March 22, 2022 • 44 mins
What is gamification? How do professors use games to help students learn? We tackle those questions and more with History professors Alison Futrell and Paul Milliman ahead of the new Age of Empires partnership that will bring for-credit opportunities to video game players. Rachel Abraham sits down with Aviva to talk about the theory behind gamification and UArizona Director of ESports Ian Escalante joins us to talk about how video games prepare students for the future.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Hello everyone.
Welcome to DigiCats, the podcastwhere we talk all things education
and technologyI'm your host, Aviva Doery,
This podcast is brought to youby the Online Distance
and Continuing Educationdivision of the University of Arizona.
Welcome back to DigiCats.
(00:26):
This weekwe will be talking about gamification
in educationor the use of game and gaming structures.
To teach in new and engaging ways.
We are going to talk about
how educators are using video gamesas pedagogical platforms.
Launching this spring, UArizona,is partnering with Microsoft to enable
players of the popular strategy gameAge of Empires to earn history credits.
(00:47):
Yeah, that means real college creditthrough a video game
later on in the episode.
We will break down the history of gamingin educational contexts
with Rachel Abrahamand get a closer look at e-sports
spaces on campus with Ian Escalante,the director of E-sports.
But first, we are so lucky to have Dr.
Alison Futrell and Dr.
Paul Milliman, the two professors at theforefront of the Age of Empires program.
(01:09):
Here to talk about how the idea of
utilizing digital storytelling to providecollege credit came to life.
Dr. AlisonFutrell is an associate professor
and head of the Department of Historyat the University of Arizona.
Her research interests
focus on the performanceand imagery of power in Imperial Rome
with special interest in spectacleand gender, as well as manifestations
of the ancient Mediterraneanin modern popular culture. Dr.
(01:33):
Futrell has numerous publications,including the Viking, Queen, Spartacus,
HBO, Rome and XenaWarrior Princess just to name a few.
Dr. Paul
Millman is an associate professorin the history department whose research
and teaching interest focus on gamesand food in the Global Middle Ages.
His research on medieval games
won the Medieval Academy of AmericasVan Cortland Elliot Prize.
(01:55):
Dr. Millman regularly teachesgender courses on games and food,
encouraging students to engagein nontraditional research projects
and experiential learningto better understand
how people in past societiesexperience games and food.
Now let's jump into our conversationwith Dr.
Futrell and Dr.
Millman
(02:21):
Alison and Paul, thank you so much fortaking some time to chat with us today.
I know we've got a lotto get to as far as age of empires.
But let's start with getting to knowwho you are a little bit.
Alison, can you tell usa little bit about yourself?
My name is Alison Futrell.
I'm the head of the history departmenthere,
and I've been at the University of Arizonafor decades.
My field of specialization,it has turned out to be
(02:43):
is a spectacle, Roman spectacleand Roman games and the ways in which they
inhabit
certain parts of Roman politics,Roman society.
All right, Paul, how about you?
I'm Paul Millman, I'man associate professor
in the history department,and I focus on medieval history.
I've been here for 15 years now.
(03:06):
I was one of the original group of faculty
to put together Arizona online.
Eight years ago now.
So I've been focusing mostly on onlineteaching since then and even before then.
And I like to teach on funtopics like games and food.
So this worked out really well for me.
As our listeners can hear.
You're calling in to our podcast today, so
(03:27):
thank you for taking some time to join us,even though you're joining virtually.
We appreciate it. Happy to be here.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So what is Age of Empires?
So Age of empires is a real timestrategy game that now
the original version is 25 years oldand we're the latest.
One is Age of Empires.
Four, which focuses on the Middle Ages,just as the Age of Empires two had done.
(03:52):
And it's
a very fun and interesting game.
I've so many students
I've had,I've gotten interested in history
through playing the earlierversions of Age of Empires.
So I can't wait to see the new generation
getting into this new versionafter 25 years of this game franchise.
So where did this idea come from?
You know, you mentionedyou just mentioned students
(04:12):
becoming interested in historyfrom interacting with the game.
Where was the idea to thenbring it into a credit bearing opportunity
where students who interact with the game,who participate
in different aspects of the game,can then get credit?
Where where did that idea come from?
That actually came from Arizona online.
They had been negotiatingwith Microsoft over other issues,
(04:33):
and they approached usbecause Microsoft was interested
in having some kind of collaborationwith a history department,
one that had a strong interestin online learning.
So tell me a little bit moreabout your involvement.
You know,what was your stake in the project
and how did you two work togetherto sort of come to this end product?
Well, as Paul mentioned, a number of ourstudents over the years have come to us
(04:55):
because their interest in history
has been sparkedby this kind of engaging activity.
Video games, it used to be miniserieson TV or maybe movies
but this is how people interact withthe past in society today more and more.
So students that I respected, studentsI was engaged in,
in teaching and learning withand wanted to explore
(05:19):
the narratives
that they were finding in video gamesand all the implications and ramifications
and how that might overlapwith other sources of history.
And I thought, you know,this is really an interesting opportunity
and maybe one that we could engage inas scholars in a
in an intriguing way,not just in terms of teaching, but other
(05:39):
kinds of relationships with Microsoft,hopefully somewhere down the path.
Paul, can you just walk usthrough the process of a student who
is interested in the game but is not sureabout this new credit bearing path?
How does that happen?
How does the student go from playingthe game to actually getting credit?
(05:59):
Well, that's a great question.
This has been a it's been a process.
Try to work all this outbecause there's no model
for anything like thisthat we've been learning as you're going.
Basically,the student can opt in at any point
they don't have to, you know,
download the game and say, okay, I'mgoing to do this right from the start.
They canthey can just play the game for a while.
(06:21):
They can look at some of the contentwe've added
and decide how I might want to do that.
So at any point,they can decide that they want to do this.
And basically what will happenis at various points throughout the game,
there are these downloadable contentthat's that
Microsoft added called Hands on History,which is really great.
Many documentaries about different aspectsof medieval life and society.
(06:46):
And then we've built our own additionalcontent called Illuminated Histories,
in which Alison and Iexplain other aspects of medieval life
building,both on what's going on in the game
and what's going on in the handson history of videos. If the students
read this stuff and they decide,
Oh, hey, that's pretty interesting,I want to I want to learn more about this.
(07:06):
Then they can opt into this program.
And then after they've readall of our accumulated
histories and completed all the campaigns,
then at the end there's an assessment,which is a fun assessment.
I designed it as a as an onlinescavenger hunt.
So it's it should be a lot of fun.
And they'll get to learn even more aboutthe history that went into this game.
(07:28):
They'll go and visitall these great museums, virtually
libraries examineall these primary sources.
So if they pass that assessment,then they get the credit.
So once students complete that assessment,how would they then move on to
getting involved and taking another class,taking a history class with you guys?
That's a great question.
(07:48):
We're actually building a special coursejust for the students,
just for the game, or historians
who come in to the University of Arizonathrough this particular program.
It's a brand new course.
It's history to 97 be,and it builds on their experiences,
playing the game,engaging with our content in the course,
(08:08):
and in a way that allows them to buildon that world.
There.
As I mentioned earlierabout the hands on history videos,
they're one of the thingsthey're going to do in this
course is make their own hands on historyvideos on things that interest them.
There are going to explore the worldcivilizations in the game in more detail.
As I was saying, go down the rabbit holes.
(08:29):
We will be there,guys, as they go down the rabbit holes
and help them through this.
But that's really the most important thingas I want them to understand that
they are going to be producers of history,not just consumers.
And I think this is
one of the great things about video gamesis they're so interactive.
You know, you're not just
following a narrative.
You're making your own choices.
(08:49):
You are doing things you're you're you'reyou know, you're actively learning.
And that's what we really want to do inthis course is build on that.
You know, I'mnot I'm not going to lecture.
There aren't new tests.So there aren't the textbooks.
There are to be term papers.
It's all making things,building things, doing historical research
that's just as rigorousas a traditional course,
(09:11):
but then presenting it in a waythat's novel and unique
and I think more engaging for the students
who are coming into their study of historyin this particular way.
So it seems like that innovationthat you brought into the video game
world is just going to
continue and students get to continueto have these experiential opportunities
that really place them inside the historyrather than just standing
(09:31):
on the edge of it and reading about it,if that makes sense.
Yes. No, absolutely.
That's really what I thinkthe future of history is going to be.
You know, there are always peoplewho just want to listen to lectures
and, you know, or podcastI enjoy listening to.
But at a certain point,
there are always people who want to knowOkay, how do I do that?
You know, how can I make something?
(09:51):
How can I be a historian?
And this is really what we wantstudents to do in this course
and really what I want you to always bedoing my all the my courses.
So you're really prompting students
like Ellis to fall down that medievalrabbit hole and jump right in.
Exactly.
You know, the whacky worldthat away for you is worth their effort.
There are so many doors that Alice opened.
(10:15):
Let's hope we just don'tget too big or shrink down too small.
We're say yes. Lots of food opportunities.
And that's true in the history departmentto a lot of us teaching food.
So drink me
and chess opportunities.
Lots of games
I'm totally going to come crashyour class.
That sounds great.
(10:36):
Please do it.
The more than Maria it'll be,it'll be a lot of fun.
Okay, so let's walk throughyour pedagogical approach to this game,
because I know there are other gamesthat have incorporated education.
You know, one from my childhoodthat kind of pops up is Oregon Trail,
not the Oregon Trail.
(10:58):
Nancy Drew. Right.
There's a lot of Nancy Drew gamesthat have historical applications.
And you go through the adventureand you solve the mystery.
But along the way, you know, as a kid,you learn stuff.
So what was your approach to making this
an accessible experience that made it fun
for students to be interactingwith these histories in a game setting,
(11:19):
but also was able to conveyeducational material
as I was just missingsome of my very best students,
the ones that are telling me,you know, they they learned about
medieval historythrough playing games like Age of Empires.
And it's because they're you know,they've got their phones out
at the same time they've got their PC onand they're Googling
(11:40):
you know, Battle of Hastings while they'refighting the Battle of Hastings.
You know, they're
they're they're students who already wantto learn more about this stuff.
So what we'redoing is sort of guiding them
to the best
places, best open access placesonline to learn more, just sort of
see the interest that's already thereand in a way make them feel
(12:01):
comfortableand sort of validate the process.
So some of the students kind of sheepishlytell me that they weren't history
from video games.
Some of them won't even admit it at allbecause I think they're terrified
I won't take them seriously.
So I think that's a stigmathat needs to be removed.
You know, so many people come to historythrough playing computer games now,
so we want to fully embrace that and,you know,
(12:25):
capture that interestand help guide them to doing, you know,
their own historical research and being,you know, gamer historians.
And it's certainly true.
You know,I mean, Paul and I are nerds as well.
This is something that we doin engaging with popular culture.
We put things on pause.
We dove down the rabbit hole on the phoneor on the iPad or whatever,
(12:46):
and then we come back to it.
Once we figure out something,we we're curious.
We want to indulge that curiosityand a that curiosity and students to
so some of the eliminated historieswe put together
are kind of like mini rabbit holes.
Here's something that we explored.
Maybe you're interested in it.
Here's some resources for youjust in bite-sized form.
(13:08):
So you guys are both historians by trade.
And I think when you thinkabout applying education into a game
setting, history is a really great space
to approach that from because it'sessentially digital storytelling.
What other disciplinesdo you think could benefit
from this type of an educational approach?
I think that a number of the humanitiesare doing this kind of thing.
(13:32):
I know that because I talkedto other friends of mine who are more
in the literature side of thingsand are using video games
like Hades, for example,to awake different perspectives
on the exploration of thethe corpus of Greek mythology
and think about alternative storiesthat that
allow people to explore less
(13:55):
dominant points of
view and alternatives to thethe standard sort of canon,
which tends to be, you know,a little top heavy, let's put it that way.
Yeah, yeah.
I've heard of peopledoing really interesting stuff.
I heard a lecture by an arthistorian recently who was using
Assassin's Creed because they havethis great sort of walk through.
(14:17):
You know, they built this, you know,digital recreation of these ancient
medieval cities so you can go and explorefrom a point of view.
You never would be able to, you know, youyou could climb a medieval cathedral
and see that, see the roofor look through the uppermost window if,
you know, it's a great wayto explore a world that, you know,
you're not going to fly toto France to see.
(14:39):
And, you know, even if you got there,
you could couldn't to explore the worldthe same way you can in a video game.
I had a graduate studentwho was really interested in Assassin's
Creed, the Cleopatra version,and we had just spent a month
or so exploring the murderous habitsof the Ptolemaic dynasty.
And how does that play outin this version of Cleopatra?
Is it reasonable?
(14:59):
How does it enhanceour expectations in certain ways
about the use of powerin the ancient Mediterranean?
Yeah, that's amazing.
I hadn't thought of it that way.
Especially, you know, Paul, when you weresaying about going and visiting places,
you can't go visit places that happenedand existed, you know, 500 years ago.
So being able to explore them and explorestories and characters and histories
(15:20):
that wayseems like a really innovative way
to engagewith this topic and these histories.
I agree.
Yes. Your show
maybe I should take places
and especially placesthat have been destroyed,
you know, recently through warsor through just
(15:43):
you know, natural disasters.
You know, you can explore these placesthat no longer exist,
you know, as recently as a few years ago.
Yeah. Definitely.
So this is a project that I would considerto be outside the box.
What would you say were your biggestchallenges in moving forward?
(16:03):
You had mentionedthat nobody was doing this before,
so figuring out your next steps,that could be one of them.
You know, what was the challenge?
And then, you know,was it all worth it in the end?
Well, there's challengesand the challenges.
I should say that the teaching of historyis something that has been evolving
over time and people working out newclassroom techniques to engage students.
(16:27):
And a lot of it does involve play.
It involves reenactments,it involves debates.
It involvestaking on characters from the past
and trying to live through theirexperience and see through their eyes
in order to
enhance one's one's empathy,but also enrich one's understanding
of the evidencefrom these different time periods.
(16:49):
So this plays into some of these habitsof learning through play
that have been developingfor some time in the history classroom.
I watched and I both teach with themwith games this way, with this performance
and simulation.
So this is just a digital wayof doing something.
We've been doing analog
for a very long time,and I think because we've come into that
(17:10):
coming to this projectfrom that world in which, you know,
I have my students play medieval tabletopgames, their card games, everything,
you know, and now that's it has themperform ancient Roman spectacles
So it's a different way of simulatinga different way of storytelling.
And, you know, it's,
it's been an interesting process.
It's been a good process.
(17:31):
But approaching it from,
you know, the point of view,not just of a, of a university course, but
also as a as a corporation with, you know,developing a multimillion dollar game.
You know, how those two thingswork together, you know, because there's
the majority of peopledo not want to get a history degree.
They want to play the game and have fun.
So it's quite sort of balancingthat, you know, how do we,
(17:53):
you know, insert ourselves into the gamein a way that's not going to
turn off people who are playing the gamejust to have fun,
but also intrigue people who think, well,that might be something I want to do.
Yeah, I think that's a great pointabout bringing people into the fold
and making education accessiblein a very different way
than we think of as traditional collegecredits.
(18:16):
Absolutely.
Well, we are at a public universityand part of our constituency
is always going to be the general public,
not the publicwho are sitting in our classrooms.
So that idea that you canyou can reach some of the
the information, the techniques,the analytical trends and the
engaging interest,the rabbit hole stuff that we work with
(18:40):
that's
part of what we're supposed to be doing,I think, as faculty
at a public university.
Yeah, I agree. Fantastic.
All right.
Well, I like to aska really great question at the end.
And Paul, I'll start with you.
What is the
best advice that a mentoror past professor has ever given you?
Wow. That's really a good question.
(19:01):
I would say awkward silence is okay.
So I did a podcast, baby,
but in a classroom, would you just
be quiet and the students know
that they have the time to think and,you know,
they don't don't have to jumpto the answer immediately.
I like that.
Yeah, that's great advice, Alison.
(19:22):
So much advice.
And just thinkingof my ministry of rules and
but I think a good piece of advicethat I've received
is to let your students knowthat you're human, you know,
talk about how you got to to thisthis place,
this point of inquiry, this
(19:43):
stage of your investigation
so they can see themselvesmaybe in in the track that you took.
Yeah. All great advice.
Thank you guys so much for taking the timeto chat with me today.
I know that I have a lot of new things tothink about when I'm playing video games.
Hopefully some of our listeners out there
take a chance to visit the website,which is Age of Empires dot com.
(20:04):
Check out the game.Let us know what you think.
Thanks so much for taking the time.
We appreciate having you.
Thank you. If ever. Thank you.
Welcome back to Digital Hats.
We just had a great conversationwith doctors Paul Millman and Alison
Futrell about the Age of Empirespartnership coming up.
(20:27):
And they talked a lot
about the merger of education and gamingand what we call gamification.
Now, I've asked Rachel Abrahamto come back and talk with us today
and tell us a little bit moreabout gamification theory.
So welcome back, Rachel.
Thanks, Aviva. It's so great to be back.
I'm so excited to talk about gamificationand gamification and learning.
This involves using a game based elementsuch as point scoring, peer
(20:51):
competition, teamwork, score tablesto drive engagement and help students
assimilate new informationto test their knowledge.
Gamification, theoryand education is that learners
learn best when they're also having fun.
So I like to think back tomaybe a favorite song or a favorite movie.
You probably know most of the wordsand can describe the plots and themes
(21:13):
to somebody else.
That is gamification and education.
You create the same
pleasurable experience with courseworkand increase material retention Students
will learn best when they have goals,targets, achievements that they reach for.
I like to think while in classyou have a platform called Cute
where students can competeagainst each other to
(21:35):
talk about the materialthat they have just discussed,
or maybe that they had readthe previous night.
And then students have a pointbased incentive to
then compete against each otherto see what they were able to retain.
From here, the instructor's canthen take those points, figure out
where students are catching a concept,or maybe where
(21:55):
they're not catching a concept,and then review the material.
That reminds me a lot of playing Jeopardyin middle school, right?
Like you'd have a math problem.
You solve the problem if you get it right,you get points and you take turns.
And it was so much more fun,especially from someone who was not great
at math, to engage in a game settingand add a little competitive spirit to it.
(22:16):
Absolutely.
And when you're having somethingthat is fun like Jeopardy!
Even if you're not a great math person,you're still having fun with something.
So you can build that confidenceto be able to answer a question,
even if you're not quite sure what it is,you know, while I'm just having fun,
but in actuality you're learningthe material and then you're also building
(22:38):
communication skills and publicspeaking skills and confidence.
Yeah.
And it really speaks
to the range of technologiesthat you can use for gamification, right?
You have something as simple
as jeopardy, as simple technologythat's free to the public like a hoot.
And then we're starting to leaninto these greater technologies,
like full on video game learning, likewe're talking about with age of Empires.
(23:00):
So I think there'sthis really broad access
to learning through games that I thinkwe're still just hitting the precipice of.
Absolutely.
And this is all about changing educationat its core, where to learn something.
You don't have to be sittingin a classroom reading a text book
and taking a quiz to be ableto retain the information you can
(23:21):
immerse yourself in the materialand the topics with either an instructor
that's live or somebodythat's sitting behind a screen.
But you can goyou can achieve those modules
as and learn along the waywhether you realize it or not.
And what's very cool,too, is gamification is not new.
I remember
back in childhood, Schoolhouse Rock,that's gamification.
(23:45):
There is a song to remember how somethingworked.
Now, 20, 25 years later,
I still know the legislative processbecause of Schoolhouse Rock.
Yeah, I remember.
There's like that oneYouTube video of how a bill's made right.
And you had mentionedsongwriting and music, and I had written
(24:05):
a songmy freshman year of high school about,
you know, the Paris
House of the Soul, the mitochondria,and so I think it's really interesting
to see how the cognitive waysthat our brains are working
are developing to interactwith these materials in new ways.
That is fun. So we remember exactly.
And researchers have found that gamelike atmosphere is increased productivity.
(24:26):
So while you think, oh,
it's might not be as productive of a wayto learn, there's more distractions.
That's not the case.
It's a very productive way to still learnand to still retain the information.
So you touched upon
some really core memories of childhoodlearning for me, right?
Jeopardy!
Kahu being a younger studentand having game play
and being able to learn that way.
(24:47):
But when we get into high school,at least in my experience,
games weren't used quite as often.
It was very much textbook based learning.
Why do you think it is that once we startto move into those higher grade levels,
games and gamification are usedless and less as pedagogical tools?
I think that's a core question,and I don't think it's as we get older,
(25:08):
I think it's within that high school rangethat 14 to 18 year old age range
because I know I've used gamificationwithin college and graduate school
and I think we have a system that relieson a way that it's always been done.
And technology is changing and studentsand instructors
(25:29):
and teachers are becomingmuch more comfortable with technology.
And perhaps it's time to rethinkour high school curriculum
of a traditionalsit down, read a text book,
take a quiz, and really startincorporating gamification,
especially as you are learning
some of those core elementsthat students will take on for life.
(25:51):
Well,I think that leaves us on a great note
to really startrethinking the ways that we learn. Rachel.
Thanks so much for being with us.
If you, our listeners, are interestedin gamification, please check out.
Age of Empires.
There's lots of different ways for youas a student
staff, faculty to get involvedwith different gamification opportunities.
Here at the University of Arizona. Rachel,thank you so much. Thank you.
(26:19):
Welcome back to Digital Hats.
Here we have Ian Escalante,who has joined us.
He is the director of e-sportshere at the University of Arizona.
So welcome to the podcast.
Thank you. Really excited to be here.This sounds like a lot of fun.
So tell us a little bit about what you do.
So in summary,as the director of e-sports, I oversee
all e-sports operationsof the varsity level for the university.
(26:40):
So, I mean, that's the official,you know, sort of statement.
But really what it meansis teaching our varsity students
to be student athleteswhen it kind of takes.
Are that helping themand all their needs that come up
because they are student athletes?
You know, we're trying to recognize themthat way.
And it is an exciting experience.
We have seven varsity teams,50 student athletes,
and we're on that nextwave of what collegiate e-sports is.
(27:03):
So it's it's pretty awesomeso far in layman's terms, for someone
who's never interactedwith the word e-sports before.
What does that mean?
So in layman's terms, e-sportsor electronic sports
just means video gamesplayed at a competitive level.
Every video game can kind ofbe played competitively.
But not every videogame is designedto be a competitive e-sport.
(27:24):
Right.
So it has a very specific sort ofI guess constraint of what that means.
For the most part, not every game outthere like unfortunately as an e-sport,
as much as I want Mario Kart to happen,it's just not going to happen.
But beyond that,there's just a wide variety of games
that capture the attention of our students
that they want to competeat at a collegiate level.
And that's reflected onalmost every college in the university,
(27:47):
every university in this countrykind of has an e-sports
department one way or another,whether they know it or not.
So e-sports seems to be a newer wayof bringing athletes on campus.
How did we get from video gamesas a form of entertainment
to moving into video gamesin a competitive atmosphere?
(28:07):
I mean, that'sthat's a sociological question.
I'm not really sure what the true answerto that is, other than the fact that.
Well, I mean, it's just the naturalevolution of what recreation is.
I mean, all sports in some waysstarted as recreation, right?
They were just getting togetherwith a frame of rules
and people started playing it for fun.
And then people just started to determinewho's the best at that.
And I guess we as humans like to do that.
(28:28):
You know,there's a lot of us out there like, no,
I like to be the best at this,and I like to prove that.
And the competitive spirit existsin a lot of people.
And this is just a way for a lot of peopleto express that and show that and show
their dedication and show how hardthey work and really master something.
I mean, there's there's beauty and joyin mastering anything.
And video games is no different.
(28:49):
You know, it really makes those chemicalsin our brains go off.
So a lot of what we've been talking aboutin this episode
specifically is taking games
and bringing them into educational contextand using games as a method to learn.
I feel like there'sa lot of conversation around
what it means to be a student athletein a more traditional sense.
But how does e-sports enhancethe educational experience of a student?
(29:11):
Is it similar to that of a traditional,you know, football experience,
or is it something differentand they have different skills
that are developed out of that experience?
Well, there are different skillsthat are needed to be an e-sports
athlete as opposed to football,you know, a football student athlete.
But I would say that surprisingly,
the experiences are the same oncewe get to that high level competition.
Once you get to high level competition,you have to play every day.
(29:33):
You have to have a talent base.
You have to be dedicated, right?
You have to practice every day.
You know, the same waythat a student athlete
goes to the gym to keep their body sharp,you have to play the game to stay sharp.
And then,
you know, when we get to practice,
we need to scrimmage other teams,try different formations, try, you know,
certain compositionsthat maybe we're not comfortable with,
but we knowwe're going to be attacked, right?
We need to analyze ourselves.
(29:54):
The way we think the other team willand we need to analyze that team.
How do we break them down?
How do we make themdo what they don't do well?
And what do we do what we do well?
Right. It'svery much a sport in that sense.
And they requires
the same sort of dedicationand time and physical commitment as well.
I mean, you know,we're not sweating it out
and, you know, it'snot what you would inherently see,
(30:15):
but it is very physically drainingto be so focused at the same time.
Right.
To be sitting downand using every bit of your every brain
cell in your body to focusand really just make that happen.
You know, so there's a physical component,a huge mental component.
And so when all of thosethings are expressed, we start to see that
the needs of our studentathletes are kind of the same, right?
(30:36):
They need academic support.
They need somebody to teach them,you know, how to be disciplined.
They need somebody to help themschedule things. Right.
They need somebody
to tell them what it takesto be a good teammate,
because it's not just to be goodat the game.
It's how do you express yourself properlywith your teammates?
How do you express frustration?
How do you express, you know,how are we going to get better?
How do we grow together? Right.
(30:56):
And all of those things fitwithin each sports.
So naturally that it's surprising,
even to me who's been in itso long, studied it so long, you know,
so that experiencesit's been shocking, to say the least, but
I guess it shouldn't be right.
You know, once you get down to it,that's that's what it is.
It is a sport in that in that form so
but there's a litany of other experiencesthat come from it
(31:16):
that don't come from thetraditional student athlete experience.
You know, like everything in EASports is online.
Right.
And that means by default, we'reinteracting with the online world, right?
Where, you know, scheduling scrimmagesin ways that other student athletes
don't have to.
It's very much you show up to the fieldand we're not that way.
We're like, hey, can you game at six?Can you make it happen? Okay.
Six time, 6 p.m. Eastern.
(31:37):
What is that for us? That's 4 p.m.okay. We can make four 30.
I mean, we communicatein a completely different way as well.
It's it's a lot of those professionalbarriers are broken down in a lot of ways
because we're communicatingreally as passionate gamers one to one,
because there isn't yet that superprofessional structure around it.
We're trying to get there.
But I mean, that kind of lets it be uniquein its own way.
(31:59):
Yeah.
Having your own way of communicatingof your own way of scheduling things
and not fitting into what we've consideredthe norm, I think is kind of
coming back into fashion.
Yeah.
I mean, it is and it's so interestingwhenever I describe sports in this way
to somebody about,oh, that sounds so chaotic.
That sounds all over,
you know, all over the place,I'm like, Well,
it kind of is, but that kind of worksfor some people, right?
(32:20):
That kind of that environment really fitsfor for some people that, you know,
keeping you on your toes and, and,you know, a changing landscape, right?
Whatever e-sport you're doing nowmay not exist tomorrow.
So what transferable skillsare you taking from this sport to the next
sport to be the best at that one?
Or are you just going to master thisone? Right.
I mean, those skills are applicableto everyday life as well, right?
(32:41):
Like it's
not just about learning how to do,you know, put a peg in a certain holds.
Why are you doing it that way?
How does the whole process work?
And I think we do see that in studentathletes.
We see a lot of abstract thinkingin that sort of sense that I think
is really, really cooland really, really awesome.
And that allows us to apply sportsinto the professional world.
In a lot of different ways as well, too,because we're used to doing that in game.
(33:04):
And then when we takewhat we've done in-game
and we apply to the professional worldwhen it's time to get a job,
it's like, well, EA Sports isn't just EASports, right?
It's art EASports isn't just EA Sports, right?
It's competitive integrity,competitive sport.
It's not just sport, right? It's gamedesign.
It's not just gamedesign, it's physics, right?
It's it's programing
and that type of thinking
and understanding that all of the piecesthat fit into EA Sports
(33:25):
and having any sportspersonbe naturally accustomed
and comfortablewith that adaptability and chaotic world,
I think is a huge benefit in today's dayand age.
And I mean, I'm reaching hereto see what would make us different,
what make it make it special.
But the more you think on it,it's really not that hard to find.
It's the same as building upthose transferable skills
that you would from the,you know, a different sport.
(33:46):
You really get that. Yeah.
So walk me through the processof what an e-sport competition looks like,
because you're talking about teammates,you're talking about working together.
And I think, you know, my perceptionof video games is pretty limited.
You know, we're talking about Mario Kartbefore it, right?
Like Mario Party was what I grew up with.
So what games are students competing in?
(34:07):
Are they competing individually or are we,
you know, are our student athletescompeting as a team in those games spaces?
In these game spaces, we're competingin EA Sports that require us to be a team,
usually in teams of five
or overwatch as a team of six,but standard is a team of five.
So the way just to show youa normal competition week
would go isyou would find out who your opponent is.
(34:29):
Some EA sports,
you know,allow you to look up their profiles,
find out what they're good at, find outwhich heroes they like to play or,
you know, what their current rank gameis, right?
When you know how frequently arethey're playing and we can kind of develop
a game plan of what we're going to doas well as grind ourselves, right?
It's like, okay, we got five daysto get ready for this team, right?
So we're going toyou know, in a traditional landscape,
(34:50):
we're going to break down the practiceweek, we break down with analysis.
Then sometimes we'll watch our own games.
What did we do improperly last gameor what do we need to improve on?
And can we do that in this short week?
Right.
It's a lot of self-reflection,and then it's just practice.
And then you practice,
you schedule scrimmages with teamsand you run your game plan.
You see if it's working,if it's not working.
(35:10):
And you know you have to scrimmagebecause sometimes,
you know, the best plansdon't exactly come to fruition.
You're just like,Okay, it's just not working.
We're not making this work.
Right?
Like,what can we do to get better at that?
Or do we need to just scrap this planand try something different?
Right.
And you do all of that leading upto the game day on Saturday, Friday
you kind of lock downwhat you're going to do.
You make sure that everybody's all set,
(35:32):
and then you go into Saturdayand you execute that game plan.
And like all things in sports, it's it'sthe team's never going to do
what you think they're going to do.
It's only going to do about half of it.
And you react to that chaotic experience.
Some people make plays, right?
Some people just, you know, make mistakesthat they don't normally make.
And that just affects the whole dynamic.
And really what gives itthat sense of competition, right?
(35:53):
It's not like watching a simulationplay out.
It's like watching,you know, humans actually try to do a team
game to make,you know, accomplish an objective.
And, you know, for some people,that's what makes sports exciting.
That's what makes it click right.
And when you break it down as a practiceweek that way,
I think it also clicks for a lot of sportspeople who also experience that, though.
Oh, yeah. That's that'sthat's the way it is.
(36:14):
And you do that over an eight week season.
I hope you make playoffsand then in playoffs do the same thing
and you hope your champion I mean, that'swhat we're all trying to do effectively.
But only one champion gets to emergefrom the collegiate landscape and
you know, it's not usually indivisions is just
who was the best in the countryin this competition period, right?
So competition can be fierce.
It can be from all different talentlevels.
(36:36):
You never know who you're going to face.
That's awesome.
So let's talk about the post collegiate
application of EA Sports,because I think there's
a large societal framing of video gamesin one aspect that is not professional,
but we've seen this large growthof gaming as a profession.
(36:56):
Can you speak to oncestudents get to that professional level,
what that can look like as far as acareer, as far as a career within esports
or as far as just in general,the skills that we transfer as e-sports
student athletes? Both.
I mean, the careers within
e-sports are really just opening upand multiplying by the day, right?
A position such as mine.
The director of e-sports at PowerFive University was unfathomable
(37:19):
five years ago, right?I mean, we were all hoping for it.
We meaning my colleagues and I, who are,you know, in the e-sports space but this,
like all tech,is developing at an incredibly fast rate.
You know, we've gone from a Nokia phoneto the phones that we have now,
which are basicallylike cyborg attachments and like 20 years,
I would expect the same exact thingto happen in collegiate e-sports.
(37:40):
It's accelerated.
People are thinking it'sgoing to take 30 years.
Well, it's not it's vastlyshifting downwards because video games
and e-sports by default are becoming moreand more a part of young people's lives.
You know, they're growing upwith video games in the ways we never did.
It's a natural step for them.
It's a natural world for them, right?
(38:00):
It's they entered a maturesort of gaming world
that had the ability to connect anywhereand the ability to facilitate competition
at a moment's noticethat this is a part of their life.
And so that's going to be reflectedcollegiately, that's going to be reflected
professionally as more people try to gopro and more people try to take e-sports
as an entertainment, you know, experience.
(38:22):
So there's going to be all types of jobsand careers that pop up from that,
whether it be in, you know, mediasuch as this, whether it be in game
design, whether it bein really just administrative people
like myself that can applythis sort of knowledge about this world
and like help trainthe next generation of students.
Right.
And we're all
hanging on by the seat of our pantsbecause e-sports can change at any moment.
(38:45):
Right?
We are just one
awesome game away from beingjust left us the next big thing, right?
It can drop at any moment.
We don't dictate that environmentand games don't stay stagnant.
They're always updating arethey're always getting better.
And so because of that, that industryhas hundreds, thousands of possibilities
where we're at the very beginningof the professional growth sector
(39:07):
as far as what collegiate e-sportsand professional e-sports can provide.
And that's just dictated by,I think, the interest that's out there.
People love this.
People consume this twitch is,you know, the new YouTube TV for
for what it was for me.I would watch YouTube as a kid.
All the kids I know
are just watching Twitch
and they're watching theircontent creators and they're watching
and they're seeing all the thingsthat can kind of come from this.
(39:27):
And I, I can't even imagineall that's going to come from this.
Somebody much more intelligent
than I will figure that out,but I just see it and know it.
You know, when you feel that energy,
you feel that potential you like,this is going to get bigger, you know?
And as far as the skills that translateI think we touched on it earlier, but
being a student
athlete is a unique experienceand one that makes your collegiate
(39:48):
experience incredible.
But to there are some skillsyou learn here that you don't
get the opportunity to learnand in the normal workplace.
Right.
And we can develop them.
And that's probably my favorite part.
The most exciting part
to me is to work with the student athletesand teach them that and watch them grow.
And the difference between somebodywho comes in as a freshman and the person
that lives as a senior is probablythe most rewarding part of the experience.
(40:11):
Both I think, for the playerand for the administrator of the coach.
So I'm excited about where that could go.
Yeah, and I think you're speaking directly
to this idea that we're living inan innovative world, right?
And the more digitalwe become, the more that we have to adapt.
And I think it's amazing to see studentsthinking ten steps ahead
(40:33):
and being interactive in those spacesthat are just going to be so big
professionally and in an entertainmentand digitized world.
That we're living in. I agree.I agree. It's exciting.
I can'twait to see what my students go on to do.
It's going to be pretty cool.
So speaking of students,
how can students get involvedif they're interested in e-sports,
(40:53):
if they don't necessarily knowwhat e-sports are interested?
You know, do they have to be
main campus students to get involved,or is it open to all students at the U.
So for our varsity students,because we're trying to build
that sort of camaraderie,because we're trying to build
that culture,
the varsity studentshave to be on main campus
because we actually holdpractices in-person
but that's only a small partof what we're doing in e-sports, really.
(41:14):
We see the potential for this community
to be absolutely massivein the sense that we have the
I don't want to say metaverse,but we have, you know, the ability
to kind of havea, you know, vibrant community online.
Right?
So we have a discord that currently has800 plus members and that's that's small.
It's going to continue to growand it's going to continue
(41:35):
to be the base of operationsof where we do community operations.
And community operations will be bothin-person and online because we realize
that those are the shared experiencesthat our students are asking for.
Right.
So whether that be collegiate intramuralsfor e-sports
running through that department,whether that be one off events,
whether it be Halloween events,whether it be, you know, winter formals,
these are all things that we canpotentially have and run through our
(41:59):
you know, online communications.
And it's somethingthat's incredibly exciting to me
because like you said, it has the abilityto do what other not in-person
sports can do in which we can be ableto be that virtual hybrid
where we have people in-person.
And but we're connecting with people,
you know, that are coming to you away fromwho knows where.
And that to me is really,really cool potential
that we haven't even untapped yetbecause we're still
(42:20):
in the foundational stage of whatwe're going to be doing for e-sports.
We're still setting our teams,
but that next wave is going to bejust as exciting, if not more so right?
And it's super easy to get involved
because it's a super welcomingand inclusive and open environment.
All you really need to dois reach out to me
and I'll find a way to get you involved.
I'll find something that you want to do.
That's what I'm all about.
(42:41):
You want to be involved in the team,so let's find a way to get you there.
You want to be involved in the discord,the community management running a twitch.
You want to find a wayto get overlays in there.
You want to be a scout caster.
That is what I'm all about.
You just reach out to meand we'll find a way.
And if you just want to be involvedsuper easy as well, reach out to me
and I'll find people who I think thinklike you, who I think
(43:01):
have the same experiences like youand connect you because that's my role at
the university is
is to connect everybody that's whatI think the potential of e-sports is.
So how can students reach you?
Is there an email?
They should, yeah.I mean, that can reach me at my email.
That's actually really easy and officialthen it's hard to forget it's Ian is glad
to add email dot Arizona dot eduand so you can reach me there.
(43:24):
That's the best way to reach meofficially.
Are you can reach me on Discordif you've been to our community,
but I think the easiest is to reach me,you know, via email
and I'll connect you to whateveryou want me to connect you to from there.
Perfect.
Well, I'm really excited to see whereyou take this program and how you grow it.
I know you're new to the U.S.
and you have a lot of growthcoming out of this program.
It's going to be really excitingto watch you over the next few years.
(43:46):
And students grow this out.
I'm super excitedto see how we can bring this
to distance and online studentsand bring them into the fold.
So thank you so much for taking some timewith us today.
I'm super excited to learn more about yousports and have you with us.
Thank you.Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure
thank you for joining us for episodetwo of DG Katz.
(44:07):
To learn more
about getting credit from Age of Empires,visit Age of Empires dot com.
For more information on EASports at Arizona, visit EA Sports Dot
Arizona Dot Edu.
This podcast is brought to youby the online distance and continuing
educationdivision of the University of Arizona.
It has been directed by Aviva
Doery, produced by Steve Bayless, RachelAbraham and Aviva Doery.
(44:28):
Executive Producer is Dr.
Craig Wilson For more information onArizona Online, visit A-Z Online.
Arizona Dot Edu.
Thanks for listening, folks.
Will see you on thenext episode of DigiCats
Hello everyone.
Welcome to DigiCats, the podcastwhere we talk all things education
and technologyI'm your host, Aviva Doery,
This podcast is brought to youby the Online Distance
and Continuing Educationdivision of the University of Arizona.
Welcome back to DigiCats.
(00:26):
This weekwe will be talking about gamification
in educationor the use of game and gaming structures.
To teach in new and engaging ways.
We are going to talk about
how educators are using video gamesas pedagogical platforms.
Launching this spring, UArizona,is partnering with Microsoft to enable
players of the popular strategy gameAge of Empires to earn history credits.
(00:47):
Yeah, that means real college creditthrough a video game
later on in the episode.
We will break down the history of gamingin educational contexts
with Rachel Abrahamand get a closer look at e-sports
spaces on campus with Ian Escalante,the director of E-sports.
But first, we are so lucky to have Dr.
Alison Futrell and Dr.
Paul Milliman, the two professors at theforefront of the Age of Empires program.
(01:09):
Here to talk about how the idea of
utilizing digital storytelling to providecollege credit came to life.
Dr. AlisonFutrell is an associate professor
and head of the Department of Historyat the University of Arizona.
Her research interests
focus on the performanceand imagery of power in Imperial Rome
with special interest in spectacleand gender, as well as manifestations
of the ancient Mediterraneanin modern popular culture. Dr.
(01:33):
Futrell has numerous publications,including the Viking, Queen, Spartacus,
HBO, Rome and XenaWarrior Princess just to name a few.
Dr. Paul
Millman is an associate professorin the history department whose research
and teaching interest focus on gamesand food in the Global Middle Ages.
His research on medieval games
won the Medieval Academy of AmericasVan Cortland Elliot Prize.
(01:55):
Dr. Millman regularly teachesgender courses on games and food,
encouraging students to engagein nontraditional research projects
and experiential learningto better understand
how people in past societiesexperience games and food.
Now let's jump into our conversationwith Dr.
Futrell and Dr.
Millman
(02:21):
Alison and Paul, thank you so much fortaking some time to chat with us today.
I know we've got a lotto get to as far as age of empires.
But let's start with getting to knowwho you are a little bit.
Alison, can you tell usa little bit about yourself?
My name is Alison Futrell.
I'm the head of the history departmenthere,
and I've been at the University of Arizonafor decades.
My field of specialization,it has turned out to be
(02:43):
is a spectacle, Roman spectacleand Roman games and the ways in which they
inhabit
certain parts of Roman politics,Roman society.
All right, Paul, how about you?
I'm Paul Millman, I'man associate professor
in the history department,and I focus on medieval history.
I've been here for 15 years now.
(03:06):
I was one of the original group of faculty
to put together Arizona online.
Eight years ago now.
So I've been focusing mostly on onlineteaching since then and even before then.
And I like to teach on funtopics like games and food.
So this worked out really well for me.
As our listeners can hear.
You're calling in to our podcast today, so
(03:27):
thank you for taking some time to join us,even though you're joining virtually.
We appreciate it. Happy to be here.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So what is Age of Empires?
So Age of empires is a real timestrategy game that now
the original version is 25 years oldand we're the latest.
One is Age of Empires.
Four, which focuses on the Middle Ages,just as the Age of Empires two had done.
(03:52):
And it's
a very fun and interesting game.
I've so many students
I've had,I've gotten interested in history
through playing the earlierversions of Age of Empires.
So I can't wait to see the new generation
getting into this new versionafter 25 years of this game franchise.
So where did this idea come from?
You know, you mentionedyou just mentioned students
(04:12):
becoming interested in historyfrom interacting with the game.
Where was the idea to thenbring it into a credit bearing opportunity
where students who interact with the game,who participate
in different aspects of the game,can then get credit?
Where where did that idea come from?
That actually came from Arizona online.
They had been negotiatingwith Microsoft over other issues,
(04:33):
and they approached usbecause Microsoft was interested
in having some kind of collaborationwith a history department,
one that had a strong interestin online learning.
So tell me a little bit moreabout your involvement.
You know,what was your stake in the project
and how did you two work togetherto sort of come to this end product?
Well, as Paul mentioned, a number of ourstudents over the years have come to us
(04:55):
because their interest in history
has been sparkedby this kind of engaging activity.
Video games, it used to be miniserieson TV or maybe movies
but this is how people interact withthe past in society today more and more.
So students that I respected, studentsI was engaged in,
in teaching and learning withand wanted to explore
(05:19):
the narratives
that they were finding in video gamesand all the implications and ramifications
and how that might overlapwith other sources of history.
And I thought, you know,this is really an interesting opportunity
and maybe one that we could engage inas scholars in a
in an intriguing way,not just in terms of teaching, but other
(05:39):
kinds of relationships with Microsoft,hopefully somewhere down the path.
Paul, can you just walk usthrough the process of a student who
is interested in the game but is not sureabout this new credit bearing path?
How does that happen?
How does the student go from playingthe game to actually getting credit?
(05:59):
Well, that's a great question.
This has been a it's been a process.
Try to work all this outbecause there's no model
for anything like thisthat we've been learning as you're going.
Basically,the student can opt in at any point
they don't have to, you know,
download the game and say, okay, I'mgoing to do this right from the start.
They canthey can just play the game for a while.
(06:21):
They can look at some of the contentwe've added
and decide how I might want to do that.
So at any point,they can decide that they want to do this.
And basically what will happenis at various points throughout the game,
there are these downloadable contentthat's that
Microsoft added called Hands on History,which is really great.
Many documentaries about different aspectsof medieval life and society.
(06:46):
And then we've built our own additionalcontent called Illuminated Histories,
in which Alison and Iexplain other aspects of medieval life
building,both on what's going on in the game
and what's going on in the handson history of videos. If the students
read this stuff and they decide,
Oh, hey, that's pretty interesting,I want to I want to learn more about this.
(07:06):
Then they can opt into this program.
And then after they've readall of our accumulated
histories and completed all the campaigns,
then at the end there's an assessment,which is a fun assessment.
I designed it as a as an onlinescavenger hunt.
So it's it should be a lot of fun.
And they'll get to learn even more aboutthe history that went into this game.
(07:28):
They'll go and visitall these great museums, virtually
libraries examineall these primary sources.
So if they pass that assessment,then they get the credit.
So once students complete that assessment,how would they then move on to
getting involved and taking another class,taking a history class with you guys?
That's a great question.
(07:48):
We're actually building a special coursejust for the students,
just for the game, or historians
who come in to the University of Arizonathrough this particular program.
It's a brand new course.
It's history to 97 be,and it builds on their experiences,
playing the game,engaging with our content in the course,
(08:08):
and in a way that allows them to buildon that world.
There.
As I mentioned earlierabout the hands on history videos,
they're one of the thingsthey're going to do in this
course is make their own hands on historyvideos on things that interest them.
There are going to explore the worldcivilizations in the game in more detail.
As I was saying, go down the rabbit holes.
(08:29):
We will be there,guys, as they go down the rabbit holes
and help them through this.
But that's really the most important thingas I want them to understand that
they are going to be producers of history,not just consumers.
And I think this is
one of the great things about video gamesis they're so interactive.
You know, you're not just
following a narrative.
You're making your own choices.
(08:49):
You are doing things you're you're you'reyou know, you're actively learning.
And that's what we really want to do inthis course is build on that.
You know, I'mnot I'm not going to lecture.
There aren't new tests.So there aren't the textbooks.
There are to be term papers.
It's all making things,building things, doing historical research
that's just as rigorousas a traditional course,
(09:11):
but then presenting it in a waythat's novel and unique
and I think more engaging for the students
who are coming into their study of historyin this particular way.
So it seems like that innovationthat you brought into the video game
world is just going to
continue and students get to continueto have these experiential opportunities
that really place them inside the historyrather than just standing
(09:31):
on the edge of it and reading about it,if that makes sense.
Yes. No, absolutely.
That's really what I thinkthe future of history is going to be.
You know, there are always peoplewho just want to listen to lectures
and, you know, or podcastI enjoy listening to.
But at a certain point,
there are always people who want to knowOkay, how do I do that?
You know, how can I make something?
(09:51):
How can I be a historian?
And this is really what we wantstudents to do in this course
and really what I want you to always bedoing my all the my courses.
So you're really prompting students
like Ellis to fall down that medievalrabbit hole and jump right in.
Exactly.
You know, the whacky worldthat away for you is worth their effort.
There are so many doors that Alice opened.
(10:15):
Let's hope we just don'tget too big or shrink down too small.
We're say yes. Lots of food opportunities.
And that's true in the history departmentto a lot of us teaching food.
So drink me
and chess opportunities.
Lots of games
I'm totally going to come crashyour class.
That sounds great.
(10:36):
Please do it.
The more than Maria it'll be,it'll be a lot of fun.
Okay, so let's walk throughyour pedagogical approach to this game,
because I know there are other gamesthat have incorporated education.
You know, one from my childhoodthat kind of pops up is Oregon Trail,
not the Oregon Trail.
(10:58):
Nancy Drew. Right.
There's a lot of Nancy Drew gamesthat have historical applications.
And you go through the adventureand you solve the mystery.
But along the way, you know, as a kid,you learn stuff.
So what was your approach to making this
an accessible experience that made it fun
for students to be interactingwith these histories in a game setting,
(11:19):
but also was able to conveyeducational material
as I was just missingsome of my very best students,
the ones that are telling me,you know, they they learned about
medieval historythrough playing games like Age of Empires.
And it's because they're you know,they've got their phones out
at the same time they've got their PC onand they're Googling
(11:40):
you know, Battle of Hastings while they'refighting the Battle of Hastings.
You know, they're
they're they're students who already wantto learn more about this stuff.
So what we'redoing is sort of guiding them
to the best
places, best open access placesonline to learn more, just sort of
see the interest that's already thereand in a way make them feel
(12:01):
comfortableand sort of validate the process.
So some of the students kind of sheepishlytell me that they weren't history
from video games.
Some of them won't even admit it at allbecause I think they're terrified
I won't take them seriously.
So I think that's a stigmathat needs to be removed.
You know, so many people come to historythrough playing computer games now,
so we want to fully embrace that and,you know,
(12:25):
capture that interestand help guide them to doing, you know,
their own historical research and being,you know, gamer historians.
And it's certainly true.
You know,I mean, Paul and I are nerds as well.
This is something that we doin engaging with popular culture.
We put things on pause.
We dove down the rabbit hole on the phoneor on the iPad or whatever,
(12:46):
and then we come back to it.
Once we figure out something,we we're curious.
We want to indulge that curiosityand a that curiosity and students to
so some of the eliminated historieswe put together
are kind of like mini rabbit holes.
Here's something that we explored.
Maybe you're interested in it.
Here's some resources for youjust in bite-sized form.
(13:08):
So you guys are both historians by trade.
And I think when you thinkabout applying education into a game
setting, history is a really great space
to approach that from because it'sessentially digital storytelling.
What other disciplinesdo you think could benefit
from this type of an educational approach?
I think that a number of the humanitiesare doing this kind of thing.
(13:32):
I know that because I talkedto other friends of mine who are more
in the literature side of thingsand are using video games
like Hades, for example,to awake different perspectives
on the exploration of thethe corpus of Greek mythology
and think about alternative storiesthat that
allow people to explore less
(13:55):
dominant points of
view and alternatives to thethe standard sort of canon,
which tends to be, you know,a little top heavy, let's put it that way.
Yeah, yeah.
I've heard of peopledoing really interesting stuff.
I heard a lecture by an arthistorian recently who was using
Assassin's Creed because they havethis great sort of walk through.
(14:17):
You know, they built this, you know,digital recreation of these ancient
medieval cities so you can go and explorefrom a point of view.
You never would be able to, you know, youyou could climb a medieval cathedral
and see that, see the roofor look through the uppermost window if,
you know, it's a great wayto explore a world that, you know,
you're not going to fly toto France to see.
(14:39):
And, you know, even if you got there,
you could couldn't to explore the worldthe same way you can in a video game.
I had a graduate studentwho was really interested in Assassin's
Creed, the Cleopatra version,and we had just spent a month
or so exploring the murderous habitsof the Ptolemaic dynasty.
And how does that play outin this version of Cleopatra?
Is it reasonable?
(14:59):
How does it enhanceour expectations in certain ways
about the use of powerin the ancient Mediterranean?
Yeah, that's amazing.
I hadn't thought of it that way.
Especially, you know, Paul, when you weresaying about going and visiting places,
you can't go visit places that happenedand existed, you know, 500 years ago.
So being able to explore them and explorestories and characters and histories
(15:20):
that wayseems like a really innovative way
to engagewith this topic and these histories.
I agree.
Yes. Your show
maybe I should take places
and especially placesthat have been destroyed,
you know, recently through warsor through just
(15:43):
you know, natural disasters.
You know, you can explore these placesthat no longer exist,
you know, as recently as a few years ago.
Yeah. Definitely.
So this is a project that I would considerto be outside the box.
What would you say were your biggestchallenges in moving forward?
(16:03):
You had mentionedthat nobody was doing this before,
so figuring out your next steps,that could be one of them.
You know, what was the challenge?
And then, you know,was it all worth it in the end?
Well, there's challengesand the challenges.
I should say that the teaching of historyis something that has been evolving
over time and people working out newclassroom techniques to engage students.
(16:27):
And a lot of it does involve play.
It involves reenactments,it involves debates.
It involvestaking on characters from the past
and trying to live through theirexperience and see through their eyes
in order to
enhance one's one's empathy,but also enrich one's understanding
of the evidencefrom these different time periods.
(16:49):
So this plays into some of these habitsof learning through play
that have been developingfor some time in the history classroom.
I watched and I both teach with themwith games this way, with this performance
and simulation.
So this is just a digital wayof doing something.
We've been doing analog
for a very long time,and I think because we've come into that
(17:10):
coming to this projectfrom that world in which, you know,
I have my students play medieval tabletopgames, their card games, everything,
you know, and now that's it has themperform ancient Roman spectacles
So it's a different way of simulatinga different way of storytelling.
And, you know, it's,
it's been an interesting process.
It's been a good process.
(17:31):
But approaching it from,
you know, the point of view,not just of a, of a university course, but
also as a as a corporation with, you know,developing a multimillion dollar game.
You know, how those two thingswork together, you know, because there's
the majority of peopledo not want to get a history degree.
They want to play the game and have fun.
So it's quite sort of balancingthat, you know, how do we,
(17:53):
you know, insert ourselves into the gamein a way that's not going to
turn off people who are playing the gamejust to have fun,
but also intrigue people who think, well,that might be something I want to do.
Yeah, I think that's a great pointabout bringing people into the fold
and making education accessiblein a very different way
than we think of as traditional collegecredits.
(18:16):
Absolutely.
Well, we are at a public universityand part of our constituency
is always going to be the general public,
not the publicwho are sitting in our classrooms.
So that idea that you canyou can reach some of the
the information, the techniques,the analytical trends and the
engaging interest,the rabbit hole stuff that we work with
(18:40):
that's
part of what we're supposed to be doing,I think, as faculty
at a public university.
Yeah, I agree. Fantastic.
All right.
Well, I like to aska really great question at the end.
And Paul, I'll start with you.
What is the
best advice that a mentoror past professor has ever given you?
Wow. That's really a good question.
(19:01):
I would say awkward silence is okay.
So I did a podcast, baby,
but in a classroom, would you just
be quiet and the students know
that they have the time to think and,you know,
they don't don't have to jumpto the answer immediately.
I like that.
Yeah, that's great advice, Alison.
(19:22):
So much advice.
And just thinkingof my ministry of rules and
but I think a good piece of advicethat I've received
is to let your students knowthat you're human, you know,
talk about how you got to to thisthis place,
this point of inquiry, this
(19:43):
stage of your investigation
so they can see themselvesmaybe in in the track that you took.
Yeah. All great advice.
Thank you guys so much for taking the timeto chat with me today.
I know that I have a lot of new things tothink about when I'm playing video games.
Hopefully some of our listeners out there
take a chance to visit the website,which is Age of Empires dot com.
(20:04):
Check out the game.Let us know what you think.
Thanks so much for taking the time.
We appreciate having you.
Thank you. If ever. Thank you.
Welcome back to Digital Hats.
We just had a great conversationwith doctors Paul Millman and Alison
Futrell about the Age of Empirespartnership coming up.
(20:27):
And they talked a lot
about the merger of education and gamingand what we call gamification.
Now, I've asked Rachel Abrahamto come back and talk with us today
and tell us a little bit moreabout gamification theory.
So welcome back, Rachel.
Thanks, Aviva. It's so great to be back.
I'm so excited to talk about gamificationand gamification and learning.
This involves using a game based elementsuch as point scoring, peer
(20:51):
competition, teamwork, score tablesto drive engagement and help students
assimilate new informationto test their knowledge.
Gamification, theoryand education is that learners
learn best when they're also having fun.
So I like to think back tomaybe a favorite song or a favorite movie.
You probably know most of the wordsand can describe the plots and themes
(21:13):
to somebody else.
That is gamification and education.
You create the same
pleasurable experience with courseworkand increase material retention Students
will learn best when they have goals,targets, achievements that they reach for.
I like to think while in classyou have a platform called Cute
where students can competeagainst each other to
(21:35):
talk about the materialthat they have just discussed,
or maybe that they had readthe previous night.
And then students have a pointbased incentive to
then compete against each otherto see what they were able to retain.
From here, the instructor's canthen take those points, figure out
where students are catching a concept,or maybe where
(21:55):
they're not catching a concept,and then review the material.
That reminds me a lot of playing Jeopardyin middle school, right?
Like you'd have a math problem.
You solve the problem if you get it right,you get points and you take turns.
And it was so much more fun,especially from someone who was not great
at math, to engage in a game settingand add a little competitive spirit to it.
(22:16):
Absolutely.
And when you're having somethingthat is fun like Jeopardy!
Even if you're not a great math person,you're still having fun with something.
So you can build that confidenceto be able to answer a question,
even if you're not quite sure what it is,you know, while I'm just having fun,
but in actuality you're learningthe material and then you're also building
(22:38):
communication skills and publicspeaking skills and confidence.
Yeah.
And it really speaks
to the range of technologiesthat you can use for gamification, right?
You have something as simple
as jeopardy, as simple technologythat's free to the public like a hoot.
And then we're starting to leaninto these greater technologies,
like full on video game learning, likewe're talking about with age of Empires.
(23:00):
So I think there'sthis really broad access
to learning through games that I thinkwe're still just hitting the precipice of.
Absolutely.
And this is all about changing educationat its core, where to learn something.
You don't have to be sittingin a classroom reading a text book
and taking a quiz to be ableto retain the information you can
(23:21):
immerse yourself in the materialand the topics with either an instructor
that's live or somebodythat's sitting behind a screen.
But you can goyou can achieve those modules
as and learn along the waywhether you realize it or not.
And what's very cool,too, is gamification is not new.
I remember
back in childhood, Schoolhouse Rock,that's gamification.
(23:45):
There is a song to remember how somethingworked.
Now, 20, 25 years later,
I still know the legislative processbecause of Schoolhouse Rock.
Yeah, I remember.
There's like that oneYouTube video of how a bill's made right.
And you had mentionedsongwriting and music, and I had written
(24:05):
a songmy freshman year of high school about,
you know, the Paris
House of the Soul, the mitochondria,and so I think it's really interesting
to see how the cognitive waysthat our brains are working
are developing to interactwith these materials in new ways.
That is fun. So we remember exactly.
And researchers have found that gamelike atmosphere is increased productivity.
(24:26):
So while you think, oh,
it's might not be as productive of a wayto learn, there's more distractions.
That's not the case.
It's a very productive way to still learnand to still retain the information.
So you touched upon
some really core memories of childhoodlearning for me, right?
Jeopardy!
Kahu being a younger studentand having game play
and being able to learn that way.
(24:47):
But when we get into high school,at least in my experience,
games weren't used quite as often.
It was very much textbook based learning.
Why do you think it is that once we startto move into those higher grade levels,
games and gamification are usedless and less as pedagogical tools?
I think that's a core question,and I don't think it's as we get older,
(25:08):
I think it's within that high school rangethat 14 to 18 year old age range
because I know I've used gamificationwithin college and graduate school
and I think we have a system that relieson a way that it's always been done.
And technology is changing and studentsand instructors
(25:29):
and teachers are becomingmuch more comfortable with technology.
And perhaps it's time to rethinkour high school curriculum
of a traditionalsit down, read a text book,
take a quiz, and really startincorporating gamification,
especially as you are learning
some of those core elementsthat students will take on for life.
(25:51):
Well,I think that leaves us on a great note
to really startrethinking the ways that we learn. Rachel.
Thanks so much for being with us.
If you, our listeners, are interestedin gamification, please check out.
Age of Empires.
There's lots of different ways for youas a student
staff, faculty to get involvedwith different gamification opportunities.
Here at the University of Arizona. Rachel,thank you so much. Thank you.
(26:19):
Welcome back to Digital Hats.
Here we have Ian Escalante,who has joined us.
He is the director of e-sportshere at the University of Arizona.
So welcome to the podcast.
Thank you. Really excited to be here.This sounds like a lot of fun.
So tell us a little bit about what you do.
So in summary,as the director of e-sports, I oversee
all e-sports operationsof the varsity level for the university.
(26:40):
So, I mean, that's the official,you know, sort of statement.
But really what it meansis teaching our varsity students
to be student athleteswhen it kind of takes.
Are that helping themand all their needs that come up
because they are student athletes?
You know, we're trying to recognize themthat way.
And it is an exciting experience.
We have seven varsity teams,50 student athletes,
and we're on that nextwave of what collegiate e-sports is.
(27:03):
So it's it's pretty awesomeso far in layman's terms, for someone
who's never interactedwith the word e-sports before.
What does that mean?
So in layman's terms, e-sportsor electronic sports
just means video gamesplayed at a competitive level.
Every video game can kind ofbe played competitively.
But not every videogame is designedto be a competitive e-sport.
(27:24):
Right.
So it has a very specific sort ofI guess constraint of what that means.
For the most part, not every game outthere like unfortunately as an e-sport,
as much as I want Mario Kart to happen,it's just not going to happen.
But beyond that,there's just a wide variety of games
that capture the attention of our students
that they want to competeat at a collegiate level.
And that's reflected onalmost every college in the university,
(27:47):
every university in this countrykind of has an e-sports
department one way or another,whether they know it or not.
So e-sports seems to be a newer wayof bringing athletes on campus.
How did we get from video gamesas a form of entertainment
to moving into video gamesin a competitive atmosphere?
(28:07):
I mean, that'sthat's a sociological question.
I'm not really sure what the true answerto that is, other than the fact that.
Well, I mean, it's just the naturalevolution of what recreation is.
I mean, all sports in some waysstarted as recreation, right?
They were just getting togetherwith a frame of rules
and people started playing it for fun.
And then people just started to determinewho's the best at that.
And I guess we as humans like to do that.
(28:28):
You know,there's a lot of us out there like, no,
I like to be the best at this,and I like to prove that.
And the competitive spirit existsin a lot of people.
And this is just a way for a lot of peopleto express that and show that and show
their dedication and show how hardthey work and really master something.
I mean, there's there's beauty and joyin mastering anything.
And video games is no different.
(28:49):
You know, it really makes those chemicalsin our brains go off.
So a lot of what we've been talking aboutin this episode
specifically is taking games
and bringing them into educational contextand using games as a method to learn.
I feel like there'sa lot of conversation around
what it means to be a student athletein a more traditional sense.
But how does e-sports enhancethe educational experience of a student?
(29:11):
Is it similar to that of a traditional,you know, football experience,
or is it something differentand they have different skills
that are developed out of that experience?
Well, there are different skillsthat are needed to be an e-sports
athlete as opposed to football,you know, a football student athlete.
But I would say that surprisingly,
the experiences are the same oncewe get to that high level competition.
Once you get to high level competition,you have to play every day.
(29:33):
You have to have a talent base.
You have to be dedicated, right?
You have to practice every day.
You know, the same waythat a student athlete
goes to the gym to keep their body sharp,you have to play the game to stay sharp.
And then,
you know, when we get to practice,
we need to scrimmage other teams,try different formations, try, you know,
certain compositionsthat maybe we're not comfortable with,
but we knowwe're going to be attacked, right?
We need to analyze ourselves.
(29:54):
The way we think the other team willand we need to analyze that team.
How do we break them down?
How do we make themdo what they don't do well?
And what do we do what we do well?
Right. It'svery much a sport in that sense.
And they requires
the same sort of dedicationand time and physical commitment as well.
I mean, you know,we're not sweating it out
and, you know, it'snot what you would inherently see,
(30:15):
but it is very physically drainingto be so focused at the same time.
Right.
To be sitting downand using every bit of your every brain
cell in your body to focusand really just make that happen.
You know, so there's a physical component,a huge mental component.
And so when all of thosethings are expressed, we start to see that
the needs of our studentathletes are kind of the same, right?
(30:36):
They need academic support.
They need somebody to teach them,you know, how to be disciplined.
They need somebody to help themschedule things. Right.
They need somebody
to tell them what it takesto be a good teammate,
because it's not just to be goodat the game.
It's how do you express yourself properlywith your teammates?
How do you express frustration?
How do you express, you know,how are we going to get better?
How do we grow together? Right.
(30:56):
And all of those things fitwithin each sports.
So naturally that it's surprising,
even to me who's been in itso long, studied it so long, you know,
so that experiencesit's been shocking, to say the least, but
I guess it shouldn't be right.
You know, once you get down to it,that's that's what it is.
It is a sport in that in that form so
but there's a litany of other experiencesthat come from it
(31:16):
that don't come from thetraditional student athlete experience.
You know, like everything in EASports is online.
Right.
And that means by default, we'reinteracting with the online world, right?
Where, you know, scheduling scrimmagesin ways that other student athletes
don't have to.
It's very much you show up to the fieldand we're not that way.
We're like, hey, can you game at six?Can you make it happen? Okay.
Six time, 6 p.m. Eastern.
(31:37):
What is that for us? That's 4 p.m.okay. We can make four 30.
I mean, we communicatein a completely different way as well.
It's it's a lot of those professionalbarriers are broken down in a lot of ways
because we're communicatingreally as passionate gamers one to one,
because there isn't yet that superprofessional structure around it.
We're trying to get there.
But I mean, that kind of lets it be uniquein its own way.
(31:59):
Yeah.
Having your own way of communicatingof your own way of scheduling things
and not fitting into what we've consideredthe norm, I think is kind of
coming back into fashion.
Yeah.
I mean, it is and it's so interestingwhenever I describe sports in this way
to somebody about,oh, that sounds so chaotic.
That sounds all over,
you know, all over the place,I'm like, Well,
it kind of is, but that kind of worksfor some people, right?
(32:20):
That kind of that environment really fitsfor for some people that, you know,
keeping you on your toes and, and,you know, a changing landscape, right?
Whatever e-sport you're doing nowmay not exist tomorrow.
So what transferable skillsare you taking from this sport to the next
sport to be the best at that one?
Or are you just going to master thisone? Right.
I mean, those skills are applicableto everyday life as well, right?
(32:41):
Like it's
not just about learning how to do,you know, put a peg in a certain holds.
Why are you doing it that way?
How does the whole process work?
And I think we do see that in studentathletes.
We see a lot of abstract thinkingin that sort of sense that I think
is really, really cooland really, really awesome.
And that allows us to apply sportsinto the professional world.
In a lot of different ways as well, too,because we're used to doing that in game.
(33:04):
And then when we takewhat we've done in-game
and we apply to the professional worldwhen it's time to get a job,
it's like, well, EA Sports isn't just EASports, right?
It's art EASports isn't just EA Sports, right?
It's competitive integrity,competitive sport.
It's not just sport, right? It's gamedesign.
It's not just gamedesign, it's physics, right?
It's it's programing
and that type of thinking
and understanding that all of the piecesthat fit into EA Sports
(33:25):
and having any sportspersonbe naturally accustomed
and comfortablewith that adaptability and chaotic world,
I think is a huge benefit in today's dayand age.
And I mean, I'm reaching hereto see what would make us different,
what make it make it special.
But the more you think on it,it's really not that hard to find.
It's the same as building upthose transferable skills
that you would from the,you know, a different sport.
(33:46):
You really get that. Yeah.
So walk me through the processof what an e-sport competition looks like,
because you're talking about teammates,you're talking about working together.
And I think, you know, my perceptionof video games is pretty limited.
You know, we're talking about Mario Kartbefore it, right?
Like Mario Party was what I grew up with.
So what games are students competing in?
(34:07):
Are they competing individually or are we,
you know, are our student athletescompeting as a team in those games spaces?
In these game spaces, we're competingin EA Sports that require us to be a team,
usually in teams of five
or overwatch as a team of six,but standard is a team of five.
So the way just to show youa normal competition week
would go isyou would find out who your opponent is.
(34:29):
Some EA sports,
you know,allow you to look up their profiles,
find out what they're good at, find outwhich heroes they like to play or,
you know, what their current rank gameis, right?
When you know how frequently arethey're playing and we can kind of develop
a game plan of what we're going to doas well as grind ourselves, right?
It's like, okay, we got five daysto get ready for this team, right?
So we're going toyou know, in a traditional landscape,
(34:50):
we're going to break down the practiceweek, we break down with analysis.
Then sometimes we'll watch our own games.
What did we do improperly last gameor what do we need to improve on?
And can we do that in this short week?
Right.
It's a lot of self-reflection,and then it's just practice.
And then you practice,
you schedule scrimmages with teamsand you run your game plan.
You see if it's working,if it's not working.
(35:10):
And you know you have to scrimmagebecause sometimes,
you know, the best plansdon't exactly come to fruition.
You're just like,Okay, it's just not working.
We're not making this work.
Right?
Like,what can we do to get better at that?
Or do we need to just scrap this planand try something different?
Right.
And you do all of that leading upto the game day on Saturday, Friday
you kind of lock downwhat you're going to do.
You make sure that everybody's all set,
(35:32):
and then you go into Saturdayand you execute that game plan.
And like all things in sports, it's it'sthe team's never going to do
what you think they're going to do.
It's only going to do about half of it.
And you react to that chaotic experience.
Some people make plays, right?
Some people just, you know, make mistakesthat they don't normally make.
And that just affects the whole dynamic.
And really what gives itthat sense of competition, right?
(35:53):
It's not like watching a simulationplay out.
It's like watching,you know, humans actually try to do a team
game to make,you know, accomplish an objective.
And, you know, for some people,that's what makes sports exciting.
That's what makes it click right.
And when you break it down as a practiceweek that way,
I think it also clicks for a lot of sportspeople who also experience that, though.
Oh, yeah. That's that'sthat's the way it is.
(36:14):
And you do that over an eight week season.
I hope you make playoffsand then in playoffs do the same thing
and you hope your champion I mean, that'swhat we're all trying to do effectively.
But only one champion gets to emergefrom the collegiate landscape and
you know, it's not usually indivisions is just
who was the best in the countryin this competition period, right?
So competition can be fierce.
It can be from all different talentlevels.
(36:36):
You never know who you're going to face.
That's awesome.
So let's talk about the post collegiate
application of EA Sports,because I think there's
a large societal framing of video gamesin one aspect that is not professional,
but we've seen this large growthof gaming as a profession.
(36:56):
Can you speak to oncestudents get to that professional level,
what that can look like as far as acareer, as far as a career within esports
or as far as just in general,the skills that we transfer as e-sports
student athletes? Both.
I mean, the careers within
e-sports are really just opening upand multiplying by the day, right?
A position such as mine.
The director of e-sports at PowerFive University was unfathomable
(37:19):
five years ago, right?I mean, we were all hoping for it.
We meaning my colleagues and I, who are,you know, in the e-sports space but this,
like all tech,is developing at an incredibly fast rate.
You know, we've gone from a Nokia phoneto the phones that we have now,
which are basicallylike cyborg attachments and like 20 years,
I would expect the same exact thingto happen in collegiate e-sports.
(37:40):
It's accelerated.
People are thinking it'sgoing to take 30 years.
Well, it's not it's vastlyshifting downwards because video games
and e-sports by default are becoming moreand more a part of young people's lives.
You know, they're growing upwith video games in the ways we never did.
It's a natural step for them.
It's a natural world for them, right?
(38:00):
It's they entered a maturesort of gaming world
that had the ability to connect anywhereand the ability to facilitate competition
at a moment's noticethat this is a part of their life.
And so that's going to be reflectedcollegiately, that's going to be reflected
professionally as more people try to gopro and more people try to take e-sports
as an entertainment, you know, experience.
(38:22):
So there's going to be all types of jobsand careers that pop up from that,
whether it be in, you know, mediasuch as this, whether it be in game
design, whether it bein really just administrative people
like myself that can applythis sort of knowledge about this world
and like help trainthe next generation of students.
Right.
And we're all
hanging on by the seat of our pantsbecause e-sports can change at any moment.
(38:45):
Right?
We are just one
awesome game away from beingjust left us the next big thing, right?
It can drop at any moment.
We don't dictate that environmentand games don't stay stagnant.
They're always updating arethey're always getting better.
And so because of that, that industryhas hundreds, thousands of possibilities
where we're at the very beginningof the professional growth sector
(39:07):
as far as what collegiate e-sportsand professional e-sports can provide.
And that's just dictated by,I think, the interest that's out there.
People love this.
People consume this twitch is,you know, the new YouTube TV for
for what it was for me.I would watch YouTube as a kid.
All the kids I know
are just watching Twitch
and they're watching theircontent creators and they're watching
and they're seeing all the thingsthat can kind of come from this.
(39:27):
And I, I can't even imagineall that's going to come from this.
Somebody much more intelligent
than I will figure that out,but I just see it and know it.
You know, when you feel that energy,
you feel that potential you like,this is going to get bigger, you know?
And as far as the skills that translateI think we touched on it earlier, but
being a student
athlete is a unique experienceand one that makes your collegiate
(39:48):
experience incredible.
But to there are some skillsyou learn here that you don't
get the opportunity to learnand in the normal workplace.
Right.
And we can develop them.
And that's probably my favorite part.
The most exciting part
to me is to work with the student athletesand teach them that and watch them grow.
And the difference between somebodywho comes in as a freshman and the person
that lives as a senior is probablythe most rewarding part of the experience.
(40:11):
Both I think, for the playerand for the administrator of the coach.
So I'm excited about where that could go.
Yeah, and I think you're speaking directly
to this idea that we're living inan innovative world, right?
And the more digitalwe become, the more that we have to adapt.
And I think it's amazing to see studentsthinking ten steps ahead
(40:33):
and being interactive in those spacesthat are just going to be so big
professionally and in an entertainmentand digitized world.
That we're living in. I agree.I agree. It's exciting.
I can'twait to see what my students go on to do.
It's going to be pretty cool.
So speaking of students,
how can students get involvedif they're interested in e-sports,
(40:53):
if they don't necessarily knowwhat e-sports are interested?
You know, do they have to be
main campus students to get involved,or is it open to all students at the U.
So for our varsity students,because we're trying to build
that sort of camaraderie,because we're trying to build
that culture,
the varsity studentshave to be on main campus
because we actually holdpractices in-person
but that's only a small partof what we're doing in e-sports, really.
(41:14):
We see the potential for this community
to be absolutely massivein the sense that we have the
I don't want to say metaverse,but we have, you know, the ability
to kind of havea, you know, vibrant community online.
Right?
So we have a discord that currently has800 plus members and that's that's small.
It's going to continue to growand it's going to continue
(41:35):
to be the base of operationsof where we do community operations.
And community operations will be bothin-person and online because we realize
that those are the shared experiencesthat our students are asking for.
Right.
So whether that be collegiate intramuralsfor e-sports
running through that department,whether that be one off events,
whether it be Halloween events,whether it be, you know, winter formals,
these are all things that we canpotentially have and run through our
(41:59):
you know, online communications.
And it's somethingthat's incredibly exciting to me
because like you said, it has the abilityto do what other not in-person
sports can do in which we can be ableto be that virtual hybrid
where we have people in-person.
And but we're connecting with people,
you know, that are coming to you away fromwho knows where.
And that to me is really,really cool potential
that we haven't even untapped yetbecause we're still
(42:20):
in the foundational stage of whatwe're going to be doing for e-sports.
We're still setting our teams,
but that next wave is going to bejust as exciting, if not more so right?
And it's super easy to get involved
because it's a super welcomingand inclusive and open environment.
All you really need to dois reach out to me
and I'll find a way to get you involved.
I'll find something that you want to do.
That's what I'm all about.
(42:41):
You want to be involved in the team,so let's find a way to get you there.
You want to be involved in the discord,the community management running a twitch.
You want to find a wayto get overlays in there.
You want to be a scout caster.
That is what I'm all about.
You just reach out to meand we'll find a way.
And if you just want to be involvedsuper easy as well, reach out to me
and I'll find people who I think thinklike you, who I think
(43:01):
have the same experiences like youand connect you because that's my role at
the university is
is to connect everybody that's whatI think the potential of e-sports is.
So how can students reach you?
Is there an email?
They should, yeah.I mean, that can reach me at my email.
That's actually really easy and officialthen it's hard to forget it's Ian is glad
to add email dot Arizona dot eduand so you can reach me there.
(43:24):
That's the best way to reach meofficially.
Are you can reach me on Discordif you've been to our community,
but I think the easiest is to reach me,you know, via email
and I'll connect you to whateveryou want me to connect you to from there.
Perfect.
Well, I'm really excited to see whereyou take this program and how you grow it.
I know you're new to the U.S.
and you have a lot of growthcoming out of this program.
It's going to be really excitingto watch you over the next few years.
(43:46):
And students grow this out.
I'm super excitedto see how we can bring this
to distance and online studentsand bring them into the fold.
So thank you so much for taking some timewith us today.
I'm super excited to learn more about yousports and have you with us.
Thank you.Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure
thank you for joining us for episodetwo of DG Katz.
(44:07):
To learn more
about getting credit from Age of Empires,visit Age of Empires dot com.
For more information on EASports at Arizona, visit EA Sports Dot
Arizona Dot Edu.
This podcast is brought to youby the online distance and continuing
educationdivision of the University of Arizona.
It has been directed by Aviva
Doery, produced by Steve Bayless, RachelAbraham and Aviva Doery.
(44:28):
Executive Producer is Dr.
Craig Wilson For more information onArizona Online, visit A-Z Online.
Arizona Dot Edu.
Thanks for listening, folks.
Will see you on thenext episode of DigiCats
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