Page 8 - THE Journal, March/April 2019

FEATURE |ESPORTS
since fall 2017, and the class is always full — and HSEL plans to distribute the curriculum to its member schools as well.
Others are using esports to teach about core curriculum concepts. California’s Orange County Department of Education, which founded the nonprofit North American Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF) in conjunction with the Samueli Foundation and the University of California Irvine Esports program, has created a high school ELA curriculum around esports. One activity has students create their own concept for a video game, complete with a story arc and characters.
“Students who would not normally
read and write are spending hours on this activity,” said Tom Turner, executive director of educational services for the county.
Like Russell, Turner noted that esports is an entire ecosystem that consists of not just the players but the employees who support them. “There are many skills that students can develop,” he said. “They can design their team logo, or run the team’s social media accounts. Esports is a high-interest activity; it’s the Trojan horse that gets us past the barriers to learning.”
At Knollwood School, the Fair Haven Knights take turns assuming various esports roles. A typical Rocket League match is four-on-four, so the students who aren’t playing in the game might control the
video cameras used to stream the match,
or post live updates through social media. Even if students aren’t playing, they are still involved in powerful learning opportunities.
“They’re learning valuable skills, and they’re learning how to be a team,” Aviles said. “We are tapping into something they love and teaching them life lessons. Just because this is something new or different doesn’t mean it’s bad. I had one group
of stakeholders who told me: ‘We don’t understand the attraction of esports, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find value in it for our kids.’”
Dennis Pierce is a freelance writer with 17 years of experience covering educa- tion and technology
| MARCH/APRIL 2019
Students from Troy High School (Fullerton, CA)
“There are many skills that students can develop. They can design their team logo, or run the tea m’s social media accounts. Esports is a high- interest activity; it’s the Trojan horse that gets us past the barriers to learning.”
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Students from Portola High School (Irvine, CA)