ESportsU Presents: Connecting Esports Lifestyles to Career Development

Purpose & objective

The purpose of the panel is to demonstrate how to design an appropriate environment to allow for organic STEM learning in the form of a Culturally Relevant Computing Living Learning Community, and discuss how education administrators can create and utilize these enriched environments in their own institutions. Culturally Relevant Computing refers to social connection, cultural asset building and self reflection (Authors, 2021; Hatley et al., 2017). We will review the major components of the successfully conducted NSF research camp including technological access, culturally relevant learning environment, student innovation, and educational opportunities. Students had full access to advanced computing machines with high speed connection, the latest gaming systems (Switch, Xbox, Playstation) with peripherals, the full adobe suite among others.  We will discuss the planning and implementation of these ecosystems in the example of the previously mentioned NSF research where two separate groups of High School students experienced CRC Living Learning Communities. Furthermore, our panel will discuss the resulting positive shift in their motivations and attitudes such as wanting to attend college (Anderson et al., 2018) after the summer camp based on either traditional gaming or Esports.

Therefore, at the end of our panel viewers will be able to:
-Identify high quality collaborators within their local geographic and professional field
-Strategize next steps in building a successful Esports learning community
-Describes Esports professional digital media skills for career development
-Categorize the Esports ecosystem within local, state, national and global contexts.

Outline

Culturally Relevant Living Learning Communities (10 minutes) 
-We will discuss Culturally Relevant Living Learning Communities in the context of the NSF research camp.
Panelists Introduction (5 minutes)
-We plan on having the panelists introduce themselves and giving a brief explanation as to who they are and what they do.
Community, Setup and Impact of Culturally Relevant Living Learning Communities (30 minutes)
-The panelists will discuss the importance of these learning environments, how to set them up, and the components that need to be included for them to be successful from local community, team members, and education administrators aid.
Clarifying Audience Questions (10 minutes)
-We will give the audience time to ask any questions about the camp and what was discussed.
Closing Thoughts on Living Learning Communities (5 minutes)
-A summary of the conversation and suggestions for continuing the conversation

Supporting research

Authors (2021). ESportsU Digital Warrior Camp: Creating an Esports-Based Culturally Relevant Computing Living Learning Camp. In Handbook of Research on Pathways and Opportunities Into the Business of Esports (pp. 239-268). IGI Global.
-Giammarco, E. A., Schneider, T. J., Carswell, J. J., & Knipe, W. S. (2015). Video game preferences and their relation to career interests. Personality and Individual Differences, 73 (1), 98–104.
-Anderson, C. G., Tsaasan, A. M., Reitman, J., Lee, J. S., Wu, M., Steel, H., ... & Steinkuehler, C. (2018, September). Understanding esports as a stem career ready curriculum in the wild. In 2018 10th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
-Hatley, L., Winston-Proctor, C. E., Paige, G. M., & Clark, K. (2017). Culture and Computational Thinking. Culture, Learning, and Technology: Research and Practice, 109.