This 4 hour workshop organised by Riot Games and Headspace, focused on the wellbeing of young people involved in gaming. As Digital Literacy Officer it is important that I know as much as possible about the digital world and how people engage with it. Parents have voiced concerns about how their children engage with games, particularly online gaming, and as such the digital literacy team were interested in putting together an online safety presentation. This workshop seemed like it could be valuable in developing this presentation.
As Riot Games own the League of Legends game, the workshop focused on this sort of competitive gaming known as e-sports. Designed as a ‘train the trainer’ session, the workshop aimed to arm us with the knowledge and resources to run this program or a similar one in our own communities.
The session began with a physical game involving two teams collecting as many balls as possible within a time limit. This helped to show how quickly a game becomes competitive and how we enjoyed the competitive nature of the game.
There was a discussion of competitiveness as healthy and that parents often only hear or see the worst of what gaming can be and don’t focus on many of the positive aspects it can have. There was also acknowledgement that gaming can cause problems and issues for people and discussion of signs to look out for.
The workshop promoted balance as key to healthy gaming and encouraged parents to become more involved to gain a better understanding of their child’s gaming habits and whether they are getting the balance they need. The desire to connect with their child and understand gaming better was shown as an important way to approach their child non-judgmentally so that a discussion about gaming is not seen as an attack on the child.
The messages presented in the workshop were useful and interesting, however, when linked with the owners of a game like League of Legends, which has caused great problems for many people, the messages can lose some of their sincerity.
As such, when designing a program around gaming and safety online the digital literacy team at ERL may use some of the messaging and resources provided in this workshop, such as the need for parents to approach discussions about gaming from a non-judgemental standpoint. However, myself and the digital literacy team have decided that we will put together our own workshop separate from any gaming designers or owners.
The learning outcomes from this workshop, such as using games to help keep an audiences engagement and allowing parents to try gaming themselves in an environment where they can be comfortable and supported, will be helpful in the future to ensure programs we run are useful and engaging for both parents and children.