 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Katharine Noor. Today, we're discussing what parents should know about gaming. My guest is Jihon Johnston, the co-founder of Beatbotics. Welcome, Jihon. Thank you for having me. Hello, everyone. All right. So tell us about Beatbotics. Sure. We are Beatbotics. I am the co-founder. My 12-year-old son is my other co-founder. And we are an eSports awareness company that spreads the importance of STEM careers, particularly in gaming and eSports for black and brown people, so that we can understand the importance of just being in this industry and raising the 2% that are in the industry when it comes to black and brown people. Terrific. And so what is your background in education and gaming? Yes. So I have 15 years as an educator, ranging from an ESL coordinator and a 504 plan coordinator. And then I ended my last in the school field position as an assistant principal. I was an assistant principal for three years, and then I migrated to educational technology where I fell in love with gaming by gamification for the classroom. And that's what led me to finding my nonprofit with my son because he's a gamer. And I believe that other children like himself should have the same resources and access to the gaming industry. You know, it was really interesting because eSports Trade Association yesterday had a webinar on Minecraft and education. And I could not even believe what they can offer. Have you seen Minecraft and what they do? Yeah, I'm actually a certified Minecraft facilitator. I've been playing with Minecraft maybe for about five years now, but I'm actually certified to teach it. And now that it's used to introduce competitive sports from an eSports firm. And so I've seen, I've worked on a project this year actually when it comes to Minecraft and eSports. So I know the capability of how Minecraft is designed and what it can do for the eSports and gaming industry from an EDE perspective. Can you, you know, for people who aren't familiar with that, can you explain what Minecraft offers in terms of education? Because I was really surprised and amazed. Yeah, so Minecraft is like the world of the what if. You have math, ELA, social studies, agriculture, all of that embedded into the game. But students are actually learning coding while they're building their build-outs. My son and I've seen other kids have Minecraft challenges. There are actually Minecraft cards that teachers can use in the classroom to help build constructive feedback, critical thinking. They can also build collaboration skills. So Minecraft has went from pretty much a video game that Microsoft produced because they were a partner in Microsoft to now be in this world phenomenon to where it's a competitive sport. And children are using this to interact with civil engagements, interact with political science or social justice engagements, but really building a community when it comes to gaming but building it their way with the infrastructure of coding. So Minecraft is really taking off. There's a full curriculum and build-out challenges when it comes to gaming and Minecraft. You know, when I saw that, I thought, gosh, I would love to be a kid during this time because it looked way more fun than the typical sitting in the classroom and hearing a teacher talk about something or reading about a topic without the interaction. Yeah, teachers can actually do a full lesson plan. There are lessons out here to where we are introducing coding, gamification, game design through Minecraft. And I just think everybody knows it. I always say that when I'm doing facilitation, introducing gaming to parents or just educators, remember that we're all gamers. We have all designed this game called Life, but we used to play games. How many of you all have played Pac-Man? How many of you all have played Atari, Stegogenesis? We were gamers. We just did not have the ability of internet yet. So we collaborated with our friends by showing up to their house or going to the neighborhood corner store because I'm from Philadelphia and playing with our friends competitively in person. Let's fast forward it to the 21st century. They are now just doing it at home. So nothing has changed. The games are still existing. I mean, Oregon Trail was one of my first computer games. And I'm pretty sure a lot of parents can relate to that that was probably there as we used to get so excited to go in the computer lab to play Oregon Trail. Well, that's exactly how students are when it comes to Minecraft and any other games in the eSports industry. Well, so let's talk about parents' attitudes. Have you encountered parents who are not that excited about gamification and their children gaming? I have. I get that conversation in that talk every day of, oh man, my kid spends too much time on the screen. I'm spending too much money on Fortnite, kids' favorite games. And I try to show them the intersect of it. Sometimes parents just want to hear themselves complain sometimes, but they really don't understand the benefit of gaming. So I have the synopsis where I tell everybody you're a gamer. And so I tell kids, hey, go home and ask your parents, what game are they playing on their phone? A lot of times they're playing mobile gaming. You are still gaming. So it's kind of, you cannot talk bad about your child, but you're sitting in your room playing on your mobile cell phone or you are playing with your friends a card game. How many of us used to log online to play solitary? Like that was a game. That's a game. It may not have been a competitive game, but you're playing competitively against the computer. So it's that visualization that parents need to realize, but then also realize the benefit that it's in it when you are connecting with your children. It can bring your relationship much closer because then you can have the conversations of understanding the process that's actually going through your child's head of, do they want to be a gamer? Do they want to be a streamer? Do they want to be a content creator? Okay, how can I make my child's dreams come true without giving them that negative feedback? But how can we do it together? And that was one of the reasons that I found that my company is that BeatBotics has made it, made my relationship closer to my son. Keep in mind, I've never thought anything was wrong with gaming, but just being in an industry of both education and educational technology, I have seen those turned up not only from educators but parents about why I should let my child game. And it's simple. It's bringing them creativity. It's collaboration. It's building their coding experience. My son at home, he uses IPA codes to crack systems so that he could get into the next level. That's actually coding. So it's those type of perceptions that parents just need to sit down and realize that gaming is actually one of the biggest industries. It's actually going to be bigger than, it's bigger than music and film industry combined. And going forward, it's even going to be bigger. There's no reason why you have all of these esports gyms popping up. You have fashion coming through with esports. And I think a lot of times parents just need to be educated on the ecosystem that falls with this gaming and esports industry. There's a plethora of different fields. We all like beauty. I know I love makeup. There's a beauty industry that has not been developed all the way in esports. So parents need to understand that there's an opportunity for their child to build their career, not just by playing video games, but a lot of the times behind the scenes with some of the industries when it comes to gaming and esports. So the communication piece with the parents, have you been doing that or how does that happen? It happens organically. They're like, do you have a gaming company? I'm like, yeah. Like, so what do you do? So sometimes it may just be like an impromptu conversation to where I'm breaking them down and I'm actually showing them numbers and data statistics. But then also it's just, hey, you need to let your kids gain. It's nothing's harmful. They're not getting in trouble. They're just maybe asking you for a couple of dollars, but at the end of the day, they're meeting people all over the world. There are a lot of kids online that have friends from different cultures, different backgrounds that you probably could have never imagined if they were not connected online to play video games. So do you think that that helps people understand people of all different colors and ethnicities, races, just like kind of enter into different cultures? I think it does. Now, don't get me wrong, there are some not so safe spaces on online gaming. However, if you're going there with a purpose, you're able to connect. I know me personally, just being in this industry, I've been able to connect with so many people and we all share one same passion is that's making sure that we are standing up and representing for this industry the correct way and making sure that everybody has a seat at the table, whether it's parents, students, community stakeholders. And when you look at that in my slogan as we are run, I don't look at color. I look at interest. And I look at how we're gonna motivate each other to bring love and unity around the world. And one of the reasons is through gaming. Sure, and any time I'm involved in anything in esports, the people that are attending are often from countries all over the world. And now, I think with COVID, we found and with the increase in Zoom meetings that people from everywhere are attending. And I've attended conferences that are in Europe and that's a really exciting thing. And then lots of people will be attending from other places when you get that time zone. So do you think children are experiencing that kind of same thing? I think they are. I can honestly say my son learned about British culture from one of his friends in England and they sit there and they talk on their phone, their text, he's learned different languages. But my son is a cultural person, but this is some of the rewards of being online with gaming is that you had that intersection of culture and you're able to step outside the box. A lot of times in a black and brown community, you may have kids that are not able to leave their community, but they're able to bring some type of culture within their lives through gaming. So what would you say to a parent who restricts or prohibits their child from gaming? I would say look at it from the perspective of what you're raising your child. Look at your childhood. We all have played Pac-Man, we all have played some type of race car game or something, but sit down and ask your child what they desire to be and why they desire to play the game. And then that will open up your world to a whole bunch of conversations but actually make you sit and listen. Always tell parents, sometimes we cannot always be parents. Take your hat off and learn how to sit in the child's seat and let the child be the facilitator to show you the rewards and the reasonings of why they're doing it, but it also meet your child where they're at. A lot of times we are always trying to force our children to do things that we do not want to. And that may be because of past childhood experiences or something that we were prohibited to do, but we are living in a generation where these students today are innovators, they are leaders, they're thought provokers, but we need to allow them to have that space to create. And what's the harm of gaming online? We have 14 year olds nowadays that are making well over millions of dollars because their parents invested in their craft. If we invest in our child's craft, the world is theirs. At the end of the day, we want to raise our children to do the correct thing. And this is a great way to integrate education. We want our kids to be doctors. There's doctors in their industry, there are nurses. And so I think if parents just really educated themselves or had the awareness of the importance of gaming, their perception would totally change. Sure, and that's kind of what my show is all about in that I've had gamer doc and psych sense and coaches and people in marketing and people, you know, attorneys who specialize in eSports and I happen to be an attorney myself. There's, you know, all, they're actually, if I attend an eSports trade association event, you have accountants, you have people in all areas of, you know, industry that are involved. And, you know, because it's attracting so many people. So I think in terms of the career piece, I think there's a lot of opportunity. Now, a lot of parents may not understand the difference between gaming and eSports. Maybe you can explain that to us. Sure, gaming is, I'm just having fun. I'm hopping on the joystick, but eSports is competitive gaming. I am playing for a team. I'm being coached by a coach. I have gaming organizers to tell me where I should show up at. And people come and watch children play on PCs or just adults, depending on who you are assigned to a team, playing on PCs competitively for a prize. These kids, these people go through rigorous training. They're going through multiple competitions and creating multiple content and they are showing up to big sold-out arenas. And get this parents, the arenas aren't even advertised through promotion. They're advertised just through social media. And people come all over the world to watch League of Legends competitions and NBA 2K competitions. They're actually watching people compete competitively. And that's something that kids are enjoying. It's a new culture. It's a new day. And gaming is just, I'm doing it on a PC. I may be doing it on a console, but I'm not doing it competitively. eSports, I'm doing it competitively and it's my job. And of course there are eSports titles that are very specific to eSports. Yes. But have you ever been in the same situation as I have where you've mentioned eSports and people go like, what's that? Yeah, that's very popular every day. I always have these conversations and people just don't know the correct terminology. They've seen it, they've heard of it and they just think it's gaming. But it's actually a real sport. It's competitive. The creator of FIFA said eSports is gonna be better than soccer. And so we have to start thinking forward and not backwards and just understanding that, hey, it starts with educating and awareness first and then it follows from there. So the educational part and understanding the importance of eSports has to come first. And how prevalent is gamification in education now? It's getting there. It's like a big project, the area that I'm moving into because I'm gonna get my PhD in human computer interactive design to design video games for people of color. My university is one of the biggest collegiate universities that develops K through 12 curriculum and it's eSports in that particular county starts at fourth grade. And so it just depends on the school district. It depends on how they're thinking and designing for the future. But it's there. It's there from both a federal standpoint. It's there from a government standpoint and it's there from a class and standpoint to where we are pushing the agenda of education in eSports at an early age. So what do you think about the future of gaming and education? I think that's gonna be the new wave. I think that features are now gonna have professional development on how to implement gaming in the classroom to meet students where they are. Gaming also can be used as a incentive in schools to boost morale, but also boost attendance and boost behavior mechanisms. And so that's one of the things that I'm studying but then also from an accessibility standpoint, children or just people that have accessibility needs, gaming is a way of expression for them to help them increase their goals, their content or their cognitive learning ability, but then also just making sure that the part of inclusivity is included. You know, I interviewed Martin Olson a few weeks ago and he told me, he told a story about how he worked with a guy who had autism that was about 17 years old and that through gaming and eSports that he developed much better and that that really helped him and kind of helped him come out of his shell. Have you seen any use of gaming and eSports with people who have autism? I have, that's one of the biggest pushes one of my incentives is that I focus heavily on accessibility because I've seen it both within my personal usage of when I was an assistant principal but then also when I started working for a big tech company, I actually had a parent come to me in tears because after I trained them in Minecraft, she said, Jihan, you just don't know you are one of those that I look up to my son has autism and he just found his crew that he was able to be accepted in and a lot of kids yearn that they yearn that acceptance from their peers and especially when you are a person with accessible needs is hard but I've seen it from both a data standpoint in my personal usage of how the implementation of gaming can help with your reading your help with your math but also help with other different areas like real life ways to navigate through the world specifically when you do have autism or dyslexia or dysgraphia, you can use gaming to help close that intersection to progress in life. And I would think that gamification in schools would increase engagement such that you might even have better attendance and have, you know, like a higher graduation rate and have you seen that or have they done any studies on that yet? That's a study I'm actually working on myself with big bodies is just showing the growth spurts of where a student starts off in the beginning of the year and then implementing gamification in their lives for nine weeks and then seeing their growth pattern from there, but it is being done. I've talked to a lot of people that have seen growth within their schools when they're implementing gamification. I personally know if I was still in the school I used gaming to increase behavior, classroom behavior, classroom management and attendance. You know, it's kind of interesting because I have seen books written about gamification of work and gamification, you know, of education but they were written before like before it was computer games but like using game processes to get things done. And then now we have computer games. Do you have any thoughts about that? And also like, will it ultimately change to be like, you know, even a higher level like holograms than, you know, even a higher tech? I think it is. The pandemic proved everybody that a lot of tech is needed and we're still far behind the mold on technology. I personally see that gaming and just application ML AI will be the leading instructors for our disgeneration going forward. And I'm seeing it already at an early age but just as an early phase of how people are implementing game design they're implementing AI in classes. So that children and I personally taught virtual reality application classes to middle and high school children of color and the world is imaginative when it comes to the design process. And so we're pushing the conversation of getting children into design, getting children into understanding coding and AI from a gaming perspective because that is the top careers within the future. And what about virtual reality? Yeah. Do you think that will play a role with children in education? Yeah, I actually saw a hollow lens with Microsoft on how they are using virtual reality with accessibility. So that students that have dyslexia are able to put on their VR glasses and be able to get their lessons and they have a teacher that's digitally teaching them. So all of that is coming to FordFront if systems haven't introduced it yet, it's coming. There are federal grants out there for it. I've had a few shows where we actually entered into a virtual reality, like a conference and I've attended a conference where it was a virtual reality where you had an avatar and your avatar like entered the space and we could do different things like dance or shoot baskets and stuff. I mean, I would think that that could be used in education as well. Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, it's already being done. And I can send the links out, they're already happening but a lot of it is not being accessible, they're not promoting it, it's out there. Sure, and what advice would you give to a parent whose child is just starting out in gaming? Continue to encourage them, continue to support them, find different interests that can spark your interest to have a parent and child gaming night. So where you're competing against each other, that's how you the excitement will come but your child will love and see the appreciation and value in yourself because you're pushing into their dreams. And I would think that the parents would benefit a lot by having their child teach them how to do what they're doing, right? Yeah, parents, take your parent hat off. I encourage you all, take your parent hat off and allow your kids to teach you. Allow your kids to be your facilitator, the world will be yours. Allow my son to do it every day and I learned so much. So what advice would you give to parents whose child is older and they're starting to become involved in competitive gaming and are interested in potentially a career? Make sure you understand the rules and the guidelines, make sure that their coaches are supportive but make sure that you're educating yourself so that you are entering your son in the right tournament and they're being seen, content, content, content is very, very important. Make them set up a website, streaming is free. Tell them to just do it anyway, encourage them, hop on YouTube and it will be seen. This industry is opening up, it is opening up. So what games do you and your son play? Oh, we play GTA. I played 2K with him. I am more of an encourager. I'll help him create content. I'm just a mom at the end of the day. I'm a mom that believes in our son's dreams but I'm also a mom that believes in every other child's dreams when it comes to gaming and eSports. And so what is your, what led you to start the company Beatbotics? My son, my son is my believer, I believed in him and COVID made me look at his interests and actually sit down and have a conversation with him. Terrific, and so anyway, if people want to try to find you and find out about Beatbotics and how they could be involved or what they could do with it, how do they reach you? Sure, I'm on all socials, B-E-A-T, I'm the store for botics, B-O-T-I-C-S. You can email me at info at beatbotics.net. And I always respond on one Twitter, you can Google my name and my contact information will immediately pop up and let's have the conversation. I love talking to parents. Terrific, well, you know, I'm so happy that you were able to encourage parents in this kind of world where a lot of people are kind of discouraging them in a lot of ways and I appreciate you being on the show. No, thank you for having me. This synergy was great. Great connection and parents, let your kids game. That's a great tagline. All right, so anyway, thank you to our viewers for joining us today and make sure to tune in next week. My guest will be Kim Schotzer of Onward Play. If you're looking for a job in eSports or gaming, she's the person to talk to you and you'll have to tune in and hear what she has to say. See you then. Bye, guys.