Esports: The Down & Dirty Stats for Educators - Live from #ISTE19

If you want to know about the next big thing in ed tech, you should know about esports. 

Here are takeaways from the "Esports in Education: Everything You Wanted to Know" session hosted by Microsoft that took place at #ISTE19. 

The Stats

Future ready skills

Improvements in:

• Attention
• Problem solving
• Digital literacy
• Technology fluency
• Math achievement

School Success

• Students who play esports are know to have:
• Increased attendance
• Increased participation in school activities
• Decreased at-home game play
• Increased GPA

College Scholarship Opportunities

Hundreds of colleges provide scholarships for esports athletes. Currently there are more than 16 million dollars in scholarships.

STEM Interest

Video game playing is positively correlated with interest in STEM Fields. Esports are STEM.org approved.

There Is A Curriculum

The High School Esports League has a curriculum and you can access it at bit.ly/gamingcurriculum.

Career Readiness

Students learn about platform technologies, databases, big data, and machine learning.

Accessibility and Inclusion

All students can participate unlike traditional sports. 

No legs, no hands, no excuses. Always been my motto. No matter what obstacle comes my way I FACE it head on. Win or lose, I'll always try!

— BrolyLegs The Broken @ CEO (@Brolylegs) June 18, 2017

Social Connections

Esports are a great way for students to connect.

Esports is not just about competition! Many students are involved for the social connections! Esports can be the great equalizer and give all students the opportunity to succeed. @Brinkmanship @CDWJoe @InnovativeEdu #ISTE19

— JoJo Farrell (@FarrellJoJo) June 23, 2019

Don't know what esports is?

Esports or electronic sports are a form of competition that happens when people play video games competitively. Just like football players play football together, esports players play video games together. Just like baseball players fill stadiums, so do esport players. It is a one billion dollar industry with more than 500 million people predicted to watch them in 2020.