Esports. Education is not a game, or is it?

For this last week, I have been exploring the world of Esports as part of the Microsoft Education eSports teacher academy. My main interest in terms of being a teacher was to see how and more importantly why I should incorporate Esports into my classroom.

So what is Esports? Just like traditional sports, we can recognize, Esports is wide and varied. It ranges from organized competitive video gaming which is always human v human, games of skill, tournaments played online and offline at events for prizes. Esports are gender-neutral, can be individual or team with pro gamers specializing in one game.

So what are the benefits of Esports in education? A lot of the benefits around Esports are focused on positive psychology, with the development, if correctly scaffolded of a sense of community including the transferable social skills, which are particularly beneficial to those students who are autistic as it provides a safe environment to explore developing mechanisms to cope and to contribute to society.

This differentiates it from traditional video gaming in the sense that students work as a community to develop social skills in an online world, which can be highlighted by the use of games that focus on developing teamwork and world-building. Minecraft education edition highlights the use of Esports within the framework of game-based learning, allowing students to compete with other groups of students in the development of Minecraft worlds.

The use of Esports used in this context, aids in improving focus and concentration, allowing students to develop their resilience to challenges and improves digital citizenship. A number of skills can also be incorporated while playing Esports and include developing leadership, communication, dexterity, and responsibility. It also provides students with a sense of achievement, pride, and autonomy.

That is not to say that Esports can also not be used in a more academic context also. Minecraft allows teachers to provide a range of learning opportunities. As a science teacher, I can students or a group of students to make a model of the digestive system showing their understanding of the processes involved. Not only does it show their understanding of the content, but also provides an opportunity for them to develop collaboration skills and also communication skills of complex scientific concepts.

Conversely, for computer science teachers code 2 create allows assessment of programming skills and also the ability to develop social skills around working to deadlines, deconstructing tasks, and working as a team.

Finally, the development of virtual worlds to model real-world scenarios where students can have particular learning objectives to meet, but they can communicate them in creative ways to show their understanding. This flexibility allows them to develop autonomy and also skills around collaboration and task management.

Make and Model	Code 2 Create	Creative Clash
Lessons offer build challenges that promote a variety of cognitive and social and emotional skills, as well as assessment of curriculum learning for teachers.	Lessons support creative, competitive, and collaborative play using coding to build. In addition to SEL development, these lessons provide assessment of computing studies.	Lessons challenge students in role-based, objective-driven settings, while promoting creative, competitive, and collaborative play through teamwork, strategy, decision-making, and communication.

However, despite these potential advantages, it's important to retain a sense of perspective. While eSports is clearly popular, education has overhyped before. We need to develop a balanced perspective on how schools might make the best use of eSports. This is where research comes in.

As an example, having moved to an area with limited internet use, students’ engagements with technology are compromised by the enduring "digital divide". A lot of students simply do not have access to devices.

We must also be vigilant of the online games culture which is not overly inclusive and reflects a misogynist and generally non-progressive nature of some online gaming and needs to be addressed when introducing it to schools.

One must also consider, having seen the excessive computer game-playing in my school of the effect of gaming on mental health and physical wellbeing and associated disruption to sleep, vision, and posture. This also needs to be addressed with students.

Nevertheless, if we as teachers are to use eSports effectively then we need to focus on the pedagogy first and how the tool can support that pedagogy, it is important the teachers, parents, and students all have input on how eSports can be incorporated into learning.