Esports in Education Good?

 

eSports, also known as electronic sports (competitive video games), is a growing industry expected to reach a market value of $1 billion in 2020. eSports was recently in the news because of the 2019 Fortnite World Cup where ‘Bugha’ won 3 million dollars, one of the biggest prize pool won by an individual. Due to the major success of eSports—like other sports, should we include eSports in our education?

 

In the blog Teched Up Teacher, in the post, “Why We Need To Embrace Esports In Education”, Chris Aviles argues for eSports being in our education. He discusses major cultural issues in society that can be addressed through eSports and the opportunities created.

 

In the Education Week magazine, “Gamers Are the New High School Athletes: The Rise of Esports; Trend gains traction in K-12 and college”, Sarah Schwartz talks about the benefit of eSports in schools but also acknowledges the downsides and how to combat them. Due to the nature of eSports and sports in general, there is usually profanity thrown by both teams and Sarah discusses how eSports teams reduce the verbal abuse in eSports.

 

In Illinois, there is a current movement to have eSports “become sanctioned events” (Rohr) in schools. In, “Esports have IHSA’s blessing in their sights Esports: More than 60 state schools have video game programs”, Lauren Rohr states that the introduction of sanctioned eSports events is one step towards a society where eSports can be looked at as a legitimate sport and not as just an excuse to play video games in school. 

 

Similar to the push for eSports into education, there was a push in the past for the study of gaming in education. Aaron C. Clark and Jeremy V. Ernst states in their report, “Gaming in technology education: the study of gaming can teach life skills for the twenty-first century that employers want … these include analytical thinking, team building, multitasking, and problem solving under duress”, reported a more active student learning, heightened communication skills, visual capacity, and computing proficiency.

 

Rhetorical Situation

Chris Aviles cares about the success of all students and brings up ways for teachers to connect a student’s habit of gaming to their education. He adds in his experience in sports into the piece and connects the similarities between the traditional sports and eSports where he discovered that both activities lead to the growth of the student mindset. In his ‘About Me’ tab, he displays great care to other teachers and their students which makes his opinion more truthful and wholesome.

 

The need for this magazine is greatly necessary because it eliminates the skepticism of including eSports in schools. Sarah mentions cases where students who participated in the club receiving scholarships that covers parts or all of their college tuition and mentions the zero-tolerance rule which helps curb toxic behavior. Schools don’t need to worry about bad behavior from students while also brightening their futures.

 

Lauren Rohr’s article gives an overall feeling on why schools should create eSports programs due to the growing interest and popularity it creates amongst students. Lauren Rhor includes anecdotes from teachers who have created eSports programs and how students reacted to this change. The Daily Herald is an Illinois based newspaper which makes this article more credible and reliable.

 

The academic journal was created to study the relationship of integrating gaming into a curriculum to the skills a student develops. Dropouts are a problem in educational institutions and were the main target of this experiment; to see if gaming in the curriculum would eliminate the problem while still teaching the students STEM. The report was backed up with a study conducted by the authors, Aaron C. Clark and Jeremy V. Ernst making this very reliable.

 

Purpose

In his blog post, Chris mentions the motivation and skills students developed when the club was created and wants to support and let all of them know that they matter. He wants to see every student to know there are more options than what education currently offers, thus his push to make eSports programs a norm in society. eSports can be used to, “educate students about violence in the age of school shootings” (Aviles), giving it a legitimate place in a student’s education.

 

Aaron C. Clark’s and Jeremy V. Ernst’s goal with this report is to show the outcome of introducing gaming into an educational curriculum. The report highlights the need to keep education up with society and by introducing gaming into education, it keeps students engaged and actively involved.

 

Sarah Schwartz’s goal of writing this magazine is to inform the audience of the implications of eSports on a student’s behavior and the impact on their school life. She notes that eSports, “engages students who might not otherwise participate in school activities, teaching teamwork” (Schwartz). eSports brings out the school spirit in those who lack it. Something that also comes with eSports are problems such as, “Toxic social behavior” (Schwartz). Though this is a general problem, there are ways to combat this such as disciplinary action to those who are toxic. 

 

Director of IT infrastructure of Naperville Unit District 203, Joe Jaruseski states the goal of the article pretty clearly, “We want them to be as successful as possible” (Rohr); putting the student’s future first. eSports brings interest to students who aren’t interested in traditional sports and allows them to represent and feel pride towards their school where they once wouldn’t have when they felt the school had nothing to offer. Not only does it motivate students but it also rewards those who exceed with scholarships from colleges interested in their eSports skills.

 

All of these authors want to focus on the need to capture a student’s interest and utilize it to keep them engaged in their education. They want the education to evolve and to offer what society has grown to become. eSports has come a long way and has grown and matured more with each year and should be implemented into our education system.

 

Audience

The general audience for my four sources is the same. We see that these sources target educators because of the mentioning of educational institutions, education terms in the title, and by mentioning objects of education such as teachers in the text but each target educators for slightly different reasons. Chris wants educators to help students achieve more in life, noting that around 8% of the colleges have eSport programs with some offering scholarships. Sarah, on the other hand targets educators schools who haven’t introduced an eSport program. We can see that when Sarah includes Amy Whitlock’s statement of, “You are preventing kids from going to college by not having a program at your high school” (Schwartz). However, Sarah and Chris agree that eSports is a way to jumpstart a student’s future as being good in eSports allow them to receive scholarships to colleges that desire their skills. 

 

Aaron C. Clark and Jeremy V. Ernst targets technology educators as seen from this quote, “Who better to do this than technology educators–those dedicated to serving our students by providing them the best and most current education possible so that all students can reach their potential in the twenty-first century” (Clark).

 

Lauren Rohr’s targeted audience differences from the rest of the sources as it targets educators in Illinois because this is an Illinois-based newspaper and won’t be seen by anyone else outside of Illinois but its possible to influence readers who happen to stumble on this article in other states.

 

Genre

The genre of Chris’ “Why We Need To Embrace Esports In Education” is a personal education blog. Since this is Chris’ blog, we see the honest truth of what he believes in how to innovate education to correlate to modern society. He made the post clear and concise and gets down to the point.

 

“Gamers Are the New High School Athletes: The Rise of Esports; Trend gains traction in K-12 and college” is an informational magazine that is nonprofit and is focused on K-12 education. This magazine didn’t contain any visuals in the form it was presented.

 

“Esports have IHSA’s blessing in their sights Esports: More than 60 state schools have video game programs” is a news report article because it’s reporting what’s happening in the local schools.

 

The genre of “Gaming in technology education: the study of gaming can teach life skills for the twenty-first century that employers want … these include analytical thinking, team building, multitasking, and problem solving under duress” is an academic journal. Since this is based on a study Aaron and Jeremy conducted, it’s a summary of what they accomplished. The academic journal contained visuals of diagrams, statistics, and pictures of the end product of what students produced.

 

Language and Stance

As eSports is a topic that most people don’t know about, all of the authors decided to write in a language that is simple and easy to understand where they explain terms they expect the reader to not know. Chris’ tone in the blog post is enthusiastic and playful and we can see that when he wrote, “Every teacher’s favorite game, Fortnite” (Aviles) which is very sarcastic and gives the playful vibe. His stance in this blog is hopefulness because he wants eSports in education to become a reality because all of the beneficial implications it can have on students as we can see in, “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.” (Aviles).

 

The tone for the rest of the sources is more formal as they are directed towards a more formal audience. Similarly to Chris, Sarah Schwartz’s and Lauren Rohr’s stance on eSports is that they want to see it in more schools because of the inclusion of those who wouldn’t join a traditional sports team due to the fear of not being good enough.

 

Aaron C. Clark and Jeremy V. Ernst see gaming as an advantage to those who see themselves in jobs requiring “analytical thinking, team building, multitasking, and problem solving under duress” (Clark)  because gaming causes you to strategize and work together in order to achieve your goal.

 

Overall, all of these sources prove that gaming and eSports has a spot in our education. It can be used to teach STEM in a more fun way, build stronger collaboration and communication skills, nurture problem solving skills, and more creative thinking. As eSports grows bigger and bigger, we need to adapt our education to our surroundings and that means the inclusion of eSports in our education.

 

Work Cited:

Aviles, Chris. “Why We Need To Embrace Esports In Education • Teched Up Teacher.” Teched Up Teacher, 29 Mar. 2019, www.techedupteacher.com/why-we-need-to-embrace-esports-in-education/.

Clark, Aaron C., and Jeremy V. Ernst. “Gaming in technology education: the study of gaming can teach life skills for the twenty-first century that employers want … these include analytical thinking, team building, multitasking, and problem solving under duress.” The Technology Teacher, Feb. 2009, p. 21+. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A193298066/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=4432cccb. Accessed 12 Sept. 2019.

Rohr, Lauren. “Esports have IHSA’s blessing in their sights Esports: More than 60 state schools have video game programs.” Daily Herald [Arlington Heights, IL], 3 June 2019, p. 1. Gale OneFile: News, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A587654100/STND?u=cuny_ccny&sid=STND&xid=061b623e. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.

Schwartz, Sarah. “Gamers Are the New High School Athletes: The Rise of Esports; Trend gains traction in K-12 and college.” Education Week, 30 May 2018, p. 19. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A541298018/OVIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=OVIC&xid=8d69a5ae. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.