What the EdTech?
What the EdTech?
Esports in Wichita Public Schools
This episode we dive into esports and its implementation in Wichita Public Schools. Our super friends today are Clint Dayhuff (district esports representative), Kyle Schoenhofer (Computer Science Teacher & Coach at Education Imagine Academy), and Ramsey Jamoul (CEO of Unified Esports Association).
Welcome, everyone. We're back for what the headset and I've got my friend smoke with me smoke How you doing today?
Dyane Smokorowski:I am so well, it's awesome anytime that we get to bring folks together and talk about the great things that are happening in ed tech around the district, so yay.
Rob Dickson:Yeah, and I'm super excited about this topic. This is this is a topic that I was exposed to briefly whenever I was in Omaha, but had no idea how fast something would grow here in Wichita. And so I've, we've got amongst us some super friends. So, Clint, once you introduce yourself,
Clint Dayhuff:Hey, everyone, I'm Clint de Huff, and I have the pleasure of heading up the eSports program at the district level. And so yeah, that's my the main thing I'm doing I'm also an instructional technology specialist here. So, but I'm super excited about eSports as well. And yeah, so I'm gonna kind of talk about that from a district level. Rob, anything you want to add before? I
Rob Dickson:Kyle, we also got you here, I want you to introduce yourself.
Kyle Schoenhofer:Hello, everybody. I'm Kyle, Sean afer, I am an eSports. Coach here in the district for education, Imagine Academy. And I also teach gaming concepts here at our virtual school. And along with that comes some computer science, cybersecurity, AI and machine learning. Those types of classes are what's offered here alongside gaming concepts.
Rob Dickson:And we also have a special guest. Ramsey Ramsey wants you to introduce yourself, a great graduate of SE, hi.
Ramsey Jamoul:Thank you very much for having me. Yeah. So I'm Ramsey Jamal, the CEO of unified company based here in Wichita, Kansas, to be able to host competitions that bring people together with providing really cool experiences in gaming. So I'm very excited about everything going on and happy to chat.
Rob Dickson:Man, I am, I'm so excited to talk about esports are really think the future of learning is somewhere inside of this particular area. And when I think about it, I would have never thought we would grow like we've grown and clamp once you give us a little bit of perspective of where the district is that ride now. In supporting eSports for our students.
Clint Dayhuff:Yeah, absolutely. So when Rob came in had this awesome idea, let's build this eSports program. And we started with, you know, just a couple of high schools. And Kyle who's with us here, he already had a program going at Southeast so we you know, it was great to partner with him. So we started with just a few high schools that were piloting, you know, and so from there, we moved on, just very quickly, we went from a pilot year to five middle schools and four high schools. And then we're now up to nine high schools, all of our high schools have eSports with gaming labs, all of our middle 18. Middle Schools have gaming labs. So we're running clubs at the middle school level. We're also have the gaming concepts class at 12 of the middle schools and all nine of the high schools. So we're still building that program. And Kyle will talk a little bit more about the actual gaming concepts in the classroom. But we're, we're competing nationally, in our high schools. So we compete in high school Esports League. So our kids get a play, they get national exposure playing games, such as valorant fortnight, League of Legends, Overwatch Rocket League, and, yeah, it's just it's grown like crazy. We have a 70 seat arena, here in downtown Wichita, which we're really proud of. And we're really just trying to create an awesome experience for kids. And, you know, they're gaining a ton from this. So we're hitting a whole entire group of students that maybe have never been on a team before.
Rob Dickson:What kind of gaming rig do we supply the students?
Unknown:Well, so we we have went with we got students together, brought in tons of different machines, and the winner was the HP OMEN. And so every school has at least 20 gaming computers in the lab that and we've set up a system to where it really any kid can play the game. Any kid in the school can play bass. So that's what we wanted is we wanted to be able to offer this to anybody who wants it.
Rob Dickson:Awesome. Awesome. What does that look like in the in the classroom? Kyle? What how does? How does this really, you know, what does that look like?
Unknown:Well, first of all, thank you so much for the support in particular those omens. ECS, they are top of the line. So these kids are sometimes playing these games for the first time. And you should just see their faces light up when they see the lights going on inside the tower, and they learn the different computer parts. And one of the things that's really great that comes of it is they want to build their own PC. So that's really neat that that's one of the things that I didn't expect coming out of this program and getting those machines. But one of the greatest things with gaming concepts, which is a class that we offer for credit, is that last year, we had 523 students enrolled in gaming concepts. And already this semester, we have 728. And this is going to keep growing. And two major things that I kind of love about gaming concepts. The first being that we are meeting the kids where they are, they love games, this is something that they're passionate about. And that's where they want to be. So we're leveraging that excitement, and building curriculum around that. And one of the greatest things with that is it allows the kid that has never been the expert in the classroom, to be the person that everybody goes to and talks to, and they can be that expert for the first time and a lot of cases. And also, another great thing about this is that when kids are able to talk to an adult in the room that cares about their passion, in video games, we get a whole different type of child, we get a student that's ready to not only learn but give 100,000,000% of their effort to you and their other classes. This builds culture for the school, you have a lot of kids that aren't involved in anything else that can then come into a gaming concepts class, and then get involved with eSports. And the sky is the limit for their involvement there. And then the second thing that I love about the gaming concepts is just that the pipeline. This introduces kids to topics like computer science and cybersecurity and eSports that they can do as a hobby or a career even that they otherwise wouldn't be exposed to without the video game aspect to drawing them in and learning more about those programs.
Dyane Smokorowski:You brought up the career piece, which I think is the most interesting element of all, what careers are out there for children who are excited about eSports it has to be more than just the gamer Correct?
Kyle Schoenhofer:Oh, absolutely. When you're talking about just eSports ramsI would be great to talk about this specific particularly, but there's the player and then there's so many people that have positions that make that esports competition a reality. And Ramsay is included in that. I mean, that's his job. I don't know if Ramsay is a professional player, it wouldn't surprise me. But I know he's a professional at getting players together and building these amazingly huge tournaments. But also as far as careers go, that can be post secondary education focused is computer science, data analytics in cybersecurity is a huge one. I was just talking to rob the other day, we we had some CIOs in the building from various companies. And these are big companies like spirit and coke. And these guys, we're all talking about the need for cybersecurity. And that's where one of my seniors who graduated two years ago, he's going specifically for cybersecurity, and he wasn't even college bound. So he got an Esports scholarship there Rocket League, and now he's going to be a cybersecurity professional. And that's definitely needed. And he's probably going to get paid some some good money if he when he finishes his education there. But as far as, you know, the different positions in eSports. I might hand that over to Ramsey.
Unknown:Yeah, certainly, I think. So I've actually got to start my company in here in Wichita six years ago, and I've been doing it full time ever since. And I'm very broad on a number of people that do not play video games for their career, actually, they are marketers and do different sales strategies, as well as event planners and operational jobs that would be required of any event management company. We've been able to do some really interesting things with broadcasting and being able to build really interesting content. And I'd love to highlight just and give you guys kudos for what you've built. Because I think ultimately, one of the best parts about eSports is it's incredibly inclusive. Being a part of the community that it provides is incredible and being able to put that in the district has now given a community to a lot of kids. So bringing someone who graduated from the district and was extremely excited to see se kids get scholarships at WSU was huge highlight for me, in seeing those opportunities grow is going to change, really, I think the outcomes and provide really a career and confidence with these kids that are being able to participate in something they might not have otherwise been able to. Likewise, most of the kids that just kind of to Kyle's point, are career bound. Now that may not have been, and it doesn't have to be in a video game related business, but there is a certain set of skills that definitely gives you a leg up in when it comes to being able to work the computer, being able to have sportsman, like skills and reinforce that you have to be a team player. Some of those are just inherently part of being an esports team player. And just like any extracurricular activity, gets them involved. And they can do some incredible things when you give up the interest.
Rob Dickson:So in our esports theater, I know we have a shoutcasting station, Ramzi, can you explain what shoutcasting is?
Ramsey Jamoul:Well, at some point, we will have to get Clint and Kyle up to commentate a game for us. But when when we have really good players, and not necessarily just good players, but people who are motivated and spend so much time in practicing their craft, it's awesome to get a couple people up there and describe what's happening on stage, or what's happening online. And so there's an entire business just as broadcasting sports, broadcasting eSports that very similarly, we're, in our show, we'll have an analyst desk with two people that really get to the nitty gritty on how they made their decisions, and why they made their decisions. And then you get the player casters or the color casters that really are the personalities, if you will, and they bring the life and enjoyment to a broadcast that keeps everybody engaged. And that entertainment, business of entertainment is huge. between YouTube and Twitch, there's real opportunities to be able to hone in your craft and learn some really interesting media content, skills, as well as marketing skills to be able to develop and build that outward.
Rob Dickson:So I know from a district level, I've seen numbers of you know, we have some outings where we have a middle school tournament and, and Clint leads some of those middle school tournaments. I see Kyle there. And we'll have 200 families come in for a Friday night session to watch theirs their kid compete in eSports. From an online environment, what are we seeing at the collegiate level of numbers, or even the professional environment of numbers of people that watch twitch and some of these other videos I hear it's astronomical.
Ramsey Jamoul:Oh, certainly. And League of Legends has had some incredible benchmarks where they've had 10s of millions, if not upwards, hundreds of millions at some point of people watching concurrently, one match, and that would be at the professional level. But even then, the collegiate environment and eSports has exploded the last few years. So not only is Wichita State offering scholarships, but many schools are seeing this as a valid way to bring students on campus and keep them engaged throughout their career at the University. And I think one of the things that we've seen is, roughly speaking, upwards of 2000, universities have teams and clubs, where they're offering a structured environment just like you guys are providing at the collegiate level. That gives them the ability to keep going in their career as a gamer.
Dyane Smokorowski:And I think there's this big question that seems to run around in conversations with eSports. Is is it for girls? Is it not for girls? How would you answer that Ramsay?
Ramsey Jamoul:That is a great question of I've seen statistically it is growing to a 5050 split. Now, I don't know if video games finally figured out that if they market to everybody, they're going to make a little bit more money. But most video games are becoming more and more inclusive, especially to that point, the community is geared towards building other people up and supporting other people. So when you get into the eSports as a structured sport, you find a lot of people or they're willing to support. Now granted, we still got a lot of work to do on the professional side but I think high in the college programs and the high school programs that are being established provide that bridge for for more people to get involved and really helps that inclusive activity, giving some people really good opportunity.
Kyle Schoenhofer:I'd like to add a couple of things to that one just really quick. And the other room in this building. We have girls who game that's going on right now, and they make Minecraft worlds Roblox world. So they're into the creation side of things with this, and they have to learn to code. And then it's just an amazing group. And so they're in about 12 or 15 girls that meet after school as an extracurricular to do that. And then on top of that, my scholarships at Southeast the kids that got scholarships to that I want to highlight, one was a player and one was going out for a team manager for Wichita State. And she got that scholarship as a team manager, which is the first non player scholarship that we would that we had come out of our program. And there were many girls that se that played, but one of the biggest, you know, most successful players was a girl. And that was really great for a presentation. And she set that example. And we had three or four girls that followed in her footsteps, wanting to do things outside of just playing and getting into team management, getting into marketing, getting into scouting the opponents and things of that nature. They're excellent players to not not limiting their their ability they are. This girl in particular, was really, really good and decided to go into management. She got the scholarship originally as a player.
Rob Dickson:Oh, that's awesome. Let's talk about the uniforms. Like I think that's one of the most unique things i several of our teams, they create their own uniforms. Right? You'll see Yeah, thanks.
Kyle Schoenhofer:That's what we did. We partnered with the fabrics department, I did the design, the graphic design, and that those group of kids mixed with our esports kids kind of came up with our jersey design. And it came down to even what was in the background there was there's the map of Wichita is the background of the image. And then they redesigned and updated the school's logo, which was really neat and hard to do. To be honest, they had a lot to, they had a lot to keep in mind to keep it as close to the original as possible, make it their own. And they ended up getting mousepads and hoodies, jerseys, hats, cell phone cases, cups. It was really great for them to learn how they could bring that to a website and then market that and use that to fundraise. There's a lot of things that went into just designing the jerseys and bringing those to the students.
Rob Dickson:And I know II iconomy you guys have a couple of projects around gaming that are cool projects, you want to talk about those.
Kyle Schoenhofer:Yeah, so we have right now our entire high school is building an arcade cabinet. So we have a team that does fabrication, we have a team that does the art and we have a team that is doing the software and game development. So everything including the game, all of the characters within the game, the background, everything, they're all working together to bring that into the into the school. And we're working with local maker spaces to be able to make that work. So not in getting exposure to these professional level software programs and machines. So in our esports, and our gaming concepts, they're going to learn woodworking, I mean, so it's just it spreads out to so many different areas. But they're so passionate about the video game, that now you can teach them how to sand the wood or stain the wood because they want to make an arcade cabinet. So this is just one example of how we're leveraging the passion and the excitement around a video game to spread that joy into you know, other areas of their curriculum and extracurricular activities.
Rob Dickson:Ramsey do we see this kind of coolness at you know, the post secondary level yet? Do we What does gaming look like at the post secondary level when you think about colleges?
Ramsey Jamoul:Oh, it is. For many years, it was a lot of hard work with students being incredibly passionate wanting to provide this to the next generation of college students that were coming on. And there was little administrative support. Now that the administrative side of the university is really seeing the benefit not only in recruitment opportunities, but actually longevity of the students. Their their experiences better so they stay longer and they enjoy it more. And now being able to see that transition. We're seeing massive events and championships at the collegiate level. We were actually lucky enough to help produce last year the collegiate League of Legends playoffs, the National playoffs for around 32 and 16, where 1000s of people tuned in to just see who was the best and kind of give a a little bit of support to the players that haven't really practicing it and trying their best. But I would say when it really comes down to it just like Kyle said you There's only a handful of the players that are there playing when it comes down to the social media and marketing. And some of the other avenues that people get tailored in and brought in for is incredible. So you see an entire production team come in from the college now of students that are learning and being able to put their education in great use.
Clint Dayhuff:One thing, one thing I wanted to add to that is Kyle Ramsay, and I all took a group of kids up to K State playing KU, just a couple of weeks ago. So we had roughly 50 of our esports students, Ramsey was one of the speakers, they got to sit through an actual college, a high level college class that was about eSports. And then we all walked over and watched the competition. So one of my favorite parts of that though, is we, we've met with a lot of, you know, people from K State. And they were like, well, you know, we're really going to have to step up our game, because some of our players are coming to them. They're like, they're coming from a 70 seat arena with laser lights and everything. They're like, we're gonna have to really start building ours. But I mean, I talked to colleges weekly, and they all are, you know, they're building programs, there's money available for high school students that want to continue whether their game or not. So that's exciting stuff. This
Kyle Schoenhofer:is one of the easiest ways to get kids excited to tour a college campus. And a lot of times, that's the first time they're, they're able to do that. And it just changes their thinking. They see themselves in those seats at these huge facilities. And how awesome was it to bring our high school kids to sit in an actual college class? And I talked to him afterwards? I said, Could you do that? They said, Absolutely. That was they loved it. And so it's a totally different perspective, from it being impossible and out of reach. Two, I've done it, and I've seen it, and I want to go and be a part of this cool eSports program.
Rob Dickson:I have loved this conversation. It's it's amazing to hear kids just intrinsically engaged in this type of learning. And I want to continue this conversation at another time. I know we'll have several other podcasts highlighting different things that we see in eSports that contribute to learning smoke, what are your thoughts?
Dyane Smokorowski:You know, I just am proud of the fact that Wichita is one of the leading districts in this realm of exploration and it's really truly beyond exploration. We are in the in the work and opening doors of opportunities for kids and opening lines for career advancement. That's we're building the workforce and that's the best part of it all. So yeah, stay tuned. Let's see more goodness. Come down the line.
Rob Dickson:Glenn. Kyle Ramsey, thank you so much for joining us, and I'm sure we're gonna have you guys on again.
Clint Dayhuff:Thanks for having us. Thanks, guys.
Rob Dickson:Thanks, everyone. The
