#FCGamingStories: EdTech to Esports
Mar 22In mid-February, FC Gaming launched #FCGamingStories - a chance for us to hear your esports in education stories, with a chance to be featured on our blog. After some careful deliberation, the team at FC Gaming wanted to highlight a school that’s hit the ground running with their esports club this year! A familiar face in the FC Gaming community, we’re highlighting Dean Vendramin, and the amazing work he’s done at his school, Archbishop M.C. O’Neill Catholic High School. Please introduce yourself, and tell us a bit about how you got into esports!My name is Dean Vendramin from Regina, Saskatchewan blessed to live, learn, and do esports on Treaty 4 Territory, traditional lands of the Nêhiyawak, Nahkawé, and Nakota, the homeland of the Métis, Lakota, and Dakota. I am grateful to teach at Archbishop M.C. O’Neill Catholic High School in the Regina Catholic School Division. I teach Grades 9-12 Math, Robotics, and Social Studies. To learn a bit more about me or to connect reach out on Twitter @vendi55 or visit my e-portfolio. I have always been a fan of video games even from back in the ‘old arcades’ days. I have enjoyed many a time playing, learning, competing, and having fun through video games throughout the years. Fast forward to having kids of my own and seeing the evolution of video games in complexity, strategy, collaboration, and creativity, evolve into esports. Watching my own kids engage with others in this environment led me to understand there are many crossovers to traditional sports. Having conversations with students coupled with the knowledge I have gained from my personal experience, has convinced me that we need esports opportunities at our school on a club level. “It’s a fun place to hang out with your friends. You can play games, eat, or interact with others. ” — Abraham B. When did you start your esports club?We have had a tech club that tinkered with robotics, had access to laptops and iPads, and other maker space opportunities for a few years now. But about three years ago, we made a conscious effort to make the jump into offering esports for those involved in the tech club and any students that wanted to be a part of the team. We started two years before the pandemic started and we were gaining momentum, and our esports space was bustling. But even the pandemic didn’t totally stop our esports program as we became the only extracurricular program to continue throughout the pandemic. We were able to stay in touch through Discord. Students set up some of their own events and fun activities, and we participated in a few North American esports leagues and had the only extracurricular award winners in our school. This year has seen the comeback and rise of esports as a lunch- and afterschool-extracurricular activity become face to face once again. It has been such a great opportunity for so many students to compete, make new friends, and learn so many social and emotional skills. What was the process you went through to start your club?We did have a bit of a base with the tech club that we had established, but it grew into esports with a simple request and support from my school’s administration, which saw the potential and need for this to grow in our school. I was also lucky that there were a couple of students that were keen and took on leadership roles (another huge benefit to offering esports). So with an investment of a couple of Nintendo Switches and a few titles, our esports club began to grow. Soon students were having meetings about organizing the club, developing a code of conduct, and creating Discord accounts and servers to communicate with our esports club took off, and quickly grew into a club with about 30 members that continues to evolve. “Being in esports means playing games with my friends. I think it’s important for schools to have esports clubs because it helps people get involved in activities they enjoy. Competing against other schools brings all of the schools closer together and brings fun and friendly competition.” — Zech S. What does the structure of your club currently look like?Our club is inclusive and has opportunities to participate on many levels. The majority of the members compete daily against each other in various games. It’s amazing to hear the excitement and energy daily coming from our esports club. We have competed face-to-face pre-pandemic with another school in our division which was extremely successful. This is something I’m trying to establish once again with at least the other three schools in my division. This year (thanks to our IT department) we were able to do some friendlies with another school in our division. This was a lot of fun and it was an opportunity to compete and represent our school that many of our members would not have had the opportunity to do so. We have participated in a couple of the North American High School esports leagues (PlayVS and HSEL). We had some good experiences overall with these as there were some opportunities to join for free at the time. We are not quite there yet to compete with some of the elite programs (it would be amazing to have a student get a scholarship offer through this one day) that were there but it was still fun for students (especially during the pandemic) and something we will continue to explore (there are some challenges like cost depending on the game, game times, or set up, but these can be addressed and worked around). One esports league that we have participated in this year is Esport Canada. There are not a lot of schools set up yet, but the organization and mission of this league fosters more of a casual and fun community. They are only offering games right now that are free like Rocket League, Brawlhalla, and Minecraft right now. Speaking of Minecraft, one of the cornerstones of our club is Minecraft: Education Edition. We have been involved in many worldwide Minecraft projects/competitions and our students have had a blast creating solutions based on the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals, Logics Canadian Minecraft Competitions, NASEF, and more. There are many leadership opportunities from promotion and marketing, communications, and organization to general protocols and clean-up. The leaders of our club run the organization of daily activities, whereas smaller leadership groups for specific activities like organizing an in-school Mario Kart Tournament to raise money for our club are established. We are active on Discord and the students have set up a multitude of channels to discuss a variety of topics about all things esports and more. It has been great to see how respectful the community has been, being built in this platform. We are part of our school’s extracurricular programs and offer MVP opportunities to outstanding leaders of our club. How did you get the required technology set up? What did that process look like?With growing numbers and opportunities for students to participate in an esports club, it was a relatively easy sell to administration to invest in this program. We decided to go with Nintendo Switches based on the titles, ease of setup, and ability to have multiple players playing at the same time. So it was basically plug-and-play. We started with two Switches but have since been able to purchase two more and the EYES program (STEM-based workshop outreach program from the University of Regina) has loaned us three more devices for a total of seven devices that are available to our students. Our IT department has also been supportive by allowing these devices on the school wi-fi and opening network ports to allow us to play against other schools online. For some of the competitions after hours, members have used their own computers or Switches to compete. We usually set up a Discord channel for specific teams and I’ve been able to watch and talk with students during these competitions which has been great. We have access to Minecraft: Education Edition on the laptops in our esports lab and students can also access Minecraft:EE free at home with their school accounts to work on these. Sometimes collaboration using this can be difficult but there are solutions like learning how to use port forwarding. How did you and your students decide on what games to play?We wanted to stay away from first-person shooter games and games that may have some questionable content, so we went with the Nintendo Switch. Students enjoy competing in Smash Bros (this is our most popular title), Rocket League, Mario Kart, Splatoon, and even have access to Mario Party for some fun (I even got a few copies of the game Civilization VI to use in my Social 9 class and EYES helped us out with some Nintendo Labos for some maker opportunities). Minecraft: Education Edition is available on school devices and at home. Students still love doing some Minecraft even in High School and esports is becoming a big part of how people are seeing and using Minecraft: EE. Down the road, we may expand to some PCs to offer League of Legends and other PC esport titles. What are some recommendations for educators out there that want to start their own esports clubs?You don’t have to be an expert gamer to be a coach or to start a club. Start by providing a place for students to gather and build a community. I’d highly recommend taking the FCL Esports coaching clinic. So much is covered and one can see that you can start small but can grow esports to whatever heights you and your students would like to take it, from casual in-school competitions to competing in national and international events with scholarship opportunities on the line. Minecraft Edu also has a great esports clinic that I’d also recommend. Tap into the experts you have in the room. Your students will have lots of ideas, an understanding of esports, and the ability to organize and lead the community. Also, leverage the power of social media like Twitter and communication hubs like Discord (join the FCL Gaming Discord!) to build community and share ideas and resources. Esports are gaining momentum and will continue to be part of society for a long time. I have heard that esports will be part of the Olympics one day and data shows that more people watched the League of Legends World Finals than the Super Bowl. There are many esport related careers available other than playing, such as broadcasting, hosting, promotions, and more that clubs can offer and provide students with excellent skills and experiences to add to their resumes. Esports is a multi-billion dollar industry that will only continue to grow, so it is important to provide students with positive and organized activities and events to make sure this growth is positive. But when it boils down to it, it’s just great to provide students with an opportunity to be part of a community and let them play.
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Hope this edition of Tech Talk finds you well and safe. There are not enough words to describe the herculean effort that teachers have put forth during these times. I have witnessed so many positive and inspiring stories throughout this pandemic. It gives me great hope that not only will we survive these challenging times, but we will come out even better on the other side. The implementation and effective use of technology in education are two areas which have had a wide range of teacher and student experiences. There have been some challenges for sure, but the teamwork, growth, and willingness to persevere that have been on display daily in our schools (both brick and mortar and virtually) are a testament to our noble profession. For this edition, I thought I’d share bit of my experience and tools that I use.
My school division use Microsoft products as our main tool for communications and delivery of digital content. So, my go to tool has been Microsoft Teams. I have used this tool to create a hub where students can easily navigate, communicate, and connect. Teams has experienced some amazing growth over the past few months and has gone from a predominately business look and feel to offering up some great education apps and functionality. During hybrid learning, it has become a repository of assignments, assignment collection, communication station, and accessibility point to other apps and resources. During remote learning, Teams became a way to connect with students virtually. We had our daily meetings that usually started with a fun activity to connect with (check out brightful meeting games - https://app.brightful.me – had access to the premium version to try out), a short lesson on what today’s topic (which was recorded to offer those who missed an opportunity to have access to materials and instruction as well), and an opportunity for students to ask questions through voice or chat. One other plus is that ‘there’s an app of that’. Although no all student have access to a laptop, most had at least access to a cell phone. We used collaboration tools as well like Microsoft Whiteboard to engage in the learning and try to provide similar opportunities students would have in face to face environment. I also used tools like Noodle Tools (our division uses this to create work cited pages and other research tools), Minecraft Education Edition (received some of the best civilization projects from my grade 9’s that I ever got), Go Formative (great formative assessment tool), Microsoft One Note and Forms (which are embedded right in teams), and a great PDF annotation tool called Draw Board. I also teach in our RCSD Online School and have access to Moodle. This gave me the ability to assign and effectively do assessments like exams. I prefer face to face but the use of these tools allowed me to continue to delivery course content, provide feedback, and continue build relationships with my students. For some students they didn’t miss a beat for other is was tough to engage for various reasons, overall though we had a positive experience and there was an environment created that provided opportunities for successful learning. There is a lot I have to work on to improve the hybrid/remote experience (here’s a great resource that I’d like to share https://cubeforteachers.com/profile/remoteteaching). No matter what your approach is or tools you use, I think it is important to understand that the virtual experience is different, but it can be good and effective. Keeping things simple, conscience, and organized are always important classroom management skills, but take on greater significance in a virtual space. There are many silver linings that will come out of this experience for teachers and students alike. I have had a positive response from parents and administration, but I think it is safe to safe that we would all like to get back to our everyday face to face experience (although there are some students who are striving in hybrid and remote learning) .What has been your remote/hybrid experience? What are some of your go to tools? Share these on Twitter with the hashtag #saskttt, tag me on a tweet @vendi55 or drop me an e-mail at [email protected] Also check out #saskedchat Thursday’s at 8 PM to grow your Professional Learning Network and engage in educational related topics. Until next time stay well, stay safe, and take care. Check out the blogs from my ECI Master's Classes that I did in Word Press - deanvendramin.wordpress.com/
In our busy lives sometimes we just don’t have the time to read, go to conferences, reach out on social media and perform other acts that’s provide professional development. But we do have to do things like drive to work, clean the house, and other tasks that require an investment of time. Many of this are very important to our day to day lives, but do not always require extreme periods of concentration or precise thinking. Other times we just want to sit back and relax. These can be times where you can fit in professional development. Armed with a device and a good speaker or headphones, you can embark on a profession development journey that will be both efficient and rewarding. Listening to podcasts can be done at your convenience and open up ideas and discussions that provide growth opportunities. As part of the connected educator program in Regina Catholic Schools, members are expected to take part in a number of professional development offerings. For the last few years, we launched and completed very successful summer book study sessions. This year under the direction of a few of our program’s visionary leaders, we decided to explore another way to connect, share ideas, and strengthen our profession learning community. We tapped into the power of the podcast. Our team selected five podcasts that covered themes like shifting you school, maker spaces, growth mindsets, and celebrating failure. Each podcast was followed up with a discussion question to be shared on Twitter with our connected educator hashtags. It was a very successful professional development model and the bulk of it was done sitting in a comfy lawn chair while soaking up some rays. Here’s a Wakelet collection of the Twitter conversations we were having on our podcast selections - http://bit.ly/rcsdpodcastpd.(Not sure what Wakelet is check out my Wakelet review here http://bit.ly/dvwakelet great tool.) There are many great podcasts out there that cover a wide variety of topics. There are many suggested playlist (here’s the ones we looked at for our PD - http://bit.ly/rcsdconedpd). You can also reach out on social media for themes and well done podcasts. I’d recommend voiced.ca as a great place to start. Voiced radio has a wide range of topics created right here in Canada (give @Stephen_Hurley a follow on Twitter). There are also flipped professional development opportunities with podcasts too. Start with one and see where it takes you. I’ve dabbled in creating podcasts as part of a Formative learning community and in my classroom. We are hoping to create a RCSD Connect Educator podcast series highlighting and sharing the amazing work being down by teachers in our program. A few tools I have used to create and host podcasts are: anchor.fm, zencaster.com, soundcloud.com, Audacity, Garage Band, and We Video (would also recommend a decent microphone – I use a Blue Snowball Mic). There is no shortage tools, tutorials, and support for anyone wanting to start this journey. Great professional development is just an audio playlist away. Thanks for reading. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @vendi55 if you have any questions.
“Kids are growing up on a digital playground and no one is on recess duty.” This statement is mad by Kevin Honeycutt and quoted in Social Leadia. I would definitely agree with this analogy. I see this with both my own kids and the students I teach. I know that with my own kids we have had many conversations about how they interact and what their experiences in the digital playground have been. I know they are out their exploring and having many digital interactions. They have mostly had positive experiences and we continue to have a safe open dialogue about their online lives. I try to extend this same way of thinking to the classroom. There is tremendous opportunity to learn and grow in this environment. Like the actual playgrounds, it is important to develop trust and instill a sense of responsibility in the digital world. As we navigate through the digital world, here may be some issues and challenges one needs to address. These are learning opportunities that we should have the same approach to in the offline world. An analogy I would use is learning to ride a bike. It can be scary, you might ‘wipe’ out a few times, need to be on the lookout for traffic, know the use the bike and the rules of the road, but in the end we need to have balance and keep on pedaling. So definitely it comes down to establishing relationships with kids and gaining trust. I try to be a positive role model with my own online presence to help students understand the positive influence and learning that is possible online. I will continue to promote and better understand social media opportunities. I will continue to seek opportunities to engage in meaningful movements and projects in my classroom. I will continue to build relationships and foster trust to have positive experiences in the classroom with any medium we use. I look to 21st Century Skills and the SAMR model to try to redefine learning opportunities in my class. I try to do as much research in advanced but ultimately I’m good with taking a risk. I am good with failure and reflection when advancing learning opportunities. I have been exploring the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the world’s largest lesson that comes with it. I did a Minecraft project with classes from around the world and a Data Analysis project where we used this theme to promote and understand these worldwide issues. I will continue follow this opportunity and other. There are many opportunities like this available and you can even create your own. We live in a world where digital interactions are part of our everyday life and we are doing students a disservice not to make it a part of what we do in our classrooms. Being a digital leader is an important part of understanding today’s society and helping prepare our students for the future. I love the concept of digital discipleship. I believe that developing, promoting, and carry out the essence of our faith online leads to positive interactions and creating opportunities for empathy and understanding. Regina Catholic School’s digital discipleship information is a great place to follow one’s faith journey online. I am fortunate to have been using social media as part of my professional development and growth over the past few years. I have found it to be an amazing professional development opportunity. I have developed many friendships and have an outstanding personal learning network. I wish I had this opportunity when I first started teaching, but I am proof it is never to late to take the leap. I have been involved book chats and slow chats before. I always find something to reflect on, share, or get a new idea. The #rcsdconnect book chats this week have been a phenomenal experience. I loved the passion, reflection, and creativity that were on display from all participants. It was inspiring and I’m so proud to work alongside such a dedicated and passionate group of educators. I hope to continue this discussion throughout the year. I will be adding contributing and sharing to the #rcsdconnect as part of my C2PG. Looking forwarding to the journey. Thank you and God Bless. Creating connected students allows students to see they are global citizens and their learning has an audience beyond the walls of the classroom. Many students will try to figure out just enough to satisfy what the teacher wants and play the game of school. A connected student quickly finds out that there is an authentic audience waiting for them. Others are interested in connecting with them and sharing learning experiences. This learning transcends the classroom and helps students become digital leaders. I have been involved in a multitude of Skype in the classroom experiences. These have been game changers. I find that students love meeting students from other locations. The excitement that these experiences create has been contagious. I also have shared projects on Sustainable Develop Goals developed by the UN. It was great to take student learning beyond the standards and share these projects beyond the classroom. These are a couple of examples of how I have tried to bring social media and connections. I hope to provide more opportunities for my students and help them become digital leaders. Providing students with opportunities to become effective critical thinkers is not new. As importance of critical thinking has increases and will continue to be a key skill people will need as society moves on, we need to encourage and empower students with tools to make informed and sound decisions. George Couros has mentioned that we need to make the positive so loud that the negative is almost impossible to hear. Unfortunately, there is so much noise on social media that it hard to know what is real or not. I recently read an article that referenced Alec Couros and how often his name and photos have used in fraudulent behavior (his name and images were used on dating sites where con artists built relationships with unsuspecting women and then used them to get money) . There are many ignorant, misinformed, pranksters, bad, and evil people that use social media to promote hate, self-shame, fraud, and toy with others. I think many students understand this but do not give this much thought because they 1) don’t think it will happen to them, 2) don’t care, and/or 3) don’t have the tools to deal with this from an emotional, spiritual, or intellectual lens. We need to start bring this to students attention in school and provide opportunities and tools to critically look at the messages that they encounter. We live in a society where ‘fake news’ (just have to look south of border for a prime example) is all over social media. Giving students tools like SOURCE, CRAAP, and SMELL are necessary are necessary to separate the wheat from the shaft, but I also feel that helping students build a strong moral compass is extremely important. There are opportunities infuse 21st Century literacies in our classroom. We have to step up and take on digital leadership roles to do this. Students are ready for new approaches and this would make the classroom more relevant for them in the process. It would allow them to reflect upon their own online presence and lead to self-awareness about their own digital tattoo. Teachers can also lead by example and examine their own online presence. I have built a strong online presence and I’m proud of what I have shared, promoted, and created. I have had many positive experiences online and have become a better teacher and person as a result. Most of my presence deals directly education with a small amount of personal information sprinkled in. I believe that online identity does reflect my professional identity and through that, you can get a strong sense of my personal identity. I do not share a lot of personal information and when I do, it is mostly my hobbies. I critically look at the sources that I follow and definitely practice what I preach. I strive to be a digital leader for me, my family, and those I serve. Digital Leadership is an important concept that we as teachers need to understand and promote to help our students not only understand their world now and in the future, but empower them to be and do better. Digital Citizenship in Saskatchewan Schools is a great place to start to develop a framework of how this can look in your classroom. It focuses on ways to protect, respect, and educate in a digital world. I have explored these target areas in my class. I will continue to integrate these targets and make transitions to targets seamless. This year I plan to concentrate on the areas of digital etiquette, communication, and health & well-being. I feel these transfer well to the analog world as well as my goal is to show that digital citizenship is simply citizenship. I know that I try to live by these targets in my interactions using social media. I am very active especially on Twitter and have had a positive experience. I feel that my interactions using social media have made me a better teacher and person. So many people want to share and have meaningful discussions on a variety of topics. So many people displaying positive digital citizenship and leadership. It has been inspiring. I conduct myself on social media the same way I do offline and I try to be a positive digital leader. I have had a great experience being the lead in my school’s Twitter account. It brings me great joy to share the amazing things going on in our school on social media. I feel that if one looks at the Twitter account for our school that they we would left with a great impression of what we do in mind, body and spirit. Our account not only has the day-to-day learning that is constantly happening at our school, but all the community spirit and service we do. For example, we had the hashtag #TRACKS that promoted Titan Random Acts of KindnesS and the response of this initiative was extremely positive. I have also used some social media in my classroom and one of my goals this year is to integrate its use as a learning, sharing, and leadership tool in my classroom. Last year in my math class, we were doing a unit on Data Analysis and we look to the UNs Sustainable Development Goals as way to formulate questions and collect data on. When our data analysis projects were finished, we tweeted our results with the hash tag #SDG. The quality of student work was the best I had on this project because they knew it was going past our four walls and they were excited with some of the replies they got. I sent these tweets through the school account, but will have students create their own accounts in the future. This will help them understand digital citizenship and leadership. My goal is too more of this next year. Digital leadership is empowers all of us to do and be more. Digital leadership takes learning and social justice to another level. Digital citizenship is helping us all get to the top of the mountain. There is a belief out there students are digital natives and most teachers/adults are digital immigrants. This belief suggests that use of devices especially in the areas of learning and communication comes naturally for all students. This belief generally assumes that all students know the proper use of the device in their hands and all the challenges and opportunities that come with it. I find that although students can texts and snap they do not really understand the power that is at their fingertips. Social Leadia delves into the positivity and potential that is available though social media. This medium should not just be an opportunity to talk about digital citizenship (which is important, but should not be a ‘ one and done’ deal though), but take the opportunity to lead on social media. Share learning, promote others, champion causes that they are passionate about – in short be the change. In order for this type of higher-level learning and social justice opportunities to take place, teachers need to embrace, model, and create the environment for this to take place. One topic I struggle with is the basic availability of cell phones for students. Is your device helping or distracting you? The book poses this question and one I have asked my own students many times. The skill of self-regulation is one that I have had whole class and individual discussions. I have not given in to the temptation of banning devices from my class. Many colleagues have banned devices, I have seen the distractions, and I have been frustrated with student choices, but I see the potential, I have seen some great use, and I know that this tool can redefine students learning, so my quest to help students self regulate and unlock the potential that a device can bring continues. Thus, I try to lead by example by have my own strong social media presence, create a trusting environment in my classroom, and encourage the use of social media and other apps to engage and empower student learning. One of my goals this school year will to create more opportunities for student to share work and thoughts on social media. I feel I owe it to my students to provide them with opportunity to grow, use social media as a powerful learning tool, and create positive experiences that will leave them with a positive digital tattoo. Social media like many technology advances is not going away and I feel we do students a disservice by not embrace the reality that is our world. We can embrace the change and the innovative opportunities that are available or ignore reality, stay status quo, and not provide students with the tools and skills necessary in today’s world and in the future. |
AuthorDean Vendramin has been Educator for over 20 years. He is the 21st Century Education Leader at Archbishop M.C. O'Neill Catholic High School. He has a passion for all things in education with emphasis on technology integration, assessment, professional development, and 21 Century Education. Archives
April 2022
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