March 7, 2024 • 31 mins
Dive deep into the exciting universe of Academic eSports with our distinguished guest, Dr. Katrina Adkins. Leveraging her vast experience as an educator and a passionate gamer, Dr. Adkins enlightens us about the significant role eSports can play in reshaping K-12 education.
The three key principals of eSports - curriculum, competition, and careers - underscore the transformative potential of a competitive, yet cooperative gaming environment. Dr. Adkins offers a fresh perspective on how eSports can boost learning experiences and pave the way for a myriad of career opportunities in the booming industry.
Redressing common misconceptions, she also addresses essential concerns about increased screen time and highlights the multifaceted benefits of eSports – from improved cognitive abilities and hand-eye coordination to fostering social-emotional learning. She offers rich insights into the progressive integration of eSports into academics, suggesting simple and practical steps for schools interested in nurturing competitive eSports programs.
This episode illuminates the path for educators, parents, and administrators interested in incorporating eSports, spelling out strategies for overcoming challenges and ensuring sustainability amidst high turnover. Dr. Adkins also demystifies the eSports job market, pointing out the wide range of careers that extend beyond gaming.
Resources:
Ignite interest and engagement in computer science and STEM through the exciting field of esports. With the USAEL toolkit, students and schools will have everything they need to start and run their very own esports team, enhancing learning in the classroom through play.
Join the CodeCombat AI League -- both a competitive AI battle simulator and game engine for learning real Python and JavaScript code.
The AI League allows students to showcase their understanding of coding concepts in a new creative environment and practice problem solving strategies as they go head to head in battle against their classmates. Competitive coding has never been so epic!
Follow Dr Adkins on twitter
Connect to Dr Adkins on Linkedin
And learn more about Dr. Katrina Adkins, her work, resources and speaking engagements check out Dr. Adkins' website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Brian Stanton, host of Teaching While Queer, a part of the Education Podcast
Network, just like the show you're listening to now.
Shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed may not reflect others.
Find other interesting education podcasts at edupodcastnetwork.com.
You're listening to the Ed Curation Podcast. We're bringing you stories from
(00:23):
educational leaders about the instructional resources, practices,
and movements that are reshaping learning.
So, first of all, the USAEL has the word academic in it, which is extremely
meaningful to me, obviously, as an educator, as a mom.
Most of the leadership came from the classroom.
In fact, our CEO was California Teacher of the Year.
(00:46):
And so I thought, OK, this could be a good place. This could be a good place
for me, for my values, my beliefs, everything that I value around education and academic esports.
Hi, everyone. This is Christy, your host, and I love it when I get to do an
episode about something that is brand spanking new to me, which is the case today.
(01:08):
We're talking about esports, and y'all, I really had no clue.
I learned so much from our guest today, Dr. Katrina Adkins.
Dr. Adkins has been an educator for over 20 years. She started as a kindergarten
teacher and moved into educational technology and then taught at many different
grade levels and eventually focused on computer science and academic esports.
(01:32):
And if you're thinking like I was, what, pray tell, is academic esports? Stick around.
So we have three pillars, curriculum, competition, and careers,
which are the basis of really what I believe in for esports for academics.
And so on the side of competition, of course, we know that that is,
(01:55):
you know, very exciting when it comes to esports competing against one another.
But also there is so much that happens behind the scenes with esports.
And so that focus on curriculum and careers just really spoke to me.
In order to educate our students, K-12, you know, bringing in that curriculum,
and then also to move them into those careers around eSports,
(02:18):
because there are so many careers available,
not just around gaming, but around, you know, marketing, around game design, around,
you know, all different areas that students could potentially be interested
in and areas that they don't even know yet exist. it.
So for listeners who may not be familiar even with this term eSports,
(02:40):
break that down a little bit for us.
It's really interesting because eSports can mean a lot of different things depending
on who you're talking with.
In the simplest terms, it stands for electronic sports.
So yes, video gaming, you know, online competitive sports.
So there are various games out there that students, students,
(03:02):
amateur players, pro players can compete in.
When we look at the difference between the pro side of esports,
as opposed to the academic side of esports, it can look very different.
And so why I'm so passionate about the academic side of esports,
there's so much more to it than just the gaming side.
(03:22):
And I think we have as educators been breaking down walls and barriers over
the the last five to 10 years about what esports really means in schools.
Is part of your story, Katrina, being a gamer yourself?
Good question. So I grew up gaming. Now, my mom was a kindergarten teacher for over 35 years.
(03:45):
So she was of the belief that we do not need a gaming system in our home,
that that was not good for my sister and I to sit in front of a TV and game.
So what I had to do was live at my friend's houses, basically,
in order to game. They all had, you know, Ataris to start up kind of aging myself
here, but they had Ataris.
They had, you know, so I would start with playing Frogger, those kinds of games
(04:08):
on Atari, but then moving into Nintendo.
So I got really passionate and competitive with Super Mario Brothers, of course.
And then as we moved into Super Nintendo, you know, moving into Super Mario
Brothers 3 and would just go over to friends' houses or play wherever I could
get access to a Nintendo.
(04:30):
You know, I played several games outside of that as well.
And then on into the 2000s, I actually kind of got into Tomb Raider,
I got into Halo, never anything competitive. It was always recreational gaming.
But yeah, you know, it was always an interest of mine.
And so when I moved into the classroom as a teacher, to me, it made sense to
(04:53):
bring gaming into the classroom. And this was long before, you know,
eSports and gaming was really talked about in the classroom.
And so I brought in gaming. I always had a gaming center in my classroom.
And so the students could rotate around centers, whether that was science, math, whatever.
And they would get to the gaming center and they would focus on games like the
(05:13):
Elite Frogs, or I would put in the, you know, the DS games or different things
that I felt connected back to the curriculum.
And I got a lot of eyebrows raising on that.
And how does this work? Why would you put gaming into the curriculum? But I saw it so early on.
Little did I know that it was going to turn into what it is today with esports.
(05:35):
It's been an exciting journey.
Okay, yeah, thanks. So give us a picture of how this actually applies at various
levels within K-12 classrooms.
What does it look like? I get this question a lot because oftentimes schools
start esports at the high school level.
In fact, I would say 90% of the schools I work in, they've started esports at
(06:00):
the high school level, whether that's a gaming club, whether they're competitive,
whether they brought curriculum in and really made it part of the school day.
It looks a lot of different ways and it varies, which is okay.
But I am of the belief that esports really should start in elementary school.
If we are looking at STEM, science, technology, engineering,
(06:23):
and math, computer science specifically, why would we wait to put that into
a classroom until high school?
So if we've got young students, and they can be as young as pre-K who are coding,
who are are really into computer science, if we start exposing them to those
types of, you know, not just careers, but to those types of technologies.
(06:46):
Their interest will start to build, they will want to stay a part of it in middle
school and then in high school.
And so oftentimes, I get the questions, you know, our numbers are so low for
for esports, we're not getting enough students in or our numbers are so low
in our computer science classes, why aren't students interested?
Well, well, if we don't start them at an early age, we lose that interest by
(07:09):
the time the students get to middle school.
And especially I can speak to the side of female gamers.
So we know it is a male dominated industry and we need to be starting students earlier.
Now that can look a lot of different ways.
So at the USAEL, we start in elementary school and it really,
the program of course, is connected to the curriculum.
(07:31):
We really focus around Minecraft EDU and having students build and engineer.
And we've got all these programs that teach students through Minecraft.
Minecraft isn't necessarily a traditional eSport, but it can bring that conversation
and experience into the elementary school.
Once we start getting on up into middle school, we can bring in Rocket League,
(07:55):
chess, Minecraft, all of these different areas.
And then move on up into high school where we can start to get even more competitive,
start to expose students even to more career areas.
But, you know, I really do feel this is truly a K-12 experience for students.
And as far as I know, the USAEL is one of the first to bring esports to elementary schools.
(08:17):
We are talking about just a traditional grade level classroom,
not necessarily a computer science special classroom, right?
And then in middle school and high school, which classrooms would teachers be integrating this into?
(08:37):
If we move back to kind of elementary school, I think that Minecraft EDU could
definitely fit in, like you said, the traditional classroom,
especially in social studies, you know, in sciences and technology.
They could even run this as an after-school club or an e-sports club.
But with middle school and high school, what I'm seeing with our curriculum
in particular is we have a lot of schools that are integrating it into their
(09:00):
STEM courses during the day, and then the students are able to receive credit
for it, which is really nice.
So some schools have dedicated STEM courses.
For instance, the school that my daughter goes to, they have the option of taking STEM.
But I also see it worked into computer science, into different areas in the
high school CTE classes.
(09:20):
I have a school that is working it into their Project Lead the Way courses even.
So it just really, it varies. It varies as to what the mission and vision is
of that particular school's esports program. Okay.
And the curriculum provided by the United States Academic Esports League is supplemental?
(09:43):
Well, so it can be. It can be a full curriculum.
So if a school or a school district wants to create a separate esports class
and utilize our curriculum, they can do that.
Now, the process of creating a class and getting that approved and getting students
credit for it is a whole other story.
That's difficult. So what I'm seeing is schools are taking our curriculum and
(10:06):
moving it into the courses that they already have developed and supplementing,
as you said, their curriculum that they already have.
I also have other schools that are running the curriculum after school during
their eSports clubs after school.
They'll do, you know, maybe 30 minutes or so utilizing the curriculum.
The students go in, they learn all kinds of different things,
(10:26):
even how to, you know, student etiquette online, you know, things like that.
And then they'll go into their traditional competitive gaming that they would normally do.
Then at the end of the class, maybe they come back and do a review with their coach for 15 minutes.
You know, it's really however they want to organize it.
Okay. And then who are they competing against? How does that work?
(10:48):
Yeah. So lots of different ways. So there are a lot of different leagues out there.
And so one One nice thing about the USAEL is if you are a part of the USAEL,
you can be a part of any other league that's out there.
It's not, you don't have to just be a part of the USAEL, which is really nice.
So with us, in terms of competing, students would compete against other USAEL
(11:10):
schools across the country.
We also have community titles that all schools can participate in.
We want to help support and elevate state leagues, other leagues that are out
there and, you know, work kind of in tandem with them.
Got it. Okay. And Katrina, I'm imagining that some listeners might be thinking
this is talking about more screen time, right?
(11:33):
And they have concerns around why are we wanting to do anything that requires
even more screen time because it's already a concern, but there are actually
some physical and mental health benefits for students provided by esports. Can you talk to that?
Yes, absolutely. So a lot of studies are coming out in terms of mental health,
you know, especially actually social-emotional learning.
(11:55):
So all of our curriculum actually focuses on social-emotional learning.
Being an educator, you know, I see students that don't necessarily fit into
the traditional sports that they may be offered at their school.
Maybe they don't fit into the arts. They're not into theater.
They're not into band or anything like that. And they really find their place
in esports. That's where they find their people.
(12:17):
So when we think about, you know, mental health, social emotional learning,
all of those areas, esports can really be a savior for students and they can
really feel a part of something.
I often tell the story, I met this student when I was out for the opening of
the University of Delaware's esports arena.
(12:38):
And there was a girl standing outside of the arena and I said hello to her.
I said, are you a part of the esports team here?
And she said, no, but my brother is. She said, he's actually nonverbal autistic.
And I said, oh, wow. You know, I said, what game does he play?
You know, what is he interested in?
We got to chatting and she said, until he became a part of eSports,
(12:59):
he was completely nonverbal.
ESports brought him out of that.
And he has found his place in life. He has found his comfort zone.
He has found, you know, the people he wants to be around. And for this particular
family, eSports was everything.
I talked with another school yesterday that he said a lot of,
(13:19):
actually most of his students that are part of the eSports clubs are ones that
really don't feel as though they belong.
To not afford students of the opportunity to be a part of an eSports club,
to experience it, even if they're not the best gamers, that's okay.
They have other jobs kind of behind the scenes that they can do.
So what I see is a lot of students, they may not be the best,
(13:42):
you know, Rocket League player, but oh my goodness, they are awesome at broadcasting and shoutcasting.
And if you don't know what that is, as a part of esports, it's almost like those
ESPN announcers that you see on TV.
Maybe that's where they really feel their place is, or maybe they're working
(14:07):
on the technology behind the scenes or loading up the games or whatever it may be.
But students can really find that place.
And there are a lot of studies coming out about students' hand-eye coordination,
teaching students how to behave online, how to interact online.
What if you lose a game? How do you handle yourself and conduct yourself?
(14:28):
There's all these lessons involved that really have come out in a lot of these
studies to show a lot of positive result stemming from screen time.
So there is a lot of positive.
I love that story that you told. And I've always been such a believer,
both as an educator and as a parent, in if kids can just find their tribe, they'll be fine, right?
(14:53):
Especially in secondary, right? As they get into middle school and high school,
of being able to just feel comfortable in their skin and find that sense of
belonging that will support their learning and their academic progress.
Do you have any any other favorite success stories?
I do. So there was a student, this was in a Chicago suburb.
(15:14):
He was a junior at the time, and he was actually seventh best in the world for
the particular game that he competed in, which means he was winning money and
different things like that, which was awesome.
But aside from that, he and I got to talking and I said, tell me about your esports journey?
You know, when did you start? How did you, you know, build up to the success that you've seen?
(15:37):
And he said, you know, it's really cool. He said, I don't really tell a lot
of people this, but I just, I feel really cool.
And I feel like a jock. That's what he said.
And I thought, oh my gosh. And this student, traditionally, if you were just
passing the the student in the hallway, you would think, eh,
you know, somebody might label them as a computer nerd or, you know, something like that.
(16:02):
And I'm seeing that computer, computer science, esports, it's becoming cool
to be a part of technology now.
I've seen that transition as well. My son in middle school was part of a group
of boys that called themselves proudly the nerd herd and they completely owned
(16:22):
it, right? It was, and they were the cool kids for sure.
But the thing about the job, that's a real thing because this is preparing kids
for a variety of different careers. And what are those?
Somebody has to do that. Somebody has to run the technology.
Somebody has to design the games.
Somebody has to know how to code. There's marketing. There's event coordination.
(16:47):
I mean, it goes on and on. In fact, I would encourage all the listeners on here
to just go out quickly and do a Google search for esports jobs.
You are going to come up with thousands and thousands of jobs that are open.
And what this reminds me of is 15, 20 years ago when we started doing job searches
(17:09):
for computer science. and STEM.
And STEM became so popular because of the lack of students that were coming
out of high school or college prepared to go into those jobs.
We knew we had to create courses, we knew we had to certify students in order to move into those jobs.
And now esports is the same thing.
(17:29):
So if a school doesn't have an esports program, you know, with curriculum wrapped
around it, they are honestly, it's almost a disservice to students because of
all the jobs that are out there and open.
We need to be teaching students about these career opportunities and helping
them to move into those careers.
I'd love to know, what does it take for a school to house an esports team?
(17:52):
How does a school start this, implement it, and support it?
Yes. So I think oftentimes, in fact, nine times out of 10, schools will focus
on the technology side of things.
They'll say, oh, we don't have the cool computers that light up,
you know, with the LED lights.
So I often recommend this to schools because I talk with schools all the time
(18:15):
that they say, we only have Chromebooks.
Okay, so typically with an esports program, you wouldn't want to run a full
esports competitive program on a Chromebook.
In fact, you can't run a lot of these games on Chromebooks.
However, if you think about how we can start an elementary school,
Minecraft EDU does run on a Chromebook.
(18:37):
You can do a lot just from that Chromebook. A lot of elementary schools also
have a computer lab that they can go to.
And in order to run, you know, like a Rocket League, some of these,
I say, lower level graphics games, you don't have to have the best of the best
computers that are out there.
So even if you have Windows laptops, and now I'm thinking, you know,
(18:57):
more middle school, if you have Windows laptops, you can run a full esports
club or a team even in middle school.
Now, when we get up into high school, you could do the same thing depending
on what your mission and vision is for your program.
Again, you don't have to have the best of the best. But if you are focused on
the competitive side of esports and you want to be competitive against students
(19:21):
in your own district, students across the state, across the country,
you of course would want an even playing field when it comes to the technology.
And so what I recommend to schools is start to think about bringing esports
in maybe as a tiered approach.
So maybe in year one, you don't have the best of the best technology.
So you run some of these, you know, kind of lower games, or you could even bring
(19:45):
in councils such as, you know, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switches.
And then that way you could have students kind of moving in and out.
You don't have to have a one-to-one situation.
Maybe they're on, you know, a Nintendo Switch one day, they're on a computer the next day.
Then in year two, maybe you start applying for some grants that are out there.
And I do recommend to educators looking at STEM and CTE grants in order to find funding.
(20:11):
If their program is not just competitive and it shows that they are bringing
curriculum in on the STEM and CTE side of things, obtaining a grant becomes much, much easier.
So they can start to write grants to obtain that technology.
And then maybe in year three, they get all that technology in,
they find a space, they put in the LED lighting, they bring in the broadcasting
(20:35):
station, and they have that developed program.
It becomes overwhelming when a school wants to do everything at once.
If we start smaller, I think sometimes that can lead to a more successful and
more sustainable esports program in a school.
Yeah. And then you have the growing data to validate the expense, really. Exactly.
(20:58):
That's right. So Dr. Atkins, I'm curious.
So we have years and years of data and studies to substantiate how participation
in music and participation in athletics enhances academic performance,
both social-emotional learning and academic performance and how it teaches kids
(21:22):
skills that then bleed into other areas of academics and support their work in classrooms.
And that data is newer for esports, but are there there ways that participation
in esports really supports academic performance? What do we know about that?
The answer is yes. So I do have schools that in order to be a part of the esports
(21:48):
team or club, they have to have a C or better GPA.
So they do align it with their grades, which I think can be very, very positive.
It keeps kids motivated, just like any other traditional sport.
In order to be a part of the basketball team, you have to be passing in order
to maintain status with that team.
(22:10):
And Now, it's funny you do mention music because I was actually a music major
in my undergrad and ended up switching to elementary education after three years in.
But what I have found is that so many esports players have some sort of connection to music.
I don't know if it's like a left brain, right brain thing, but it's very, very interesting.
(22:30):
So a lot of like minds come together when it comes to esports.
So in terms of specific data, if you go back to that social-emotional learning
piece, and when students feel they are a part of something at their school, they want to be there.
So for, and you kind of outlined this a little bit, but I'd love for you to
(22:51):
get even more granule for say the middle school teacher listening who said,
I didn't even know there was such a thing as e-sports.
I want to get this started in my school. What's the very first step for a teacher
or administrator to do? Would it be to reach out?
If a teacher, if an e-sports coach, if a superintendent, an administrator happens
to reach out to me, what I do is I actually...
(23:15):
Encourage them to take a step back and I say, what do you want for this program? What do you envision?
Let's write a mission and a vision for this particular program.
And I think that's important because again, as I mentioned earlier,
we often get stuck in this, the technology side of things or the competitive side of things.
And I think if we take that step back and write a mission and vision that really
(23:39):
creates that first kind of foundation for a school for their esports program.
Once we have that, we want to think about what is the student interest for esports?
And doing a student survey, I think, is really, really important.
When students hear, they go, hey, we're going to bring gaming into our school,
whether that's an after-school club or into the school day, they're interested.
(24:02):
They want to be a part of it.
Next is to find out, you know, well, what games are you interested in?
Because that will help us identify what types of technology do we need?
From there, I think it's just starting to really educate not only the teachers
in the building, the administrators, and the parents.
We can never forget about the parents because they are going to be the ones
(24:26):
that are dropping their student off, picking their student up.
We have to have buy-in from the parents on what esports is and what it can do
for my child, especially on the side of careers.
If parents don't understand that, they may experience some pushback on that
screen time or on why would I want my child gaming after school when they should
(24:46):
be doing homework or they should be doing something else.
So educating them. I think it's also really important to educate your school
board on what you are planning to bring in or what you want to bring in to your
school and why this is important, you know, alongside research.
Alongside the history of esports alongside what are other esports teams doing
(25:07):
in your state or in your community and how has that affected the students in those communities.
I think that's all extremely important.
From there, of course, you know, start building that program,
have an after-school club, start small.
It doesn't have to be where you start an esports program and you have,
you know, 10 games. It could be one game.
I think we just so often as teachers want to do so much and we We want to have
(25:33):
the biggest and the best program out there.
And we want to give everything to our students.
But creating that foundation, creating the mission of vision,
creating a sustainable and solid program to start is going to lead to success in coming years.
Yeah, that's important. I think that taking it one step at a time,
(25:53):
once a lot of those decisions have been made and a school has an idea of where
they want to start and what their goals are, and they've talked to the different stakeholders,
USAEL can support them in terms of curriculum and kind of step by step.
Professional development, ongoing support.
In fact, our team, we have a whole academic team that helps support any of our
(26:17):
teachers, administrators, esports coaches.
We have ongoing professional development throughout the school year.
It is optional whether or not they want to join to get more information.
We also have a part of the USAEO. We have what's called the eSports Coaches Toolkit.
Why this is important is because this teaches coaches everything from how to
(26:40):
start a team, how to run a team, how to create a successful and sustainable program.
And another reason why this toolkit is so important is I hear stories across
the country where we have a school and they say, oh, we had an eSports program,
but our eSports coach left and And, you know, the program dissolved.
If we leave the vision for the esports program up to one person,
(27:04):
up to one coach, and we don't involve administration,
we don't involve our IT teams, we don't involve parents, all of those stakeholders,
we do run the risk of that program not sustaining itself.
What this toolkit can do is if that eSports coach transfers districts,
schools, states, whatever,
(27:25):
a new teacher can come in the very next day with that toolkit and having the
knowledge from it and continue on with that eSports program that's already in place.
It is so important. And I did mention, you know, the IT team,
going back to how to, you know, start a program, run a program,
involving your IT team at the very beginning is imperative.
(27:48):
Because what's going to happen if you do this alone, if you're an esports coach,
and you plan to launch this all by yourself,
those games are going to be blocked in your district, communication is going
to be blocked, all of these things your students will not be able to have access
to even all the way down to even loading the games on the machine. team.
You have to have support from your IT team. It's very, very important.
(28:09):
Yeah, that's a great tip and super important. So it's just nice to know,
though, that they are able to access all of the support they need once they get up and running.
And that sustainability piece with the coach's toolkit is huge because with
the level of teacher shortages and teacher turnover right now,
I think it's essential, especially for an administrator making that that kind
(28:31):
of decision to know that there's going to be support to keep something going.
Is there anything else that you would love for our listeners to know?
If you talk to a few students, more than likely they're going home and gaming.
They're doing it anyway.
So why not find a way to proactively and positively bring it into our schools
(28:54):
so that students have the right guidance,
the right direction, the right tools in place
to hopefully move into those careers after
high school or move into something you know in college that
can help support their passion for gaming and
esports it's definitely more than just the
game what is your favorite game Katrina most recently I of course bought the
(29:17):
early release to Harry Potter which I absolutely love but I'm just I always
just go back to my childhood and anytime you know I still have my old original
Nintendo I still have my original Super Nintendo,
and I will once in a while turn those on and play some of the original Mario games.
I also have a Nintendo Switch, you know, I'll do some Super Smash Brothers or
(29:38):
some Splatoon, some other things.
I love gaming with my own kids. I have a son who's 19, I have a daughter who's 17.
My daughter's really into Sims, so she'll want to show me her worlds that she's
built, you know, the people, those kinds of things.
So I don't know if I necessarily have a favorite, but I think I do gravitate
back towards my childhood and really love playing those games.
(30:01):
Music.
So you may have all guessed from the intro to this episode that I am not a gamer.
I have no hand-eye coordination at all, but my young adult son likes gaming and I like him.
So I've occasionally asked if I could play a game with him.
(30:21):
I'm tragically bad at it and my character dies every few minutes,
leaving my son to battle all opposition alone and to bring me back to life.
And I mostly just laugh a lot, but it is a great way to spend time together.
And I get a glimpse into what it might feel like to actually be good at it. It's inspiring.
(30:41):
So if you're also intrigued like I was, and you'd like to learn more about academic
esports, visit edcuration.com and search esports or simply click the link in the episode notes.
You'll also find links to Dr. Adkins and the various resources available through
the U.S. Academic Esports League. League.
(31:02):
Ed Curation is part of the Education Podcast Network, where you'll find similar shows.
You can find us pretty much anywhere podcasts are found, as well as on our website,
and there's a lot of additional content on our YouTube channel.
If you found this episode helpful, we hope you'll take a minute to like it, comment, and share.
And if you have a topic or tool that you would like to share with our Ed Curation
(31:25):
audience, simply reach out to us through the comments or on our website.
Thanks for joining us today, and we hope you'll come back for our next episode
of Reshaping Learning with the Ed Curation Podcast.
Music.
I'm Brian Stanton, host of Teaching While Queer, a part of the Education Podcast
Network, just like the show you're listening to now.
Shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed may not reflect others.
Find other interesting education podcasts at edupodcastnetwork.com.
You're listening to the Ed Curation Podcast. We're bringing you stories from
(00:23):
educational leaders about the instructional resources, practices,
and movements that are reshaping learning.
So, first of all, the USAEL has the word academic in it, which is extremely
meaningful to me, obviously, as an educator, as a mom.
Most of the leadership came from the classroom.
In fact, our CEO was California Teacher of the Year.
(00:46):
And so I thought, OK, this could be a good place. This could be a good place
for me, for my values, my beliefs, everything that I value around education and academic esports.
Hi, everyone. This is Christy, your host, and I love it when I get to do an
episode about something that is brand spanking new to me, which is the case today.
(01:08):
We're talking about esports, and y'all, I really had no clue.
I learned so much from our guest today, Dr. Katrina Adkins.
Dr. Adkins has been an educator for over 20 years. She started as a kindergarten
teacher and moved into educational technology and then taught at many different
grade levels and eventually focused on computer science and academic esports.
(01:32):
And if you're thinking like I was, what, pray tell, is academic esports? Stick around.
So we have three pillars, curriculum, competition, and careers,
which are the basis of really what I believe in for esports for academics.
And so on the side of competition, of course, we know that that is,
(01:55):
you know, very exciting when it comes to esports competing against one another.
But also there is so much that happens behind the scenes with esports.
And so that focus on curriculum and careers just really spoke to me.
In order to educate our students, K-12, you know, bringing in that curriculum,
and then also to move them into those careers around eSports,
(02:18):
because there are so many careers available,
not just around gaming, but around, you know, marketing, around game design, around,
you know, all different areas that students could potentially be interested
in and areas that they don't even know yet exist. it.
So for listeners who may not be familiar even with this term eSports,
(02:40):
break that down a little bit for us.
It's really interesting because eSports can mean a lot of different things depending
on who you're talking with.
In the simplest terms, it stands for electronic sports.
So yes, video gaming, you know, online competitive sports.
So there are various games out there that students, students,
(03:02):
amateur players, pro players can compete in.
When we look at the difference between the pro side of esports,
as opposed to the academic side of esports, it can look very different.
And so why I'm so passionate about the academic side of esports,
there's so much more to it than just the gaming side.
(03:22):
And I think we have as educators been breaking down walls and barriers over
the the last five to 10 years about what esports really means in schools.
Is part of your story, Katrina, being a gamer yourself?
Good question. So I grew up gaming. Now, my mom was a kindergarten teacher for over 35 years.
(03:45):
So she was of the belief that we do not need a gaming system in our home,
that that was not good for my sister and I to sit in front of a TV and game.
So what I had to do was live at my friend's houses, basically,
in order to game. They all had, you know, Ataris to start up kind of aging myself
here, but they had Ataris.
They had, you know, so I would start with playing Frogger, those kinds of games
(04:08):
on Atari, but then moving into Nintendo.
So I got really passionate and competitive with Super Mario Brothers, of course.
And then as we moved into Super Nintendo, you know, moving into Super Mario
Brothers 3 and would just go over to friends' houses or play wherever I could
get access to a Nintendo.
(04:30):
You know, I played several games outside of that as well.
And then on into the 2000s, I actually kind of got into Tomb Raider,
I got into Halo, never anything competitive. It was always recreational gaming.
But yeah, you know, it was always an interest of mine.
And so when I moved into the classroom as a teacher, to me, it made sense to
(04:53):
bring gaming into the classroom. And this was long before, you know,
eSports and gaming was really talked about in the classroom.
And so I brought in gaming. I always had a gaming center in my classroom.
And so the students could rotate around centers, whether that was science, math, whatever.
And they would get to the gaming center and they would focus on games like the
(05:13):
Elite Frogs, or I would put in the, you know, the DS games or different things
that I felt connected back to the curriculum.
And I got a lot of eyebrows raising on that.
And how does this work? Why would you put gaming into the curriculum? But I saw it so early on.
Little did I know that it was going to turn into what it is today with esports.
(05:35):
It's been an exciting journey.
Okay, yeah, thanks. So give us a picture of how this actually applies at various
levels within K-12 classrooms.
What does it look like? I get this question a lot because oftentimes schools
start esports at the high school level.
In fact, I would say 90% of the schools I work in, they've started esports at
(06:00):
the high school level, whether that's a gaming club, whether they're competitive,
whether they brought curriculum in and really made it part of the school day.
It looks a lot of different ways and it varies, which is okay.
But I am of the belief that esports really should start in elementary school.
If we are looking at STEM, science, technology, engineering,
(06:23):
and math, computer science specifically, why would we wait to put that into
a classroom until high school?
So if we've got young students, and they can be as young as pre-K who are coding,
who are are really into computer science, if we start exposing them to those
types of, you know, not just careers, but to those types of technologies.
(06:46):
Their interest will start to build, they will want to stay a part of it in middle
school and then in high school.
And so oftentimes, I get the questions, you know, our numbers are so low for
for esports, we're not getting enough students in or our numbers are so low
in our computer science classes, why aren't students interested?
Well, well, if we don't start them at an early age, we lose that interest by
(07:09):
the time the students get to middle school.
And especially I can speak to the side of female gamers.
So we know it is a male dominated industry and we need to be starting students earlier.
Now that can look a lot of different ways.
So at the USAEL, we start in elementary school and it really,
the program of course, is connected to the curriculum.
(07:31):
We really focus around Minecraft EDU and having students build and engineer.
And we've got all these programs that teach students through Minecraft.
Minecraft isn't necessarily a traditional eSport, but it can bring that conversation
and experience into the elementary school.
Once we start getting on up into middle school, we can bring in Rocket League,
(07:55):
chess, Minecraft, all of these different areas.
And then move on up into high school where we can start to get even more competitive,
start to expose students even to more career areas.
But, you know, I really do feel this is truly a K-12 experience for students.
And as far as I know, the USAEL is one of the first to bring esports to elementary schools.
(08:17):
We are talking about just a traditional grade level classroom,
not necessarily a computer science special classroom, right?
And then in middle school and high school, which classrooms would teachers be integrating this into?
(08:37):
If we move back to kind of elementary school, I think that Minecraft EDU could
definitely fit in, like you said, the traditional classroom,
especially in social studies, you know, in sciences and technology.
They could even run this as an after-school club or an e-sports club.
But with middle school and high school, what I'm seeing with our curriculum
in particular is we have a lot of schools that are integrating it into their
(09:00):
STEM courses during the day, and then the students are able to receive credit
for it, which is really nice.
So some schools have dedicated STEM courses.
For instance, the school that my daughter goes to, they have the option of taking STEM.
But I also see it worked into computer science, into different areas in the
high school CTE classes.
(09:20):
I have a school that is working it into their Project Lead the Way courses even.
So it just really, it varies. It varies as to what the mission and vision is
of that particular school's esports program. Okay.
And the curriculum provided by the United States Academic Esports League is supplemental?
(09:43):
Well, so it can be. It can be a full curriculum.
So if a school or a school district wants to create a separate esports class
and utilize our curriculum, they can do that.
Now, the process of creating a class and getting that approved and getting students
credit for it is a whole other story.
That's difficult. So what I'm seeing is schools are taking our curriculum and
(10:06):
moving it into the courses that they already have developed and supplementing,
as you said, their curriculum that they already have.
I also have other schools that are running the curriculum after school during
their eSports clubs after school.
They'll do, you know, maybe 30 minutes or so utilizing the curriculum.
The students go in, they learn all kinds of different things,
(10:26):
even how to, you know, student etiquette online, you know, things like that.
And then they'll go into their traditional competitive gaming that they would normally do.
Then at the end of the class, maybe they come back and do a review with their coach for 15 minutes.
You know, it's really however they want to organize it.
Okay. And then who are they competing against? How does that work?
(10:48):
Yeah. So lots of different ways. So there are a lot of different leagues out there.
And so one One nice thing about the USAEL is if you are a part of the USAEL,
you can be a part of any other league that's out there.
It's not, you don't have to just be a part of the USAEL, which is really nice.
So with us, in terms of competing, students would compete against other USAEL
(11:10):
schools across the country.
We also have community titles that all schools can participate in.
We want to help support and elevate state leagues, other leagues that are out
there and, you know, work kind of in tandem with them.
Got it. Okay. And Katrina, I'm imagining that some listeners might be thinking
this is talking about more screen time, right?
(11:33):
And they have concerns around why are we wanting to do anything that requires
even more screen time because it's already a concern, but there are actually
some physical and mental health benefits for students provided by esports. Can you talk to that?
Yes, absolutely. So a lot of studies are coming out in terms of mental health,
you know, especially actually social-emotional learning.
(11:55):
So all of our curriculum actually focuses on social-emotional learning.
Being an educator, you know, I see students that don't necessarily fit into
the traditional sports that they may be offered at their school.
Maybe they don't fit into the arts. They're not into theater.
They're not into band or anything like that. And they really find their place
in esports. That's where they find their people.
(12:17):
So when we think about, you know, mental health, social emotional learning,
all of those areas, esports can really be a savior for students and they can
really feel a part of something.
I often tell the story, I met this student when I was out for the opening of
the University of Delaware's esports arena.
(12:38):
And there was a girl standing outside of the arena and I said hello to her.
I said, are you a part of the esports team here?
And she said, no, but my brother is. She said, he's actually nonverbal autistic.
And I said, oh, wow. You know, I said, what game does he play?
You know, what is he interested in?
We got to chatting and she said, until he became a part of eSports,
(12:59):
he was completely nonverbal.
ESports brought him out of that.
And he has found his place in life. He has found his comfort zone.
He has found, you know, the people he wants to be around. And for this particular
family, eSports was everything.
I talked with another school yesterday that he said a lot of,
(13:19):
actually most of his students that are part of the eSports clubs are ones that
really don't feel as though they belong.
To not afford students of the opportunity to be a part of an eSports club,
to experience it, even if they're not the best gamers, that's okay.
They have other jobs kind of behind the scenes that they can do.
So what I see is a lot of students, they may not be the best,
(13:42):
you know, Rocket League player, but oh my goodness, they are awesome at broadcasting and shoutcasting.
And if you don't know what that is, as a part of esports, it's almost like those
ESPN announcers that you see on TV.
Maybe that's where they really feel their place is, or maybe they're working
(14:07):
on the technology behind the scenes or loading up the games or whatever it may be.
But students can really find that place.
And there are a lot of studies coming out about students' hand-eye coordination,
teaching students how to behave online, how to interact online.
What if you lose a game? How do you handle yourself and conduct yourself?
(14:28):
There's all these lessons involved that really have come out in a lot of these
studies to show a lot of positive result stemming from screen time.
So there is a lot of positive.
I love that story that you told. And I've always been such a believer,
both as an educator and as a parent, in if kids can just find their tribe, they'll be fine, right?
(14:53):
Especially in secondary, right? As they get into middle school and high school,
of being able to just feel comfortable in their skin and find that sense of
belonging that will support their learning and their academic progress.
Do you have any any other favorite success stories?
I do. So there was a student, this was in a Chicago suburb.
(15:14):
He was a junior at the time, and he was actually seventh best in the world for
the particular game that he competed in, which means he was winning money and
different things like that, which was awesome.
But aside from that, he and I got to talking and I said, tell me about your esports journey?
You know, when did you start? How did you, you know, build up to the success that you've seen?
(15:37):
And he said, you know, it's really cool. He said, I don't really tell a lot
of people this, but I just, I feel really cool.
And I feel like a jock. That's what he said.
And I thought, oh my gosh. And this student, traditionally, if you were just
passing the the student in the hallway, you would think, eh,
you know, somebody might label them as a computer nerd or, you know, something like that.
(16:02):
And I'm seeing that computer, computer science, esports, it's becoming cool
to be a part of technology now.
I've seen that transition as well. My son in middle school was part of a group
of boys that called themselves proudly the nerd herd and they completely owned
(16:22):
it, right? It was, and they were the cool kids for sure.
But the thing about the job, that's a real thing because this is preparing kids
for a variety of different careers. And what are those?
Somebody has to do that. Somebody has to run the technology.
Somebody has to design the games.
Somebody has to know how to code. There's marketing. There's event coordination.
(16:47):
I mean, it goes on and on. In fact, I would encourage all the listeners on here
to just go out quickly and do a Google search for esports jobs.
You are going to come up with thousands and thousands of jobs that are open.
And what this reminds me of is 15, 20 years ago when we started doing job searches
(17:09):
for computer science. and STEM.
And STEM became so popular because of the lack of students that were coming
out of high school or college prepared to go into those jobs.
We knew we had to create courses, we knew we had to certify students in order to move into those jobs.
And now esports is the same thing.
(17:29):
So if a school doesn't have an esports program, you know, with curriculum wrapped
around it, they are honestly, it's almost a disservice to students because of
all the jobs that are out there and open.
We need to be teaching students about these career opportunities and helping
them to move into those careers.
I'd love to know, what does it take for a school to house an esports team?
(17:52):
How does a school start this, implement it, and support it?
Yes. So I think oftentimes, in fact, nine times out of 10, schools will focus
on the technology side of things.
They'll say, oh, we don't have the cool computers that light up,
you know, with the LED lights.
So I often recommend this to schools because I talk with schools all the time
(18:15):
that they say, we only have Chromebooks.
Okay, so typically with an esports program, you wouldn't want to run a full
esports competitive program on a Chromebook.
In fact, you can't run a lot of these games on Chromebooks.
However, if you think about how we can start an elementary school,
Minecraft EDU does run on a Chromebook.
(18:37):
You can do a lot just from that Chromebook. A lot of elementary schools also
have a computer lab that they can go to.
And in order to run, you know, like a Rocket League, some of these,
I say, lower level graphics games, you don't have to have the best of the best
computers that are out there.
So even if you have Windows laptops, and now I'm thinking, you know,
(18:57):
more middle school, if you have Windows laptops, you can run a full esports
club or a team even in middle school.
Now, when we get up into high school, you could do the same thing depending
on what your mission and vision is for your program.
Again, you don't have to have the best of the best. But if you are focused on
the competitive side of esports and you want to be competitive against students
(19:21):
in your own district, students across the state, across the country,
you of course would want an even playing field when it comes to the technology.
And so what I recommend to schools is start to think about bringing esports
in maybe as a tiered approach.
So maybe in year one, you don't have the best of the best technology.
So you run some of these, you know, kind of lower games, or you could even bring
(19:45):
in councils such as, you know, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switches.
And then that way you could have students kind of moving in and out.
You don't have to have a one-to-one situation.
Maybe they're on, you know, a Nintendo Switch one day, they're on a computer the next day.
Then in year two, maybe you start applying for some grants that are out there.
And I do recommend to educators looking at STEM and CTE grants in order to find funding.
(20:11):
If their program is not just competitive and it shows that they are bringing
curriculum in on the STEM and CTE side of things, obtaining a grant becomes much, much easier.
So they can start to write grants to obtain that technology.
And then maybe in year three, they get all that technology in,
they find a space, they put in the LED lighting, they bring in the broadcasting
(20:35):
station, and they have that developed program.
It becomes overwhelming when a school wants to do everything at once.
If we start smaller, I think sometimes that can lead to a more successful and
more sustainable esports program in a school.
Yeah. And then you have the growing data to validate the expense, really. Exactly.
(20:58):
That's right. So Dr. Atkins, I'm curious.
So we have years and years of data and studies to substantiate how participation
in music and participation in athletics enhances academic performance,
both social-emotional learning and academic performance and how it teaches kids
(21:22):
skills that then bleed into other areas of academics and support their work in classrooms.
And that data is newer for esports, but are there there ways that participation
in esports really supports academic performance? What do we know about that?
The answer is yes. So I do have schools that in order to be a part of the esports
(21:48):
team or club, they have to have a C or better GPA.
So they do align it with their grades, which I think can be very, very positive.
It keeps kids motivated, just like any other traditional sport.
In order to be a part of the basketball team, you have to be passing in order
to maintain status with that team.
(22:10):
And Now, it's funny you do mention music because I was actually a music major
in my undergrad and ended up switching to elementary education after three years in.
But what I have found is that so many esports players have some sort of connection to music.
I don't know if it's like a left brain, right brain thing, but it's very, very interesting.
(22:30):
So a lot of like minds come together when it comes to esports.
So in terms of specific data, if you go back to that social-emotional learning
piece, and when students feel they are a part of something at their school, they want to be there.
So for, and you kind of outlined this a little bit, but I'd love for you to
(22:51):
get even more granule for say the middle school teacher listening who said,
I didn't even know there was such a thing as e-sports.
I want to get this started in my school. What's the very first step for a teacher
or administrator to do? Would it be to reach out?
If a teacher, if an e-sports coach, if a superintendent, an administrator happens
to reach out to me, what I do is I actually...
(23:15):
Encourage them to take a step back and I say, what do you want for this program? What do you envision?
Let's write a mission and a vision for this particular program.
And I think that's important because again, as I mentioned earlier,
we often get stuck in this, the technology side of things or the competitive side of things.
And I think if we take that step back and write a mission and vision that really
(23:39):
creates that first kind of foundation for a school for their esports program.
Once we have that, we want to think about what is the student interest for esports?
And doing a student survey, I think, is really, really important.
When students hear, they go, hey, we're going to bring gaming into our school,
whether that's an after-school club or into the school day, they're interested.
(24:02):
They want to be a part of it.
Next is to find out, you know, well, what games are you interested in?
Because that will help us identify what types of technology do we need?
From there, I think it's just starting to really educate not only the teachers
in the building, the administrators, and the parents.
We can never forget about the parents because they are going to be the ones
(24:26):
that are dropping their student off, picking their student up.
We have to have buy-in from the parents on what esports is and what it can do
for my child, especially on the side of careers.
If parents don't understand that, they may experience some pushback on that
screen time or on why would I want my child gaming after school when they should
(24:46):
be doing homework or they should be doing something else.
So educating them. I think it's also really important to educate your school
board on what you are planning to bring in or what you want to bring in to your
school and why this is important, you know, alongside research.
Alongside the history of esports alongside what are other esports teams doing
(25:07):
in your state or in your community and how has that affected the students in those communities.
I think that's all extremely important.
From there, of course, you know, start building that program,
have an after-school club, start small.
It doesn't have to be where you start an esports program and you have,
you know, 10 games. It could be one game.
I think we just so often as teachers want to do so much and we We want to have
(25:33):
the biggest and the best program out there.
And we want to give everything to our students.
But creating that foundation, creating the mission of vision,
creating a sustainable and solid program to start is going to lead to success in coming years.
Yeah, that's important. I think that taking it one step at a time,
(25:53):
once a lot of those decisions have been made and a school has an idea of where
they want to start and what their goals are, and they've talked to the different stakeholders,
USAEL can support them in terms of curriculum and kind of step by step.
Professional development, ongoing support.
In fact, our team, we have a whole academic team that helps support any of our
(26:17):
teachers, administrators, esports coaches.
We have ongoing professional development throughout the school year.
It is optional whether or not they want to join to get more information.
We also have a part of the USAEO. We have what's called the eSports Coaches Toolkit.
Why this is important is because this teaches coaches everything from how to
(26:40):
start a team, how to run a team, how to create a successful and sustainable program.
And another reason why this toolkit is so important is I hear stories across
the country where we have a school and they say, oh, we had an eSports program,
but our eSports coach left and And, you know, the program dissolved.
If we leave the vision for the esports program up to one person,
(27:04):
up to one coach, and we don't involve administration,
we don't involve our IT teams, we don't involve parents, all of those stakeholders,
we do run the risk of that program not sustaining itself.
What this toolkit can do is if that eSports coach transfers districts,
schools, states, whatever,
(27:25):
a new teacher can come in the very next day with that toolkit and having the
knowledge from it and continue on with that eSports program that's already in place.
It is so important. And I did mention, you know, the IT team,
going back to how to, you know, start a program, run a program,
involving your IT team at the very beginning is imperative.
(27:48):
Because what's going to happen if you do this alone, if you're an esports coach,
and you plan to launch this all by yourself,
those games are going to be blocked in your district, communication is going
to be blocked, all of these things your students will not be able to have access
to even all the way down to even loading the games on the machine. team.
You have to have support from your IT team. It's very, very important.
(28:09):
Yeah, that's a great tip and super important. So it's just nice to know,
though, that they are able to access all of the support they need once they get up and running.
And that sustainability piece with the coach's toolkit is huge because with
the level of teacher shortages and teacher turnover right now,
I think it's essential, especially for an administrator making that that kind
(28:31):
of decision to know that there's going to be support to keep something going.
Is there anything else that you would love for our listeners to know?
If you talk to a few students, more than likely they're going home and gaming.
They're doing it anyway.
So why not find a way to proactively and positively bring it into our schools
(28:54):
so that students have the right guidance,
the right direction, the right tools in place
to hopefully move into those careers after
high school or move into something you know in college that
can help support their passion for gaming and
esports it's definitely more than just the
game what is your favorite game Katrina most recently I of course bought the
(29:17):
early release to Harry Potter which I absolutely love but I'm just I always
just go back to my childhood and anytime you know I still have my old original
Nintendo I still have my original Super Nintendo,
and I will once in a while turn those on and play some of the original Mario games.
I also have a Nintendo Switch, you know, I'll do some Super Smash Brothers or
(29:38):
some Splatoon, some other things.
I love gaming with my own kids. I have a son who's 19, I have a daughter who's 17.
My daughter's really into Sims, so she'll want to show me her worlds that she's
built, you know, the people, those kinds of things.
So I don't know if I necessarily have a favorite, but I think I do gravitate
back towards my childhood and really love playing those games.
(30:01):
Music.
So you may have all guessed from the intro to this episode that I am not a gamer.
I have no hand-eye coordination at all, but my young adult son likes gaming and I like him.
So I've occasionally asked if I could play a game with him.
(30:21):
I'm tragically bad at it and my character dies every few minutes,
leaving my son to battle all opposition alone and to bring me back to life.
And I mostly just laugh a lot, but it is a great way to spend time together.
And I get a glimpse into what it might feel like to actually be good at it. It's inspiring.
(30:41):
So if you're also intrigued like I was, and you'd like to learn more about academic
esports, visit edcuration.com and search esports or simply click the link in the episode notes.
You'll also find links to Dr. Adkins and the various resources available through
the U.S. Academic Esports League. League.
(31:02):
Ed Curation is part of the Education Podcast Network, where you'll find similar shows.
You can find us pretty much anywhere podcasts are found, as well as on our website,
and there's a lot of additional content on our YouTube channel.
If you found this episode helpful, we hope you'll take a minute to like it, comment, and share.
And if you have a topic or tool that you would like to share with our Ed Curation
(31:25):
audience, simply reach out to us through the comments or on our website.
Thanks for joining us today, and we hope you'll come back for our next episode
of Reshaping Learning with the Ed Curation Podcast.
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