Twitch-y Learning - The Brave New World of Online Learning Experiences

The covid era provided a lot of motivation for organizations to make changes that otherwise would have taken years of committee meetings, strategy documents, tea leaves, and therapy sessions to make. It was sink or swim as no other option was available. The “new normal” meant tossing out old norms and ways of doing things. Higher education, and education in general, was no different.

I have been engaged in many faculty conversations, department meetings, and strategy sessions in which the idea of online education was thoroughly dismissed. “That might work for some classes, but never MINE!” How far we have come in a short time. While most faculty might like to be back in the classroom with students, they also are coming around to the idea that this way of teaching a course might have legs.

Also not surprising is higher education is lagging behind in its adoption of new technology and methods of engaging in the world. While higher education was trying to figure out how to share a screen in Zoom and make an online poll through Kahoot, Twitch and its streamers was seeing 26.5 million daily visitors, and what Twitch reports as over 2 million average users at any particular moment.

Twitch is an online streaming platform primarily popular with ‘gamers’ (or those playing video games). Twitch emerged out of Justin TV, which was another online streaming platform. As the streaming of games become more and more popular, Twitch was split from Justin TV in 2011. For those wondering why would anyone want to log onto their computer to watch someone else play a video game, keep in mind that in 2014 Amazon purchased Twitch for $970 million. That might seem like a hefty price tag until you consider it reportedly earned an estimated $1.54 billion in 2019.

It is not really possible to speak of Twitch as a singular thing given the range of content available. While still primarily about streaming of games, Twitch has increased its footprint into other areas. In categories like Talk Shows & Podcasts, Politics, Just Chatting, Art, and others, you can get exposed to a range of content with audiences that can go from over 30,000 to just a handful. You can find people with professional lighting, audio, and camera setups to those who are operating from their computer microphones and built-in webcams.

Twitch did make an initial foray into educational content with their Educational category. Browsing through that category, it might seem difficult to find obviously educational content in the traditional sense. At the same time, it is clear that there is learning of some kind taking place. There is The Knowledge Fellowship, which describes itself as “a community of like-minded people here to seek knowledge and share knowledge with others.” With over 100 affiliated streamers, The Knowledge Fellowship provides a range of education and learning resource that can be coupled with traditional streams of gaming.

HeartSupport

Similarly, you might found a wide array of self-help and motivational content. The channel HeartSupport serves as a resource hub for those looking for community support in a streaming environment. There you will find art instruction, self-help conversation, and openness about mental health struggles. In the Stream Chat, you will see people sharing advice, giving words of encouragement, being generally supportive, and just being positive.

In a moment like we are witnessing in society now, it is all hands on deck. For educators, we are witnessing the onslaught of misinformation in a way that has not been seen ever. Sitting idly by shouldn’t be an option given the societal information and learning needs that we see. A very recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, there was a call college presidents and colleges to be on the sidelines of society, especially in the face of lies and propaganda.

To what extent something like Twitch stands to help fill that gap remains to be seen. What is clear is that with the ability to engage people from around the world, streaming platforms like Twitch and others can be an essential resource in that battle.

Toward that end, I’m going to be entering into a livestreaming experiment of bringing sociology to a broader public discourse. At twitch.tv/professorgcd, I’ll be engaging in various conversations around current events, content from courses I teach, creativity and innovation, as well as broader discussions of (higher) education and online learning. If you are on Twitch, you can Follow for updates of the stream as I set up my regular streaming schedule.

Socrates going off-line

I was asked “What’s the goal of doing this?” It is reasonable question to ask. A primary reason is that at time where engagement is needed, limiting outreach to behind a university’s walls seems not entirely productive. It also is to explore what is the potential for these alternative engagement environments in terms of having a collaborative conversation and shared learning.

Socrates engaged the people of Athens in the Agora, a public space in which citizens would gather to have discussion and debate around the topics of the day. Twitch isn’t the Agora, and I’m definitely not Socrates. However, if we want to be persons who are part of the public conversation, we have to be willing to venture where the public is. And today, the much of the public can be found online.