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Goats and Gaming?!! A Summer Esports Camp Experience

press release Jul 05, 2022
Goats Gaming Summer Esports Camp

Miles Harvey, Ph. D., is a NASEF Scholastic Fellow who combines his love of esports and education for memorable learning for his students. In the Albuquerque Public Schools, he teaches 8th Grade Video Game-Based Learning and is an Esports Coach.

Miles created a new course based off the studies of new literacies and digital game-based learning strategies called media literacy. The course uses virtual reality, augmented reality, and virtual spaces to explore what it means to make meaning in new places where students often spend their time when they are away from schools. He also teach 8th grade language arts.

This summer, he is leading a summer esports camp. He summarized the camp in a series of posts on his LinkedIn page. We’re sharing that series here so you can learn about the exciting activities the students are joining, and possibly use this as a model for a camp in your area!

Day #1 of our summer esports camp was a great success at Electric Playhouse. Not only was it great to see the kids having some summer fun, but it was great to see my scholar gamers from around Albuquerque Public Schools taking the lead and representing what they love about scholastic esports.

Today, we focused on an introduction into esports and reflected upon our gamer identities before drawing some concept art and making digital logos for each player. Our goal was to affirm or create personalized gamer tags while helping players start to brand themselves. One day down and we have so much more to cover! Where will gaming take us next? Thanks to Shelly Gruenig, PhD and her team of campers for inviting us to the Be Greater Than Average Summer Camp.

Day #2 of our esports experience at the Be Greater Than Average Summer Camp at Electric Playhouse focused on Rocket League and the basics for streaming games online. We had a great time playing games and hearing from collegiate and high school players about what Rocket League means to them. We also got the chance to experience Rocket League like never before!

Day #3 of our summer esports camp at Electric Playhouse covered a few topics. First, we examined the mind and how we manage emotions while winning or losing. Second, we talked about a gamer’s diet and exercise habits. Third, we learned about the history of Super Mario Kart before getting to play it as a group. Small moments build big opportunities. Looking forward to another day at the Be Greater Than Average Summer Camp!

Day #4 was a blast at our summer esports experience at Electric Playhouse with the Be Greater Than Average Summer Camp hosted by Shelly Gruenig, PhD. Today, we practiced shout casting and we watched mini goats playing and practiced describing what we saw. It was so much fun. We also learned about scholastic esports career pathways from the North America Scholastic Esports Federation website and examined and the ecosystem of professional esports. On top of that, we also got some basics on how a PC works and how to build one. This was our final day as an Albuquerque Public Schools esports crew at the summer camp. Each of our 4 scholar gamers received a internship certificate and a gift card to spend on Twitch.

During his fellowship with NASEF, Dr. Harvey created a curriculum unit entitled Gaming as Classroom Literature. You can get free access to this valuable curriculum along with his walk-through video here (sort by Middle School and subject area English Language Arts for quickest link).

Thank you Dr. Harvey for sharing your learning with us through the curriculum, and for inspiring students and educators through the summer as well!

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