Finding Inspiration in the Gaming Industry

Reasoning

Ever wonder what's out there in the gaming industry? What about esports? Where are the people who look like you? How many women or BIPOC or LGBTQ+ people are represented in the industry? If you look you may see, much like other white-collar professions in the U.S., the industry of video games is dominated by white men, but they aren't the only ones playing games! Demographics for gamers are much more diverse than the professionals who are making the games. So where do we look for diverse student inspiration?

In the book, The Esports Education Playbook: Empowering Every Learner Through Inclusive Gaming, Bradford Harris, a NASEF Fellow, is quoted as saying, "I am really big on making sure I expose as many Black and brown children to esports as possible because it's not being seen. That's the reason I jumped into it (esports in education). So every time I go somewhere, I start asking those hard questions." 

The demographics of the esports and gaming realm are not what I see on a day-to-day basis as an educator. I see many BIPOC students and want them to see themselves in a growing future with technology. So I had to go searching and find inspiration, representation, and career options for the gaming industry.

How can this help others?

Educators have to dig, sift, and vet content with BIPOC, female and LGBTQ+ representation. Here is what I have used as career exploration tools, that help showcase their students represented in the medium. Many of the videos I found were accompanied by a Google Form or a Google Doc as a journal, to reflect on the learning and opportunities in the gaming industry. 

With 53% of my high school population in the Latinx demographics, I really wanted to help my students learn about the industry and where they can find room for themselves. Use the following links to help showcase panels and people in the Latinx community working in games:

Latinx in Gaming GDC 2018

Learn more about the panels’ work!

Edgar Serrano: Lienzo Studios

Daniel Monastero: Garage 227 Studios

Andro Miralrio: Keywords Studios

Gracie Arena Strittmatter: EA Gracie Intro

In the Know: Latinas in Gaming

Our African American population is 35% and they deserve to see themselves represented as well. Find BIPOC representation with these links:

1st Black Owner of Game Development Company

Gaming for Everyone: Blacks in Gaming GDC Feature

Other demographics are important too! Asian representation in gaming links:

NASEF: Careers in Esports - Team Manager, Andrew Kim

Where are the women? The number of girls in any program is much lower than some demographics, and they deserve a spot at the PC. Not just as support either! Women in gaming links: (Also look at the Latinx community!)

Esports Explore - Esports Journalist Women in Gaming

Gaming can make a better world | Jane McGonigal

Studying Esports in the UK

Some great interviews for more learning. We need to inspire, and share stories and successes of those who came before: 

Esports Explore - Content Creators

Esports Explore - Game Designer

BIPOC Entrepreneurs   

While driving, I listened to some podcasts and found The Toys & Tech of the Trade Episode 35, which highlighted an interview with Sebastian "Chosen1" Burton. The interview led to an interesting conversation with Sebastian about his work in esports since the age of 19. I was enthralled by his story and reached out to him after looking up his esports company, Gold Standard Gaming. Through a lot of conversations with my principal, I finally got Sebastian to Zoom into our school and speak to students in the Cybercats and my Exploration of Game Design courses. Finding BIPOC Entrepreneurs was a dream come true, and having students chat with Sebastian was an amazing experience. Mr. Burton spoke about his experiences in the industry, gave some life lessons in perseverance, and then discussed actionable steps students could take today to leverage their social media and graphic design skills to help launch a career in anything!

Final Thoughts

Finding inspiration and diversity in the gaming field can be daunting, and searching through hours of footage is a must if you want your students to feel represented. I know I am lacking in some demographics, as I only have one video showcasing a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and I welcome any advice in the comments. My students, our students, deserve to see themselves in the game industry!

ESL 509 - iTunes U Blog Reflection

Another great investigation for my ESL 509 course led me to find a great iTunes U ESL Course.  The Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District in Long Island, New York put together a great set of course materials to review ESL students and some best practices to work with English Learners.  The first video really sets the tone and challenges the staff to break the stereotypes of many culturally different students.  The course has great videos made by students and also example projects by students that can be used in the classroom. 

There are six videos, two images, eight weblinks, and six articles to read and engage anyone using this course.  I like the diverse uses of media and the use of writing prompts to help share the learning in this iTunes U Course.  There is a lot that can be learned from this course and I think it is great that it was put together by a teacher and her actual class.  This format can have a lot of potential for life-long learning from the students about how media can teach others, and how to use the different technologies themselves. 

One Hour of Code Initiative

After finishing two graduate courses on utilizing technology in the classroom, I was tasked with one for a collaborative research project.   The project consisted of classmates and I researching a technology trend in education and we chose coding in the classroom.  I was very impressed with the Code.org website and all of the resources that are available for free on the site, including their One Hour of Code Initiative.  I had students watch the five minute video from Code.org to get them excited to investigate coding.  Students then created a free Code.org account and started the process of completing the One Hour of Code initiative from December 4th through December 8th this year.

Following the One Hour of Code program, students were then given a set of Scratch coding activities that progressively increased in difficulty.  Students were tasked with creating an easy set of code that drew four different polygons.  Then they were given a second task to code a random polygon generator using some more complex coding pieces, which also had students create a block (their own code piece) to name the polygon that was generated. For the final project students were tasked with creating coding blocks to draw a Sierpinski Triangle.  (My code is attached below.)  I used these projects in my Saturday STEM Mathematics program last spring, and found that they would be great for school this year as well. 

The whole program took students about 5 days and an average of 5 hours to complete all of the coding projects.  Students were given a great opportunity to investigate coding.  To celebrate and reward their accomplishments with more than just a grade, I created a certificate of completion.  Students who successfully completed all of the projects and showed that they ran were awarded the certificate that they could then use in any resume.  My district is trying to increase the amount of experiences students are given for job and college readiness for PA State Act 339.  So the experiences in coding and computer science will give them more confidence in working on computers, and some confidence with job readiness skills.

Once students finalized the projects, they began to investigate the math and history of fractal geometry, a mathematical definition of the patterns seen in nature.  Computer science has used fractals to create more and more realistic computer generated imagery in video games and movies.  Students got to investigate logarithms to define the fractal dimension and took in-depth looks at how the math has changed how we look at the similarities in nature.  For the last four years, I have been implementing and developing this two week unit before Christmas break. Leading up to students creating a holiday Sierpinski Tree.  I hope to one day inspire my students to investigate fractals even more, because the math behind it is very interesting.

Digital Media in Education

Throughout my career I have found different activities helpful for teaching my classes.  Students in my Geometry class have skeletal notes that they take in notebooks, they get practice in various forms, and sometimes I like to add extra information in the form of YouTube videos.  I have curated some interesting Geometry videos and rap songs written about geometry topics to help my students remember and understand the concepts that they are learning.   Some of the YouTube channels I have put together are below:

Triangles in Geometry - Involves triangle classification, Pythagorean theorem, Trigonometric Functions Songs 

Logic in Geometry - Helpful videos to introduce or enhance the understanding of Logic

Fractals in Geometry - Fractals in African Culture and a fun Doodle about Fractals