build them up.”

Considering the Benefits of Collegiate Esports 

Mark Deppe is the director of the esports program at the University of California Irvine. College esports began in 2014 at Robert Morris University in Chicago which is now Roosevelt University.

Now, there are more than 200 schools that offer scholarships for esports—competitive and non-competitive. Deppe outlined important benefits to college esports:

 - Competition is the central pillar. Colleges offer scholarships and coaching opportunities.

- Promoting academics and research with high school and college practitioners.

- Making the world a better place by building diversity, outreach, and elevating women in games.

- Piloting bystander intervention training—how to engage with problematic behavior.

- Content creation and entertainment. Show casting, podcasting, play by play roles.

- Career development. Resume building support, networking nights with the industry, taking raw talent and polishing it.

Deppe concluded by saying that esports provides opportunities for skill building and this helps schools send students out into the world to be the people we want them to be.

• Esports in Schools: How to Get Started with Cloud-Based Gaming
• How to Build an Inclusive Esports Community

Esports is fast becoming a powerful tool in education as schools, colleges, and universities adopt the technology as a way to help educate students. This isn't just for traditional learning though, as it is also a way to help socialize students. 

Research has shown that students who are involved in extracurricular activities are more successful with greater performance and overall well being enhanced.

• Esports in Schools: How it's Done
• How Esports Can Support Equity
• Esports: How to Get Started with Cloud Gaming

The emergence and success of cloud-based gaming has made way for a far more inclusive and accessible way to use esports in education. Since the cloud-based nature of gaming makes it easy to access anywhere and takes the processing power issue away, it works for school budges as less outlay for expensive and powerful computers to get gaming is required.

So why is esports a good idea in education?

What is Esports?

Esports, or Electronic Sports, is a competitive gaming medium that challenges gamers to play against one another to win. Often this involves playing in teams to reach the goal as a unit working together.

While each player uses his or her own gaming system, often a headset is used for communication between gamers. Esports requires teamwork, communication, critical and strategic thinking, creativity, sportsmanship, and leadership—much like traditional sports.

This can all be viewed and heard live online, which has helped esports grow into a spectator sport and a billion dollar industry that's predicted to continue to grow.

How Does Esports Work in Education?

Esports is an extracurricular activity, which means students will need to attend team meetings, practices and official matches. Unlike many other sports, esports can be played remotely so the costs of travel are kept down. This is also a positive for students who don't like change or are unable to travel due to physical or mental health constraints. 

Each school year is divided into two regular seasons across Fall and Spring. Each one of these includes its own playoff season during which the top teams compete in single elimination matches with online finals.

The regular season can be made up of weekly matches and practices. Leagues vary by age group, but some examples include the League of Legends and SMITE, both of which have teams of five, and Rocket League, which has teams of three.

What Equipment is Needed for Esports?

As mentioned, there are many online gaming platforms that offer cloud-based button-bashing action. However, there are still a lot of competitions that will require each player to have a computer that can handle the processing. Either way, a decent internet connection is required to create a smooth and competitive gaming experience. 

The basic needs for an esports gamer are a computer, a keyboard, and a mouse. Additional to that is a gaming headset to communicate, a gaming controller for great personalized controls, and jerseys for the team.

What Are the Benefits of Esports?

Community, friendship, and social advancement are just some of the benefits that esports offer students. A recent Pew Research Report found this to be the case, with 84% of Season Zero players saying that they found a community they could connect with.

In turn, these interactions can help to develop positive social-emotional behavior. Since the sport involves challenges and failures, it can help individuals build resilience and drive, based on achievement. By participating on a team, students learn how to show weakness, seek help, and support others. In short, it teaches empathy through experience.

In terms of academia, an NCES report finds that students who participated in extracurricular activities performed higher on math and reading assignments. In fact, student gamers have show growth in STEM subjects as they spend hours analyzing statistics and strategies that can be applied to real-world experiences. 

One very appealing area of esports is the scholarship program. More than 200 colleges and universities currently offer nearly $15 million in scholarships. Millions of dollars in scholarships and aid have been awarded by The National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE), the main governing body for varsity collegiate esports. 

Career esports opportunities beyond competitor also continue to increase, branching into areas such as broadcasting, marketing, graphic design, multimedia production, hospitality, coaching, and sports management.

What Are the Best Esports Games?

There are plenty of games to pick from and they vary from league to league. Some of the most popular are:

• CS:GO
• Overwatch
• Rocket League
• Super Smash Bros: Ultimate
• Rainbow Six: Siege
• Hearthstone
• NBA2K20
• Madden 20
• Minecraft: Survival Games
• Modern Warfare: Gunfight
• Valorant
• Fortnite

How Expensive is Esports for Schools?

As an investment, eports does take consideration for schools. Aside from the costs of the equipment, there are ongoing league costs in order to be able to compete on the national scale.

PlayVS arrived in April 2018 and allows schools to create esports teams and participate in leagues with near schools. The charge is $64 per student, per league, per season. But that's an expensive example. 

For games such as Rocket League, aimed at K-12 age groups, a school can get licenses for around $20 each when bought as a package of 150.

Fees can be paid by the student's guardian, as it would be for other extracurricular activities. In some cases, schools have funding for costs to be covered so all students get a chance to take part.

Many students already own their own licenses so that fee may not even be a part of the cost for schools.

With 589 million projected to watch esports in 2020 using platforms such as Twitch and YouTube, this is an area that's growing very, very fast.

• Esports in Schools: How it's Done
• How Esports can Support Equity
• Esports: How to Get Started with Cloud-Based Gaming

Community first, competition second. 

That’s the philosophy driving the inclusive esports and gaming initiatives at DreamYard, a Bronx, New York, organization that partners with local schools to help students achieve success through the arts. In November the organization launched “BX Start,” a 4,000-square-foot gaming center in Foxhurst designed to be an inclusive gaming space that fosters students from diverse backgrounds interested in developing gaming careers.

“We’re collaborating with schools and other nonprofits to begin hosting tournaments to provide best practices and informal training to educators and gamers on how to grow healthy esports communities,” says Rudy Blanco, director of entrepreneurship and gaming at DreamYard. Ultimately, Blanco hopes the center will host its own esports tournament next spring. 

Esports has exploded in popularity recently. More than 170 universities have esports programs some of which award substantial scholarships. But despite increasing minority participation and audiences, gaming as a whole remains primarily white and male. About three out of four working in the gaming industry are men, and a similar proportion are white, while 79% identify as heterosexual, according to a survey conducted by the International Game Developers Association. 

Blanco is hoping the gaming community “BX Start” fosters will increase diversity in the industry and create opportunity for Bronx students. Since March the facility has been closed due to the pandemic, but the mission continues to be accomplished through online interactions and gaming events. 

Break the Code

Blanco says there’s a misconception that to have a career in gaming one needs to be a coder and even when most people “Talk about gaming it's through a coding lens.” In reality, he says, “You can be a creative of any type and find an entry point into gaming.” 

“Not everyone has to be tech-savvy or a code talker to be a part of the gaming industry,” says Ronald Gordan, 19, one of Blanco’s former students who now writes for the New York Videogames Critics Circle community and is a student at City Tech College. “Me personally, I’m not pursuing anything in game design or anything like that, but I’m still part of the gaming industry because I review games.” 

Another former Blanco student, Kimari Rennis has gone the coding route, although she says it’s not necessary, and likens the diversity of jobs within gaming to that of making movies. “When you’re making games you need an economic teams, you need people from marketing, you need HR and PR, you need artists, you need people who are skilled in audio,” says Rennis, 18, who writes for New York Videogame Critics Circle and will begin a degree in video game design at New York University this fall. “You need people who are good at writing narrative. There are a lot more things that go into making games beyond programming.”  

Weeding Out the Toxicity

To help ensure physical or online gaming spaces associated with schools are free of toxicity and bullying, Blanco recommends resources provided by raisinggoodgamers.com, an organization dedicated to changing the culture of online gaming. 

“No matter where you go, we know that toxicity is going to be there,” Blanco says. “The bullying will happen. And we, as adults, can’t assume we’re going to be there when it does happen, so the only recourse we have is to train leaders, which we do at DreamYard.”

To develop gaming spaces that are also safe for LGTBQIA and minority students, DreamYard tasked a group of young people to design a server that focused on best practices. “They interviewed users, researched inclusive digital spaces, and are currently building a server with some inclusive practices baked in,” said Blanco. “The key is to build youth moderators that can grow into the role of guarding and holding safe spaces.” 

Rennis says that in a school setting the games you choose matter for inclusivity. 

“In all my years of going to video game clubs, they seem to attract 99 percent boys and I’m the only girl, and that’s because a lot of the games are really geared toward a male audience and that really pushes away a lot of the girl gamers,” Rennis says. School gaming clubs tend to focus on highly competitive fighting games, which she says may not be as appealing to women. Games such as Mario Kart and some of the motion Nintendo Wii-style games, are examples that are more casual and that everybody can fit into, she says.

Embrace Online Community and Resources 

Before the pandemic DreamYard’s programs were exclusively in the high school, Blanco says.  Now that they are hosting online gatherings and gaming events, they are being beamed into student’s homes, which has its advantages. He says they are frequently connecting with their students’ younger siblings and getting the whole family excited about gaming. 

Gaming also provides online educational opportunities. As a high school student, Rennis worked with the School of Interactive Arts, a free program that partners with schools. “You can learn coding and enter gaming competitions,” she says. Through her work in the program, Rennis won a game design award, which helped get her into the industry. Other gaming resources she recommends include Mouse, Harvard’s free game development course, and New York University’s Future Game Designers. 

Changing the Narrative

Gamers are sometimes taunted and called “no lifers” by other kids, Rennis says, and there are a lot of misconceptions, even from adults, about how much opportunity there is in the gaming industry. “This is a valid career path and more non-gamers need to understand that,” she says. 

“This is a career and just as with pursuing a doctorate, it takes a lot of time.” 

The vast amount of opportunities is why Blanco is passionate about encouraging underrepresented students to pursue gaming journalism and game writing paths that emphasize narrative skills. “My perspective here is if we train writers to tell stories, we can change the story,” Blanco says.

Rudy Blanco will be one of the presenters at Leveling Up: The Esports Conference & Expo on December 4, 2020. The event is designed for leaders in K-12, higher education, and pro AV integrators, and is free for qualified attendees, who can register here.  

Video gaming as part of education took a huge leap forward when recent events forced teaching online, with esports playing a significant part. Thanks to advanced cloud-based platforms, such as Google Stadia and Microsoft Project xCloud, schools are now able to affordably offer a place for students to take advantage of esports and game-based learning without the need for expensive hardware.

Google Stadia offered up its pro membership free to anyone with a Gmail account, something that is also free for any student to sign-up for. Registration includes a nine-game bundle for free at the time of publishing.

• eSports in School: How It's Done
• Top 50 Sites & Apps for K-12 Education Games

One of the most stand-out modern examples of a quality game that can be used for education is Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, which is set in ancient Greece. The game has a mode called Discovery Tour that lets the player explore the interactive historic world without the story, missions, or combat playing a part. 

Students can take a virtual tour of this ancient land, visiting famous sites and cities. Quizzes can be used to check learning as the player progresses along the exploration.

This is one example and there are plenty more available. But why is cloud-based gaming so important to make this work?

Cloud-Based Gaming and Esports Works for Everyone

One of the important things about cloud-based gaming, with platforms such as Google Stadia, is the online nature of the processing. All of the data crunching is done in the cloud on powerful servers so the device being used by the teacher or student need not be powerful. This results in high-quality and detailed experiences with immersive graphics being available to more users.

With popular online games such as Minecraft, owned by Microsoft, offering an education mode for free from June 2020, using games for lessons has also become easier than ever.

Of course, a decent internet connection is required, since the crunched data needs to flow as freely as possible with minimal lag for a smooth interactive experience. 

School technology developments typically move slowly, due to factors such as cost and roll-out hurdles. Cloud-based gaming side-steps a lot of these problems, allowing for a faster and wider uptake. 

Cloud-based esports and gaming has also been turbo boosted by COVID-19 and the need to moving education-related and extracurricular activities online. 

How Fast Does My Connection Need to be for Cloud-Based Esports and Gaming?

Cloud-based esports and gaming speed requirements will vary depending on the platform used and even the game being played. It will also vary based on the quality of resolution or frame rate at which the game is running.

As a rough guide, Google Stadia is a good example of the top-end.

For Google Stadia, a minimum connection requirement is 10 Mbps, which allows for high-quality 720p 60 FPS gaming. For 1080p HD at 60 FPS, 20 Mbps is needed, and for 4K ultra high-quality gaming, a minimum speed of 35 Mbps is best.

By comparison, Minecraft can be played on older smartphones and tablets.

How is Playing Esports a Part of Education?

The esports gaming revolution is predicted to reach 307 million viewers by 2021 and schools are embracing this movement. Students in many schools have formed clubs to participate in leagues, and universities increasingly offer esports as a varsity program.

Positives associated with esports gaming include improved hand-eye coordination, visual-spatial reasoning, and self-esteem. If students reach the pro level, there can be travel and scholarship opportunities.

Other positives include how esports can support equity and also offer a way for growth through meaningful social interaction when played in schools where a child might otherwise be playing alone at home.

Improved graduation rates and learning outcomes, thanks to participation in extracurricular activities, are also huge positives. 

Are there Problems with Esports in Learning?

Of course all this is to be carried out responsibly. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) gave screen time recommendations in 2020 that recommend that those under the age of five should be limited to an hour per day of non-educational screen time and for those over that age, "encourage healthy habits and limit activities that include screens." 

This comes down to concerns about good mental health, physical activity, sleep, and familial relationships. Balancing these factors with screen time is something that parents and teachers have expressed concerns over, with Minecraft specifically being an issue.

But when these issues are monitored and balanced, there is a clear positive that can be attained through gaming and esports in education.

How Schools Can Participate in Cloud-Based Gaming

The process for getting started in cloud-based gaming and esports is fairly simple and very affordable. A school or educator can setup a club for playing in teams, or teachers can set tasks based on gaming. For example, a quiz all about Greece, based on the above mentioned Assassin's Creed: Odyssey game could be much like a quiz taken after a real-world field trip.

The actual access part is also relatively simple. In the case of Google Stadia, the account is free, so students can simply use their Gmail login, or sign-up for free. This is perfect for those schools already using Google Classroom. The fact it comes with free games means getting up and running immediately is a free process – ideal for anyone wishing to trial gaming in education.

For educators wishing to try the Microsoft Project xCloud, this will require an Xbox Game Pass in order to get access. While there will be more than 100 titles available on mobile and tablet, it requires a $14.99 monthly subscription.

Hardware-limited, non cloud-based gaming platforms, such as PlayStation Now and Steam, are available, but these can be expensive and not tailored to education. That said, many students may already own these devices and have the required subscriptions, so it can provide an option. As already well-established platforms, there are lots of titles available and free games.

The Future is Bright for Cloud-Based Esports and Gaming

With the big names of Microsoft and Google already well committed to cloud-based gaming and esports, this looks set to change the way games are played. As internet connections improve, the need for dedicated gaming hardware becomes less critical. It also connects with smartphone-based gaming, which younger children are growing up with as their primary gaming point of contact.

All that means cloud-based gaming and esports are set to grow in terms of availability and content, which will drive down costs. Those factors will create more opportunities for educators to incorporate both into school. 

• eSports in School: How It's Done
• Top 50 Sites & Apps for K-12 Education Games

In September 2018, my school district approved the creation of my FH Knights esports team, the first middle school esports team in the country. We are currently taking on all comers in Rocket League. 

Over the last two years, I’ve learned a lot about running an esports team and the value of esports in education. 

Equity: Esports is for Everyone 

Esports should be in every school for many reasons. It is a great way to teach social-emotional learning, and can help kids build school competency, and find a pipeline to college. 

One of the best things about esports, however, is how accessible it is. Esports tends to draw students uninterested in traditional sports, including those who may have learning disabilities, physical handicaps, or be on the spectrum. 

Esports also is popular with students of color, LGBT students, and less affluent students as well. A Northwestern University study found, on average, black students game 30 minutes more per day than white students, while Latinx students game 10 minutes more. The Nielsen Company reports that 65% of all LGBT consumers play games of any type, slightly edging out heterosexual players (63%). Multiple studies have found that children from lower income families game more than their more affluent counterparts. 

Chances are you have an under served population that is looking for a place to call home within your school. Esports can be that place. Once we can connect with these traditionally under served students through the gaming they love, we can use it to create better learning outcomes for everyone. 

The Esports-STEM Connection 

If we are serious about placing students in STEM careers, we need to be serious about esports. Esports is the fastest-growing industry in the world, and many of the highly coveted STEM careers schools talk about will be found in or tangential to esports. Esports has also been shown to improve skills associated with STEM such as problem solving, critical thinking, and concentration. A recent poll of high school students currently involved with their school’s esports program showed that more than 50% of those students intend to major in STEM subjects when they get to college. Through esports, we can even provide hands-on experience before they get there.

The North American Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF) has done a great job helping spread awareness of STEM careers in esports. As a NASEF Fellow, I work to help promote the idea of the team behind the team. I have a competitive esports team that plays other schools and colleges, but I also have a team behind my esports team, made up of strategists, organizers, content creators, and entrepreneurs--roles my students take on to help support the team. 

These are roles students can fill in the real world. My student entrepreneurs undertake projects such as marketing our events on social media and designing our jerseys. Our content creators host podcasts, edit video, and design promotional flyers. Our strategists keep stats in a spreadsheet and analyze video of our opponents to help develop a game plan. Our organizers keep our devices updated and troubleshoot technical issues. 

Overcoming the Equity Gap 

When you think of esports, or are being pitched by the edtech companies on the technology needed to bring esports to your district, it can seem as if you need to spend thousands of dollars on flashy computers. That’s a common misconception. 

Think outside the Xbox. In the middle school esports league I’ve organized, of the almost 30 middle schools involved, more than two thirds of teams are run using devices, such as Xbox Ones, that students bring from home. 

Find outside funding. Schools in my league have funded programs through the PTA and even Donors Choose. Because esports and STEM play so well together, many schools have received STEM grants to create their esports team. A close friend and talented educator, Sandra Paul, Director of IT and Operations for Union Public Schools in New Jersey, worked with her leadership team to fund esports through a Title I grant. You didn’t need to spend a lot of money to start an esports team. 

Adapt resources already on hand. The answer to your equipment needs may already be in your school or district. Many schools have already invested in high-end computers for their STEM program, and a laptop computer or PC that can be used for STEM activities such as 3D design, video editing, or virtual reality, can probably run your esports game of choice. If not, a great way to convince stakeholders to purchase these devices is to highlight their crossover use as both esports and STEM machines.

Reach out to the gaming community. If you can’t bring the computers to you, go to the equipment! Many businesses and colleges rent or donate space to scholastic esports teams. Microsoft hosts schools in their stores. Here in New Jersey, colleges and Lan Centers provide spaces for esports teams to practice. Find out what is nearby and see if they would be willing to work with your team. 

As it often goes in education, where there’s a will, there’s a way. If you want to start an esports team, you can make it happen. And you should make it happen--your students want and need esports, and all the opportunities that come with it, in your school. 

Curious about esports and what it can offer your students? We chat with Dr. Anthony Betrus, Professor of Educational Technology and Management at SUNY Potsdam and presenter of TED Talk “Esports are Real Sports,” about how to create a successful esports program.

Who: SUNY Potsdam esports Team—Watch on Twitch

Where: State University of New York at Potsdam, NY

What: Esports Builds Teammates and Content Creators

SUNY Canton’s winning program paved the road for us and our president, Kristin Esterberg, has been amazingly supportive and committed to helping us out. I’ve been teaching "Teaching and Learning with Simulation and Games" since 1995—it was my primary research area, so it was a natural fit. It took off quickly. I’d heard stories, and ”You’ll be amazed how many join in!” Sure enough, that’s what happened.

I scared them a bit at first. “If you're going to do this you can't go halfway. This isn’t sitting on the couch gaming. Esports is different, you're committing to being good.” 

We had a motto: Commit. Persist. Learn. I expected to lose everything the first semester, like any new organized sports team, it would be a development year. You lose and you learn. I didn't expect them to be as good as they were. Maybe it was creating a positive culture, a bit of good fortune, but we got all the way to the quarter finals (lost to the winner) of the ECAC (Eastern College Athletic Conference) Super Smash Brothers. Super exciting.

Our focus is on empowering students to take control. Not a top down instructor-driven thing, esports is a great opportunity to practice letting them fail forward, encourage growth. Be involved. Just like most other coaches, the adult in charge of the program becomes a bit of a parent, becomes a role model and a shoulder for the kids. We’re truly a team.

• What is Esports and How Does it Work in Education?
• How to Build a Higher Ed Esports Program

Positive Results

First we focused on competing—“Commit. Persist. Learn.” Having laid the groundwork and achieved while competing, this semester we are focusing on streaming and content creation. Being a content creator is a huge part of esports and it’s our theme for the whole program now: “Perform. Create. Inspire.“ We’re getting everyone on the microphone, editing video, setting up equipment, managing social media. 

We’re also developing a dual enrollment course in content creation that can be taught online, helping high schools learn the skills with a media and digital literacy focus.

Biggest Challenge

There's definitely a learning curve with streaming. We've had lag with our wifi, so we use wired connections, but even then there can be stuttering, which can be catastrophic. There are so many settings! Infinite settings. Audio/Visual needed to be synched, our digital capture card might wonk in and out, trying to split video so it can be viewed locally and on the stream simultaneously.

Right now, the esports Rule Set needs a lot of work when it comes to consistency. We've ran into issues where the rules are unclear, or some teams enforce the rules one way while others use another. Then there's all the ways people can get around the rules—where rules aren’t explicitly written, but it is understood what you shouldn’t do but there's no referee to call them out. I give the ECAC a lot of credit.  They've partnered with LeakSpot to manage things and they are very responsive and adapting very quickly. 

Esports is in its infancy so these things will get ironed out.

Pro Tips

I did a TEDTalk to kick things off, a heart-to-mind thing. My tip is to watch “Esports is Real Sports.” 

Start with the president right down the reporting structure through athletics so everybody can gain a rudimentary understanding of what esports truly is. Don’t create a second-class citizen. Support it as you would any another club sport (if that’s what it is, some schools categorize it as varsity). While there is some crossover with sport kids, many of these kids never would have been varsity athletes and they are used to the school system not valuing what they do. They are expecting the administration and the adults in the organization to not get it, to not understand what they can offer. You have to overcome that, you have to be engaged. It’s not difficult; talk to them, learn a little, show interest and be positive.

There is a lot of ignorance about what esports is. Trust that it's valuable. After that, amazing things can happen.

Finding Funding

Residence Life kicked in enough money to get the gaming lounge started (we made it accessible to all students in order to qualify for those funds), we did a kickstarter-like GiveCampus campaign to raise money for jerseys, and student government pitched in funds to cover some of the equipment. 

We used an existing Final Cut Pro subscription, and when our soundproofing was off, took an Amish clothes rack and covered it with a thick SUNY Potsdam blanket. Junkyard engineering—you do what you can without a budget.

What's Next

As part of our developing Digital Content Creation course, we are making little animated ‘leaders,' ready to cheer the team on. Using Oculus Medium 3D Creation, we’re making animated mascots. Bringing those to a program called Mixamo, you can tap 8-9 critical joints (elbow, hips, wrist, etc) and attach movement, make it dance. Between those and Photoshop 3D, there are infinite number of dances so if we win, they can come out and do a little celebration dance, a different movement if we lose. 

Tech Tools

• Super Smash Bros./Fortnite/League of Legends/Overwatch
• Clips Videos
• Streamlabs OBS
• Final Cut Pro
• Adobe Photoshop
• Oculus Medium 3D creation
• Mixamo
• Twitch
• Instagram
• Youtube
• Twitter

Regardless of whether it’s a parental video conference, teaching remotely during the coronavirus crisis or an esports tournament, to fully participate you need to communicate effectively. By combining good quality audio with a removeable microphone and a way to prevent hearing loss, the PuroGamer Volume Limited Gaming Headset fits right into the school scene.

At 12.5 ounces, the black headphone has heavily padded earmuffs and adjustable headband that should feel comfortable on anyone from the smallest third grader to the bulkiest high school wrestler. Its microphone stalk plugs in and the gooseneck can be moved around to put the omnidirectional mic in front of the user’s mouth. When it’s plugged in, the blue LED glows and successfully filters out some of the room’s ambient noise, making it very helpful in a crowded classroom.

While the earmuffs can’t be replaced, the headset’s microphone stalk is not only removable but can be quickly swapped if it’s lost or broken. New ones cost $20.

Related story: Kid-Safe Friendly Headphones

Ear-Friendly Headphones

The PuroGamer Volume Limited Gaming Headset uses a set of 40-millimeter drivers that deliver audio from 20- to 18,000 hertz, close to the range of human hearing. Happily, the PuroGamer restricts the amount of sound it produces to 85 decibels, the World Health Organization’s recommendation for the maximum volume that kids should experience and could limit the damage done to young ears.

The PuroGamer Volume Limited Gaming Headset comes with a 55-inch braided USB/analog audio cord and lacks the ability to connect over Bluetooth for when cables might get in the way. There’s a thoughtful control module on the cord for adjusting the microphone’s volume, muting it and going between its USB and headphone jacks. Many competitors make you buy either, but the PuroGamer provides both digital and analog connections. Unfortunately, the headset’s switches are stiff and once, when I thought it was on, the mike was actually muted.

It all worked well with an Asus desktop computer, an Acer Chromebase 24 and Lenovo Thinkpad T470 with crisp audio. Its midrange response is surprisingly strong, but it came up short in terms of rendering the high notes of music. This makes it great for conversations and spoken word programming, like creating podcasts or working through a digital language course. On the downside, the PuroGamer’s performance was marred by annoying pops and static when using a headphone adapter and an iPhone XR phone; it worked fine with an iPad Pro and Samsung Galaxy Note 10, however.

By the same token, the PuroGamer’s microphone delivered excellent sound, although you need to keep it close to your mouth. It came into its own during some eSports practice with all those online were able to hear what I was saying through the PuroGamer headset.

The headset includes a storage bag, but its one-year warranty falls short of the two-years of coverage included with HyperX headsets. Still, at $70, the Puro Gamer is an inexpensive way to hear and be heard.

A-

More: PuroSound

A lot of schools have loads of questions about starting an esports team. Monitor-maker Viewsonic has many of the answers on a page that can help get a school’s eSports program up and running. 

In addition to a rundown of the benefits of having a school esports team, Viewsonic has advice that ranges from finding the right teacher to sponsor the team to recruiting players. There’s even posters available to help get the word out.

More: Viewsonic

Acer America invites TCEA 2020 attendees to the following sessions to learn more about advanced tech for their schools and classrooms, and for the chance to win Acer products:

Esports Experience Area: Acer to host Q&A and competition demos highlighting why Esports is becoming the fastest-growing activity in K-12 education as a way to support STEAM curriculum. The emphasis will be on student participation including game play, management, content creation, shoutcasting, promotions and more.

• Feb 4, 3-5pm: Reception, Q&A
• Feb 4, 5-7pm: League of Legends, University of Texas, El Paso Demo Competition
• Feb 5, 1-3pm: Demo Competition
• Feb 5, 3-3:30pm: Transforming Screen Time to Learning Time with eSports
• Feb 6, 1-3pm: Demo Competition

Sessions Room M6: During the following educational sessions, a winner will be chosen to win a Chromebook Tab 10 (9 winners) or a TravelMate Spin B118 (1 winner). See the full schedule and sign up here.

• Building Student STEAM skills with Acer Repair Certification eLearning Program
• Transforming Screen Time to Learning Time
• Student Centered Learning with Inclusive Microsoft Education Tools
• Exploring the Chrome App Hub Ecosystem: This session is one of the first to include hands-on training on Google’s new Creativity apps for Chromebooks. It will address how these apps can be quickly deployed and easily managed at scale with the Google Admin Console. As one of Google’s select launch partners, Acer is committed to helping teachers and administrators empower their students with these new powerful creativity tools.

Products Highlighted

Acer will highlight new products for education customers during the above sessions:

• The ConceptD 7 is Acer’s notebook for creative uses including graphic design, film/photo editing, and shoutcasting Esports tournaments. Features include a 9th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 graphics, a 4K UHD PANTONE Validated display with 100% Adobe RGB color gamut and Delta E <2 color accuracy.
• The Acer C871 Chromebook tackles complex classes like coding with up to 10th-Gen Intel Core i3 processors and extra vertical viewing space on the 3:2 aspect ratio display. It meets MIL-STD 810G standards and offers a reinforced hinge, shock-absorbing bumper, and a keyboard with mechanically anchored keys and more.
• The Acer Predator Triton 500 features NVIDIA G-SYNC technology, a 15.6-inch 300 nit-display with a 144Hz refresh rate, an overclockable NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPU with Max-Q design and a 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H processor.

More information on Acer products for education can be found at Acer America’s education site.

“Put down that textbook and get on your Nintendo Switch!” 

Not exactly the usual convo between parent and student, but for 330 4th through 6th graders at Anaheim Elementary, their love of gaming is getting top marks.

Who: Cory Robertson, Directory of Technology

Where: Anaheim Elementary School District, Anaheim, CA

What: Creating an eSports-based Curriculum

I've been a gamer since I was five and have always been a part of the gaming community, but I noticed that the online discourse was getting more and more toxic. I worried that the culture that brought me so much joy growing up was no longer a place I could allow my own kids. In education, we have spent 20 years teaching kids how to be good digital citizens—how to hold online discussions, ignore rude/bullying posts, avoid chat rooms—yet, we don't have any formal instruction based in the gaming world. That's where our program comes in.

"Nurturing Positive Gamers" is 9-week curriculum for 4th- through 6th-graders focused on the social-emotional learning aspects of gaming. We teach kids how to maintain positivity through tough gaming interactions, how to provide critical feedback, how to deal with confrontations, and more. The program culminates in a district-wide tournament (our kids play Rocket League via Nintendo Switches), in which students get an opportunity to put to test all that they've learned.

Positive Results

We're seeing lots of positive results with student behavior and confidence. Many participants who many not have been excelling in traditional ways in the classroom have become leaders of their Rocket League Team. Students who were constantly talking in class have become Shoutcasters and now have an entire auditorium of 400 adults laughing and yelling along with them as they broadcast from the stage. Our teachers advocated for these students to be a part of the program and, with almost no exception, those kids have become leaders, role models, and have something to be proud of at school. They felt success during a school day in a way that they rarely ever do.

Games are a great place to express yourself. Like to draw? Love music? Interested in the functions of technology and audio-video systems? There’s a career in gaming for you. It’s all about choice and options, and making sure every child in our district knows they have a place in this world.

Biggest Challenge

One of the biggest challenges was getting parents on board. I heard quite a few parents say different versions of, "You mean I spend all my time at home telling my child to NOT play video games, and now you're asking them to play at school?!?"

To address this, we held parent meetings. Once we explained the job opportunities, the college scholarships, and the reality that their kids will play games online—and that we are ensuring that they do so in a positive way—we had more than a few parents say that they wished we'd started earlier. Based on that feedback, we are exploring a modified version of the program for younger kids.

For students under 13, there are state and federal restrictions on what platforms we can use so as to avoid inappropriate content and communications. This effectively ruled out Playstation, Xbox and PCs. Nintendo Switch inherently blocks all online communication, and the ad hoc wireless options makes the eSports program portable and systematically feasible for our large district (23 sites, more than 16,300 students).

Pro Tips

Start small. We've held gaming tournaments (through coding) for a decade so it was easy for us to add this layer to an already established program. If just one teacher is excited by this, then start it up!

Don’t be afraid to reach out to industry representatives. I found veteran professional gamer JoMo Senpai simply watching Twitch on a Friday night with my boys. I reached out to ask if I could use one of his videos in our lesson. Not only did he say yes, but he offered to speak to our kids and may come to do in-person coaching with our Shoutcasters. We also reached out via Twitter to Psyonix (the developers of Rocket League, or "dev"), caster Adam "Lawler" Thornton, and others. People involved in the industry know that the future thrives on the kids who are playing now, and that we all benefit from our kids learning.

Finding Funding

We paid for the technology utilizing general funds. The total cost for the six schools was $12,000. The curriculum was created in house.

Tech Tools

Nintendo Switches (durable, wireless offline multiplayer options)

Rocket League (non-violent, team soccer-like format, with a pro gaming community presence)

Google Meet (to stream our lessons)

Gaming Career Partners

Twitch streamers—JoMo Senpai 

Rocket dev— Psyonix

Professional eSports shoutcasters— Adam "Lawler" Thornton 

Logo design and branding of teams—Laura Houston, VAPA TOSA

Game music creation—Mark Anderson, music specialist

Video production—Brian Brooks, media services supervisor  

The National Future of Education Technology® Conference (FETC®) today announced a program partnership with the National Association of Esports Coaches and Directors (NAECAD) that will bring professional development content covering esports programs to FETC 2020. The sessions are part of the conference’s Future of Ed Tech Administrator track and are designed to give leaders an understanding of how to create, finance and manage successful esports teams and programs in their schools.

NAECAD is the primary professional organization for competitive esports coaches and directors at all levels of competitive play, including club, high school, college and professional. 

Sessions on Wednesday, January 15

• Esports Programs: How to Start and Make an Impact on Campus Stakeholders―This session, presented by Kurt Melcher, will look at the “why” of starting an esports program, as well as the exploding growth and early stages of development of K-12 competitive esports.
• Esports Financing: Fundraising, Finding Corporate Sponsors, Budgeting―Presented by Chris Haskell, this session will explain how schools have raised more than $750,000 from some of the most unlikely sources to build their first-year esports programs.
• Esports: Understanding the Athletes, Fans, and Gaming Culture―Presenters Ramsey Jamoul and Jonathan Long will help participants understand how esports athletes develop and what makes the difference between good and great performers.

Sessions on Thursday, January 16

• Esports Technology: Hardware, Infrastructure, and Games―Presenter Josh Pann will explain how to design a practice and competition space that can easily expand as the K-12 esports program grows, what games to play, how to purchase them and what support is needed.
• Esports Arenas and Facilities: What to Build and How to Build It―This session, presented by Michael Jones and Derek Spinell, will cover the key elements of building an esports arena and facility to give the K-12 esports program an excellent practice and competition space. 
• Esports Organization: The Benefits of Joining an Esports Association―Presenters Mark Deppe and Gerald Solomon will discuss the benefits and resources the North America Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF) brings to schools starting scholastic esports programs.
• Esports in K12: What, Why, and How!― In this panel discussion with J Collins, Liz Newbury and Steve Isaacs, participants will get up-to-speed on the rapid growth of esports: what it is, why it matters and how to participate. 
• Esports Athletes: Recruitment, Retention, and Scholarships―Presenters Dana Hustedt and Jay Prescott will explain the ins and outs of the process of recruiting and retaining student-athletes for esports programs in middle and high school.

Sessions on Friday, January 17

• Esports Leadership, Vision, and Program Development Panel Discussion―This panel will feature Chris Aviles, Mark Deppe, Kurt Melcher, Jason Bauer and Dana Hustedt, and will take a deep dive into topics such as creating campus interest and developing a proposal to add an esports program, developing a budget, hiring a coaching staff, and much more.
• Esports Case Studies: The Good, the Great, the Challenges―This session, presented by Chris Aviles and Steve Isaacs, will describe the evolution of esports at two different schools; lessons learned about what it takes to develop, grow and manage a program; and the “gotchas” and “wish-we’d-have-knowns” from experience with esports.

In addition to the esports session content at FETC 2020, the conference’s Expo Hall will feature FETC’s first-ever Esports Arena, powered by CDW-G. The interactive arena will provide attendees an opportunity to engage in live game play and discover the types of equipment and furniture available to create high-quality esports facilities. They will also have opportunities to attend presentations and participate in demonstrations throughout the conference. 

FETC 2020 will take place from January 14-17 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, Fla.  The conference will feature keynotes by Daniel Pink and Justin Shaifer, along with the return of the popular TechSHARE LIVE!, presented by Adam Bellow, Hall Davidson, Leslie Fisher and Kathy Schrock. For additional information and to register, educators and administrators can visit fetc.org/register or call toll-free 1-800-727-1227.  Attendees are encouraged to register before December 7, 2019, to save up to $100 by securing the Early Bird rate.

K-12 schools, colleges and universities are scrambling to meet student demand for eSports programs that teach essential career and life skills. Strategic thinking and problem solving are the foundation for competitive eSports, technical careers, and post-graduate success.

More than 250 colleges now offer scholarships to eSports players, and some schools are developing undergraduate degrees. eSports is currently a $4 billion industry that is exploding.

Download this informative interview to learn:

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In 1998, when I was in 8th grade, Blizzard released Starcraft. Starcraft was my first introduction to esports. My friends and I loved Starcraft. We would bring our computers to each other’s houses and play after school or sports practice. It wasn’t long before Starcraft blew up around town and the local computer store started to host Starcraft LAN tournaments. My friends and I would play in as many tournaments as we could. Even when we didn’t win, we still loved the competition and cheering for each other. 

In 2011, I went to my first professional esports tournament. There was a Starcraft II tournament at Caesars casino in Atlantic City. My friends and I, the same friends I’ve been playing games with since 1998, decided to go check it out. The tournament had light effects, smoke machines, entrance music, walkouts, jumbo trons, and live casting. The capacity crowd knew every player by name and would chant and cheer for their favorite players. It was awesome. I never knew esports existed on that level. By 2011, I’d already been teaching for five years. I’d been coaching varsity football, wrestling, and track for five years, too. As someone who has a foot in both the esports and traditional sports world, Atlantic City was a wake up call: we need esports in education.

I’ve played video games competitively since Starcraft in 1998. I was a three sport athlete in high school, played sports in college, and I have more than a decade of varsity coaching experience under my belt. So I feel qualified to say that esports can be as valuable for our students as “real” sports are. Since 2011, after that trip to Atlantic City, I was determined to help bring esports to education. Seven years later, I finally got the chance.

In September 2018, after six months of planning, my school district approved the creation of my FH Knights esports team. The FH Knights are the first middle school esports team in the country. We are currently taking on all comers in Rocket League. I say all comers because as the first middle school esports team in the country there were no other middle schools to play, so I scheduled colleges. For our first match, I reached out to Rutgers University to see if they would play us. To my surprise, they agreed. The first middle school esports match ever was actually against a college. We got our doors blown off.

Even though we got trounced, the fact that a middle school team took on a college team got a lot of coverage in the press. My kids and I did some interviews including interviews for NBC and PBS. Flying high on the back of our coverage, I reached out to a friend, Steve Issacs, who had a video game club at his middle school. I asked him if he could put together a Rocket League team to play against my kids. A couple weeks later, the first true middle school vs. middle school match happened. We played each other a few more times that year and even played another middle school from Pennsylvania who we inspired to start their own team. While we didn’t play many matches that first year, I learned a lot as a coach. We will be even better this year. Most importantly, though, over the last 18+ months running an esports team I learned the three reasons why every school should have an esports team.

1. Esports is a great way to teach the soft stuff and the hard stuff

Esports is a great place to teach students the soft stuff. Leadership, communication, teamwork, and how to win and lose with class are just some of the soft skills that can be taught through esports. The value of teaching Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) through esports is proven, but it isn’t new. Mindfulness and SEL training is being done at the collegiate and pro level, so it is only natural that it is trickling down to the high school and middle school level. Some of the more advanced K12 esports programs are starting to teach how nutrition and exercise can improve performance and how players can avoid becoming triggered, playing tilted, and handle toxicity when gaming. There is no doubt that esports is a great way to improve students skills set and social and emotional learning. While we should continue to teach and grow the soft stuff through esports, it is important, maybe more so, that we are teaching the hard stuff at the middle school and high school level. 

We as adults have done a terrible job teaching kids how to navigate the internet and internet culture. While an overwhelming majority of what goes on on social media, the comment sections of websites, and forums like Reddit on the internet is fine, if not downright boring, there is a subsection of the internet that is a toxic place full of horrible people. Horrible places on the internet filled with racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Horrible places that use meme culture to recruit kids into white supremacist groups and places that celebrate school shooters and other acts of terror. It is our duty as teachers to help keep students safe and identify hazards. Having an esports team, which is likely to be full of internet savvy students, is a great place to tackle the tough but important cultural issues our students face on a regular basis that fly under most adults radar. The usual Digital Citizenship curriculum is not enough. We need to be there to help unpack their experiences on the internet and model behavior so they can remain safe. Esports is also a way to educate our most vulnerable students. 

2. Esports builds a sense of belonging 

When I first started my esports team, I was surprised to see who came out. Not a single student was playing a sport nor did they have any home/school connection. They weren’t involved in any clubs either. Mostly, my kids went home after school everyday and played video games by themselves. The best part about starting my esports team is watching my kids develop a sense of belonging. The community that I’ve built around esports at my school has given them a new social group to be a part of. Instead of playing alone, my kids generally game together outside of school. After our matches, they often go out for a slice of pizza together. It is the sense of community and belonging that is esports greatest strength since the kids who may need to feel like part of something the most, aren’t getting it anywhere else.

I helped facilitate this sense of community in a few key ways. The first is making sure we have a code of conduct. Your esports team has to be a safe place for everyone. Laying out how we are going to treat each other is an important first step to building a community of caring. Second, one of the first things I did as coach was buy my kids team jerseys. Watching them walk down the halls collecting high fives in their sweet-looking esports jerseys is a thing of beauty. Finally, I’m tough on them. I’m tough in two ways. I’m tough because I have tied eligibility to grades, attendance, and behavior. If students don’t show up or act appropriately they could be benched, suspended, or removed from the team. I’m also tough in what I expect. Just like when I coach my traditional athletes, I am all over my kids. I’m always telling them they can work harder or they can be better. Being tough on them is a way of showing how much you care about them and believe in them. Having tough team rules around attendance and behavior shows them that you take esports and their presence on the team seriously. It lets them know you value them and you will only accept their best. Esports lets you set high expectations that your students can live up to.

3. Esports is great for creating the pipeline

Having an esports team presents a great opportunity to empower students’ Career and Technical Education (CTE). Since esports is the fastest growing industry in the world, it is important that students know that they can turn their love of video games into careers, especially STEM careers. I call this the pipeline. We need to create then show kids the pipeline they can follow to get from middle school through college and into a career by following their passion for gaming.

To do this, I have a team behind my esports team to help build out my esports ecosystem. I don’t just have players on my team, I have players and other support staff that fill vital support roles on the esports team. Roles such as shout caster, IT specialist, scout, statistician, graphic designer, video editor, event planner, journalist, accountant, marketeer, and many more. By giving students the jobs that need to be done to run a successful esports team, they are getting hands on experience with possible careers they might want to explore as they get older. To further support this notion, besides the competition the main reason my kids play colleges is because afterwards I have the college players talk about what they are majoring in and how their passion for gaming plays a role in their choice. My students leave feeling inspired after talking to the college students about their shared passion. My kids who may not think college is an option for them are realizing that maybe they want to go to college because they can continue to pursue esports at the collegiate level and then graduate into a career, traditional or otherwise, that lets them continue to be involved in gaming. The esports pipeline we build can carry our kids through college and beyond.

Every school should have an esports team.

Until Next Time,

GLHF

cross-posted at Teched Up Teacher

Chris Aviles presents on education topics including gamification, technology integration, BYOD, blended learning, and the flipped classroom. Read more at Teched Up Teacher.

My school year is off to a great start. My Fair Haven Innovates program is entering its fifth year of existence, the second year with the program looking like I want it to. Students are doing an outstanding job building their edcorps in FH Innovates. My esports team, the FH Knights, is also entering its second year. This means it is time to take it up a notch.

Last year, the FH Knights were the first middle school esports team in the country. As such, it was hard to find anyone to play us in Rocket League. I wound up reaching out to Rutgers University and having a nice series of games with them. As the school year progressed, Steve Isaacs fielded a Rocket League team for us to play from his video game club. Steve’s WAMs played my FH Knights in the first ever middle school esports match in the country. After, I met Harvey Scribner who had started a middle school esports team out in Pennsylvania. We played Harvey’s Cougartek team in the first ever intercontinental (I have some WWE fans on my team) middle school esports match.

Having the first middle school esports match and the first match across state lines ticked two of my three goals for esports in education last year. The third was to have a match against a team from another country. I was lined up to play a middle school team from the Netherlands, but my son decided he couldn’t wait to be born anymore, so we had to cancel the match.

This year, I have two goals for esports in education. The first is to get that international match, but the second is a big one: build the first middle school esports league.

Over the summer, I put out the call to any middle school who has or will have a Rocket League team this school year. Where once I was alone, I am excited to say that there are eight middle school teams that have joined our league so far. Esports in education is really taking off. NJ is well represented with three teams. We also have teams from Pennsylvania, Texas, Kansas, Florida, and New Mexico.

It is important that we build our own middle school league. At least in Jersey, there isn’t and will likely never be an official governing body for esports at our level. I have talked to the NJSIAA, our governing body for high school athletics, and while they said they are “getting background information on esports and doing our due diligence before we make any decisions moving forward…” with sanctioning esports at the high school level, they will not be providing any guidance or oversight at the middle school level. From the people I talk to, that seems to be the norm throughout the country: middle school esports is on its own.

That means if esports is going to happen at the middle school level, it is up to educators to make it happen. Organizing our league consists of a Google sheet where the teams have put their team info and availability as well as a Discord channel where we’re working out who will play whom and when. We’ll meet online at the agreed times and have our matches. EZ PZ.

I have no doubt that middle school esports, and esports in general, will continue its massive growth this year. As I outlined in this post, It is important that all schools embrace esports and it is important that educators take an active role in making teams and building leagues. Neither is as hard as you think, and both will lead to better opportunities for students. Check out my Guide to Esports for Education if you want to bring esports to your school. And stay tuned to hear more about our league. It’s gonna be big!

Until Next Time,

GLHF

cross-posted at Teched Up Teacher

Chris Aviles presents on education topics including gamification, technology integration, BYOD, blended learning, and the flipped classroom. Read more at Teched Up Teacher.

On Thursday, January 10th, the Fair Haven Knights esports team made history when we took on the William Annin Vikings in the first round of the Jersey Shore Esports Cup. This was historic because it was the first ever esports match between two middle schools in New Jersey. Maybe even the country.

After 18 months of planning and meeting with stakeholders to get approval, I launched our middle school esports team this September. We have been practicing hard since then to get ready for the Rocket League esports season which usually starts up in early spring. I say usually because it has been hard for us to find other middle schools to play. Esports just started to find its way into high schools. Middle school is probably still a few years away. Right now, you can count on one hand how many middle schools have esports teams, so we are taking on all comers. This means we have been adding colleges and high schools to our esports schedule, but I wanted to get some middle schools to play against, too. That is why I reached out to my friend and educational spirit animal, Steve Isaacs, to see if his middle school video game club would be interested in putting a Rocket League team together to play us.

As always, Steve was all in. After some discussion, we decided to make this first ever battle of middle schools something special, so we decided to create the Jersey Shore Esports Cup (JSEC). The Jersey Shore Esports Cup is a totally made up event that we came up with as an excuse for us to play against each other multiple times over the next few months. Hopefully, as the #esportsedu movement grows, we’ll be able to add more middle school teams to the JSEC. But for now, it is the FH Knights vs. the Vikings in an epic, two-team battle for the prestigious, inaugural Jersey Shore Esports Cup!

This match was a first for Steve and I. We’ve never hosted an esports event before. But last Thursday at 4pm, we invited parents, students, and stakeholders at both our schools to come watch the match. We played in our library at Knollwood middle school and Steve played in his classroom in Basking Ridge. What brought everyone together, even though we were competing from our own schools, was the stream. Streaming is the act of showing live video game play over the internet. Early in my esports journey, I had met Topher Jaims. Jaims is a college professor from Bellevue university who also plays and casts Rocket League at a competitive level. Casting, which is what commentating a game is known as in the esports world, really made the event something special. Topher, along with his partner, streamed our game and commentated on it live from Nebraska for all of our viewers, both online and in house, to see (you can see the behind the scenes production of the stream here). Let me repeat that for those in the back: two middle schools in New Jersey played each other from their own schools as the game was broadcasted live by two commentators top notch commentators from Nebraska. What a time to be alive.

The event couldn’t have gone better. While we had a few technical difficulties, players, coaches, and commentators worked through them (using our cell phones to communicate) to create a memorable, historic experience for all involved. In total we had 2 coaches, 24 players, 60 in house fans supporting our players, and another 100 or so watching the stream live on Twitch.

After the event, my players went out for pizza and I sent our film to the Rutgers University esports team who have partnered with us to help us improve our gameplay and grow esports at the middle school level. They broke down the following areas we need to work on:

FHK
=============
– Need to learn spacing
=> They kept running into each other, one idea is to have 2 players go for the ball at the same time with a fake.

– They need to learn to setup to each other better
=> Goes hand in hand with spacing. 1 player on the ball, 1 player on the opposite side of the net that gets ready to spike the ball in over the center once it is rebounded, and 1 player on the backside ready to defend or push opponents out of the way to aid in the scoring.

– They need to learn handbraking.
=> The time it takes to drive in a circle compared to the time it takes to handbrake spin is tremendous. It is better to learn to handbrake or jump-180 to fix driving directions. (X on controllers I believe)

– Aerial game.
=> Not too bad for their current ability, but in order to really make sure that they can dominate, they should learn some aerial abilities. Very much so for defense. I highly recommend doing the given practice in the game Hard version. That will focus on aerial and hard to defend goal shots. Doing that perfectly will aid in their ability to predict and get needed aerial practice.

Kyle Frick & Scott Zackman – Rutgers Esports

I include this feedback to help you understand that we aren’t playing for fun. Just like all the other “real” sports our esports practices include a game plan to help us get better. We have drills, we scrimmage, and I give the same type of feedback to my players as I did when I coached wrestling, football, and track at the varsity level. That’s because there are a lot of opportunities that come with being a competent esports player and I want to make sure my students can take advantage of all of them. And because we will need to get better since our next game is against Rutgers followed by the University of Northern Colorado.

Below I have included the stream of our match with William Annin for your viewing pleasure. Skip around if you don’t have the full 90 minutes to watch. It really picks up about halfway in. We are playing the Vikings again in early February. Stay tuned to twitch.tv/fhkesports for all your FH Knights esports news.

Until Next Time,
GLHF

cross-posted at Teched Up Teacher

Chris Aviles presents on education topics including gamification, technology integration, BYOD, blended learning, and the flipped classroom. Read more atTeched Up Teacher.

If you’re like me, conversations about streamers like Ninja and Fortnite dances like Orange Justice have taken over your classroom. That’s because gaming, especially esports, has hit the cultural tipping point and become mainstream. Esports, the term for competitive video game playing, is big. Like the fastest growing industry in the world big. Like millions of dollars in college scholarships big. I’ve written about why we need to embrace esports in school in depth and why we should embrace what kids love, but I wanted to update you from the trenches on the things I’m learning as I coach the FH Knights esports team.

In September, my school approved what is likely the first, real middle school esports team in the country. I had some worries as we started up our esports team. I’ve coached varsity football, wrestling, and track for eleven years, but I’ve never coached an esports team. On top of that, the game we are playing, Rocket League, was not a game I’ve ever played. I was nervous that my coaching experience wouldn’t translate over to esports, but after three months of coaching, I can say it does. Things like running a practice, game planning, reviewing film, and managing personalities are very similar to coaching “real” sports. The only thing a bit different is that most of my players have never been part of an organized sport. When I was a varsity coach, most of my players had been part of a team before. Most of my esports players have not. I’m spending a lot of time teaching my esports players how to be part of a team. I think the difference between video games for fun and esports sunk in when I starting using the same coaching line I used with my varsity athletes: We’re not here to have fun. We’re here to become better players, become better people, and win games. We’re getting better every practice. Our communication is improving, along with our ability to win and lose with class, and our ability to lift up our teammates. One practice, we even ditched the computers and had an analog practice using paper so we could focus solely on communication and call outs. Good stuff.

While I’ve played other games competitively, my other worry was that I’ve never played Rocket League before starting the FH Knights. This turned out not to be a big deal. That’s because I used my network to help me get in touch with the Rutgers University esports team. The young men and women at Rutgers have be wonderful at working with us and helping us get better. We send Rutgers game film and they send us feedback. Today we even scrimmaged! The FH Knights played Rutgers! Check it out:

Rutgers esports has gone beyond helping us get better at Rocket League, but their also helping us become better people.

Scott Zackman, competitive director of Rutgers esports, invited my players out to the Rutgers Fireside tournament last month. My team went and got to see some great matches, but also got to go backstage and see how esports tournaments are run and meet the players. Between this event and the times Rutgers players have been to our school to talk about STEM careers in esports, my players are really getting to see how students can turn their passion for gaming into a career. We’re learning that esports has the potential to be a lucrative career and what path we need to follow to get there.

Starting up this esports team has been a great experience. People from IBM, New York Excelsior, University of Northern Colorado, and many more places have reached out or been more than willing to offer us guidance, experiences, and opportunities.

My kids have been so into their new role as esports players, which is awesome because 100% of my players had no home/school connection before this team, that they want to spread esports to other schools. My players started a project in my class Fair Haven Innovates: Together my students and I have built this site, Esports For Edu, to connect middle schools and high school from all over the world together to play each other and grow an esports for edu community. No matter what game you play, as the site grows, you can use it to find competition for free. Also stay tuned for a “How to Start an Esports Team” guide made by my students. The guide is being written to help you convince stakeholders to approve an esports team and then help you, the coach, run the team. It will live here.

What I’ve learned coaching esports thus far is simple: you don’t need coaching experience or game experience to use esports to help make your kids better players and better people; there is a wonderful #esportsedu community willing to help. Everything that students can learn playing “real” sports can be learned in esports including social skills and teamwork. And esports taps into a segment of your school that may not have a home/school connection while getting them excited for a career path they might not have known existed.

After Christmas our esports jerseys should be here and we will have our first match against the William Annin Vikings coached by Mr. Issacs on January 10th 4pm est. Wish us luck, follow us on Twitch, and watch what might be the first middle school esports game in history.

Until Next Time,

GLHF 

cross-posted at Teched Up Teacher

Chris Aviles presents on education topics including gamification, technology integration, BYOD, blended learning, and the flipped classroom. Read more at Teched Up Teacher.

To say esports is booming would be an understatement. Esports, or electronic sports, is the term used to describe the sport of competitive video game playing. The world of professional esports has exploded over the last few years and is expected to reach nearly 5 billion in value and a global audience of nearly 600 million people by 2020. Last year, the second most watched sporting event in America after the Superbowl was the League of Legends finals. Three of the top ten most watched sporting events last year were esports events. By 2020 esports will be the second most watched sport in America, second only to football.

Every teacher’s favorite game, Fortnite, just announced they’ll be putting 100 million dollars (about two weeks of revenue!) into their esports scene this year as it brings competitive Fortnite to their 125 million players in 2019. Esports, like Fortnite, isn’t going anywhere. The professional esports scene has never had more players, events, prize money, or a bigger audience. Esports has passed the tipping point. Esports is here to stay and teachers should not only care, we should be excited.

Thanks to the passion of students and the support of the video game industry, esports is also finding a home in higher education. Currently, more than 475 of the nation’s colleges now support esports at the club level, and an estimated 50 schools provide a total of more than $9 million in scholarships to talented gamers. Colleges are offering full rides for esports games like Overwatch, CS:Go, League of Legends, and more. Next year, the popularity and opportunities in esports will only continue to grow by leaps and bounds. The Big Ten will launch its esports league next year, complete with a TV deal, along with 200 other colleges who will be launching varsity gaming at varying levels of competition. Chris Haskell, the esports coach at Boise State, predicts the number of colleges offering esports opportunities and scholarship may be as high as 450 colleges by 2019. And yes, you can now earn a Fortnite scholarship. In Jersey, even our state university, Rutgers, has an esports team now! To the delight of some, and dismay of others, the growth of esports at the college level is leading to the growth of esports at the high school and middle school levels as a the school-to-college esports pipeline develops.

[Taking Student Voice Beyond The Classroom]

I can feel the eye rolls from those of you who don’t get it, so let me help you understand why esports in education is a good thing. I was a good high school athlete. I’ve played sports at the collegiate level. I’ve also coached varsity sports for ten years. I also enjoy playing video games on a competitive level. I’m pretty good at those, too. Having a foot in both worlds, I have no problem saying esports is as valuable to a student’s social/emotional development as any other sport. ESports athletes are athletes. All the social/emotional learning and soft skills I developed in football, wrestling, track, and rugby can be developed through esports. When I was chasing athletic scholarships for college, no one told me my it was a dumb idea. My family, teachers, and coaches did everything they could to help me get an athletic scholarship. Just like we don’t scoff at helping athletes find a home at the collegiate level, we shouldn’t scoff at helping hopeful esports students find a home at the collegiate level. To do that we need to build the school-to-college esports pipeline.

Building the school-to- college pipeline is also important because it reaches a group of kids who often don’t have a home/school connection. For example, as I try to convince stakeholders in my district to let me field an Overwatch team next year, I have been polling my students. I have about 75 students, 6-8th grade, who want to be a part of our Overwatch esports team. Of those interested students, more than half have no after school connection to school. They aren’t involved in any sports or clubs. They just go home. The research is clear that involvement in extracurriculars at school lead to better student development and learning. Having an esports team is an opportunity to reach more students and let them know we value them and what they love. Esports is another way to let kids know they matter. You also better believe that we’ll be including grades and behavior expectations in the code of conduct my students write for our esports team. Being part of an esports team can motivate students to stay on the straight and narrow just like traditional sports can.

In polling my students, I found another great reason to embrace esports in school. I asked students about other roles they may be interested in on the team. Get this: of the 75 students that want to come out for our team, almost a quarter of them don’t want to actually play the game. A quarter of my students want to develop the website, run the social media accounts, oversee the Twitch stream, run the in-game camera, manage team logistics, act as team journalists and videographers, and provide the color commentary and play-by-play of the games as casters. All of these tangentially related needs of an esports team will build soft skills and talents that our kids can apply to future college applications and lucrative jobs.

If creating more opportunities for students won’t convince you to embrace esports, maybe the need to keep them safe will. There is a war brewing for our students. A host of startups are trying to win a piece of the esports-in-school pie. A startup, PlayVS, just closed a 15 million dollar round of funding to bring esports to high schools. No doubt esports in education will need infrastructure and a governing body to be taken seriously. While colleges seems to have settled on NACE for their needs, nothing is settled in the 6-12th grade esports scene. I’m not comfortable with PlayVS, or the host of other startups vying for market share, controlling esports for our students because I don’t know them. I don’t know if educators and students had a voice at the table while they are building their businesses plan. When they talk next steps for their company, who is there to represent and protect our students? Having educators get a seat at the esports table is important because they are going after our kids. By embracing esports, we can provide a level of protection for our students and hold these companies accountable since schools will be part of the scene.

Finally, esports may be a useful way to address two important cultural issues: violence in schools and misogyny in gaming. To me, not all violence is created equally. I don’t support games rated M for Mature or realistically violent games in middle school or high school, but I don’t have a problem with games like Fortnite or Overwatch with their cartoonish violence being played in schools. I’ve talked to others who feel very differently. I see esports as an opportunity to discuss and educate students about violence in the age of school shootings. We also have the opportunity to address the misogyny found in a disturbing subset of gaming culture that has reared its ugly head in incidents like gamergate. Five girls want to be players on our esports team. One of them may be the next Maggie Borland (the video on this link is fantastic). I want to make sure the boys that come through our esports program embrace that idea as they become young men. I don’t have all the answers on this front, but I see esports as part of the equation.

Within a ten mile radius of our school, we have at least three professional gamers who make a living playing video games. My kids love them and follow their every move. While going pro like the gamers they watch may be a long shot, we don’t stop our traditional athletes from dreaming that dream, why stop our esports athletes? Even if they don’t go pro, esports athletes will learn a lot and enjoy all the same benefits a traditional athlete gets from participating in sports and may even earn a scholarship or at least improve their chances of getting into a college along the way. We should care about esports because it is another opportunity for students to be successful and you know I’m all about opportunity. I have two students who are ranked near the top of the Diamond division in Overwatch. This means they are in the top 10% most talented players in the game. Who knows where they can end up with support. For my kids who are not in the top 10%, maybe they’ll find another thing, or the first thing, that makes them love school. To do all that, we need to build the school-to-college pipeline and embrace esports in education.

Until Next Time, GLHF

cross-posted at Teched Up Teacher

Chris Aviles presents on education topics including gamification, technology integration, BYOD, blended learning, and the flipped classroom. Read more at Teched Up Teacher.