Beerajaah Sswain
Sep 3, 2018 · 6 min read

Esports in our education curriculum? Why not!

Two days back “Tirth Mehta” gave India its first-ever eSports bronze medal at the Asian Games 2018. It was a proud moment for a few of us and oblivious to quite a few. 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. Just to give you some context — 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 the world, second only to football.

A current 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.

If you’re like me, Fortnite mania has taken over your classroom. You can’t take attendance in any classroom without a kid doing the Jubilation Dance in your direction. If all the Fortnite pandemonium has you confused, here is a great video that explains what Fortnite is in 60 seconds.

Now that you are a Fortnite pro, you can accept this cold, hard fact: nothing you do will stop Fortnite mania. Nothing you can do will stop the video game and eSports revolution. How can you survive Fortnite? Embrace it. We owe it to our kids to embrace what they care about. I’m not saying you should let kids play Fortnite in school, though I’m not opposed to it, I’m saying we should explore every avenue in embracing student’s passions to better their learning. There are many meaningful ways Fortnite can be used in the classroom without even installing the game.

For Eg: USING FORTNITE IN CREATIVE WRITING —
Fortnite writing prompts are easy to construct. Familiarize yourselves with some of the locations, then watch your students’ faces light up when you ask them to “Describe your experience traveling from Lucky Landing to Tilted Towers” or “You just landed late in Greasy Grove. The only loot you can find are bandages, a trap, and a Boogie Bomb. What happens to your character next?”. All styles of writing about Fortnite are possible with enough imagination.

For Eg: USING FORTNITE IN MATHS CLASS -
Fortnite is played on a 10 x 10 grid, 100 square map, with 100 players. Each square on a Fortnite map is 250m x 250m, making the map 2500m x 2500m. It takes 45 seconds to run across a single square horizontally and vertically and 64 seconds to run across a single square diagonally. How many math problems can you make for students knowing this information? Could you teach them how to calculate when they should start to run for a safe zone using that information?
A Build Tile, the things used to build forts in Fortnite, are 5.12m cubed (when you build a cube out of them). You can do lessons on area, volume, fractions, and more with that information.

A topic of debate in Fortnite is the best way to land. The faster you land, the more likely you are to live because you’ll get to the guns first. Want to start an engaging debate with your students? Ask them: “Once your jump out of the Battle Bus, what is the best angle of approach to take if you want to land at Tilted Towers first?” It may sound obvious, a straight line, but it is not. There are game mechanics, like gliding and fall rate, to be taken into account. Here’s a video that shows what the debate sounds like. Can your kids make a video using their Math skills that settles the debate once and for all?

I can still 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 college level. I also enjoy playing video games at 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, cricket, badminton, and tennis can be developed through esports. 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. Being part of an esports team can motivate students to stay on the straight and narrow just like traditional sports can.

Mind you most of the kids may not be good at eSports but they have avenues to participate and still be a part of this team. Some of the 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.

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 this confusing world around them. 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. Have girls want to be players on your 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.

Today young celebrity gamers like Ninja have made their careers around these games. Our 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 need to embrace esports in the education curriculum.

Beerajaah Sswain

Written by

Marketing technologist, Avid gamer, Loving Husband and Father…. www.beeraajaah.me

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