This was the favorite logo 6th graders drew and submitted last year for our 6th grade esports club. I think it’s a great looking drawing and wish I knew how to turn it into a logo! I just a photo of the drawing complete with the crease in the middle! LOL But that’s a problem for another post, if I ever figure out how to solve it. Last year, my first year running an esports program, we started out able to meet twice a week before school started. In our district we have two main bus runs, one early in the morning for middle and high school, now junior and senior high school, students. Then there is a second bus run for the primary and elementary students. What that means for extra curricular programs is that junior and senior high school students were able to attend after school programs and then catch a bus on the later primary/elementary bus run. For elementary students, they could catch the early jr/sr high school bus and participate in before school programs and clubs.
Last year my esports program started off very strongly with about 20 kids attending twice a week. Once COVID hit and we went fully remote, most of the kids dropped out of the club.
This year we started our club again with 13 students. This time, we could not meet before school because our two bus runs managed to get students to school while keeping kids as far apart as they could on their buses. Running a program like this is doable because to play Minecraft together, we don’t have to be in the same room, especially playing Minecraft the Java Edition. Playing Minecraft’s Education Edition does work when we are all in different locations but does work best when we’re all in the same room using the same network.
We did end up losing five kids and gaining four so now I have 12 kids in the club. The five that quit had a difficult time making the once weekly meetings and team practices and they even struggled to make it to our actual games! Of those who are still in the club, I’m expecting much better attendance. We’ll see.
Running a team meeting works when I have a Google Meet on one laptop to talk to the kids and to have them talk to each other during practices. Then on another laptop I am able to join the server with them to watch them play. I like to live stream the practices and matches using an OBS streaming program so they can watch themselves after the fact and review their gameplay.
Here’s a video of a typical team practice (I didn’t include the meeting portion because playing is more fun to watch):
I do look forward to being able to have our esports club meetings and practices with kids live, in the classroom! I could do so much more with them there including alternating between PVP (player-versus-player) games and building games. It’s much easier leading a Minecraft Education Edition building event in person, in the same classroom.
