INTRODUCTION

As we're the first ones trying to bring e-Sports to the schools in Finland we have already some experience of it. It can be described both working uphill and at the same time be out of a quagmire, everyone thinks it's interesting but no one can give us any feedback.

The goal is to bring it, the e-Sport mindset, to every interested educational organization in Finland, no matter if it's a Swedish or Finnish speaken school. Therefor we write this documentation in a common language.

Björn Nylund

Björn is working as sport coordinator at Yrkesinstitutet Prakticum, he's responsible for the school's sport profiling and school sports. He has served as coach of various sports in 25 years and at different levels. Besides his work in school he also school coaches for the Finnish Handball federation.

Björn is not a gamer and has never been

Karl Ögland

Karl is working as a remedial teacher at Yrkesinstitutet Prakticum. He has used games in education since 2012, since 2013 Minecraft and last school year he had a project how to learn Economics through World of Warcraft.

Karl has been a gamer since 1984.

The school news of the year 2015!

Sweden 2015

The Swedish e-Sport federation has been advisors to Swedish schools during a year or so, with the goal to make it possible to have e-sports on the schedule, in school. With other words, how to become an e-Sport professional. Within the Swedish upper secondary school you obviously can make courses to fit the education at national sports schools or sport colleges.

Media covers the news from the very beginning and even during the planning stage.

Finland 2015

We have no chance in the world to add an e-sport course with a Finnish curriculum as you can in Sweden. But, what comes to the vocational program you learn 135 points connected to your work, 35 points guarantee you access to higher education and 10 points courses free of choice.

Within this 10 points field (200 lessons) we have a chance to actually use the power of gaming and e-Sports.

In autumn 2015 no news media believe this would be something newsworthy, to offer e-sports as a freely selectable course package in a school.

How do we connect it to our curriculum?

It's hard, especially in a vocational institute as you can't replace any qualification module. But, we have an ace up our sleeve: we have a block of free elective courses that will strengthen the professional role. There in the curriculum and chapter 4 we believe we have the support. It says

“The elective exam part (10 credits) supports the requirements for professional skills and goals for skills in the exam and may consist of one or more modules. Degree parts may be:

4.1 Vocational qualification modules that deepen or expand professional skills

4.2 modules based on local requirements for professional skills, or goals for skills”

It takes a mindset, to be able to see the possibilities. Students of today anyway play computer games; will it be possible to connect their interest with skills that is important in their future work life?

Ammatillisen perustutkinnon perusteet, Tieto- ja viestintätekniikan perustutkinto 2014 p. 158

Grunder för yrkesinriktad examen, Grundexamen i informations- och kommunikations-teknik 2014 p. 155

4.1 Vocational qualification modules that deepen or expand professional skills

What do you learn from computer games?

First we have to solve this question: What do you learn from computer games? And this is the opposite to when you use "games in education" like learn Economics while play World of Warcraft, Math while play Minecraft and so on. While just play computer games you practice and learn the key competences of lifelong learning.

This problem solving is definitely something useful as a professional skill. It's also in the "key competences for lifelong learning" field

• The Finnish ones, Elinikäisen oppimisen avaintaidot, you’ll find here
• http://goo.gl/gztIoH
• The Swedish ones, Nyckelkompetenser för livslångt lärande, you’ll find here
• http://goo.gl/WHL1rC

Two examples

1.      World of Warcraft; I run into a mysterious quest with no answer and I have a problem. Already there I’ve defined my problem, I google it, I find lots of answers, I value the information, I test in game (did I found the drop giver?), I put notes (I have more characters that will run into the same problem) and if I found the wanted drop on another coordinate I report it.

2.      At Sunday evening, your team will have an important Counter-Strike Global Offensive match and it turns out you will play a new custom made map. How do you solve the problem? You have a problem, a new map. You search every possible forum of any threads or clues until you get the map. If possible you install it on a local server and you gather your team, you play and explore, you evaluate the teams experience. Maybe you even write down your thoughts and game plan.

You learn to

• define and analyze a problem
• search for information of your problem
• plan a solution
• test the solution
• evaluate your solution
• do documentation
• report the solution

Despite to real world or in the classroom, you never give up in a computer game. So, what if we use this formula, confirm it in a safe environment, will our students be able to take this out in real life? 

Potential learning and e-sports

Also, if you use e-sport as an inspiration source you can connect it to a wide area of subjects and competences. To show you how that would be possible, we’ve made up a mind map

http://popplet.com/app/#/2666072 

More thoughts of possible learning, see opposite page

For example

After the first in game training our students realized they needed communication and Skype wasn’t enough. Together with the teacher who had a server course they installed a TeamSpeak server which they now are responsible for (to document, problem shot and also maintain). Their teacher hasn’t played any computer games on his lesson, all he did was to use the interest of a game for more and deeper learning.