Becker College To Start Twitch Stream For High Schoolers

Press release from Becker College:

April 6 2020

WORCESTER/LEICESTER, Mass. — On Tuesday, April 7, Becker College will launch its OutReach program for home-bound high school students. This free, fun, online program offers weekly livestreamed, faculty-led programs on game design, interactive media, business, and esports.

“We are looking forward to offering these fun and interactive programs as a way of giving back to the community during these challenging times,” said Alan Ritacco, Ph.D., dean of the College’s School of Design & Technology.

The livestreams, hosted on the College’s Twitch.tv channel and led by professors and others, from the School of Design & Technology, will include tips and tricks in game art, programming, esports trends, virtual job shadowing, and other topics of interest to high school students with a passion for making and playing video games.

The director of Becker’s gaming program, Paul Cotnoir, Ph.D., sees the broadcasts as a positive community service. “Gamers, as a general rule, are inclusive and connected, and are accustomed to collaborating in a variety of virtual formats,” he said. “So it’s natural that our faculty want to reach out to the wider gaming community to share some of their expertise at this time when many are home-bound.”

Now open to all high school students at any location, Becker successfully piloted the OutReach program earlier this month—by broadcasting two livestreams on esports and 3D modeling in collaboration with Billerica’s Shawsheen Technical High School to test the channel.

Kelly Corrigan, director of the interactive media department at Shawsheen, said the livestream events were well-received.

“Thank you Becker College for providing an enriching activity that my students thoroughly enjoyed—while learning about industry practices,” said Corrigan, who is also a faculty member at Shawsheen. “In the midst of this challenging time, you created an event that was meaningful, useful, and enriching! Thank you also for bringing us together in an otherwise distanced world. We look forward to the next livestream.”

Future livestreams will include game art, working with game engines, getting the most out of game jams, and working with artificial and virtual reality.

The first OutReach offering is scheduled for Tuesday, April 7, at 2 p.m. The program on environmental art and game development will be led by Becker College Professor Ezra Cove.

The full schedule of upcoming can be found here https://beckergame.academy/?p=1824. Livestreams will run through early May.

The College’s official Twitch channel can be found @beckercollege.

For more information about Becker College’s School of Design & Technology, visit https://www.becker.edu/academic/academic-programs/design-technology/.

This press release was produced by the Becker College. The views expressed here are the author’s own.