Most of us have tried to sneak a quick game of Minesweeper in during our computer classes at school, but for students at Garnes High School in Norway, playing games won't be something they'll have to hide. Garnes Vidaregåande Skole, a public high school in the city of Bergen, Norway, is to start teaching e-sports to its students (story is in Norwegian) starting in August. The elective class puts e-sports on the same footing as traditional sports such as soccer and handball at the school. 30 or so students enrolled in the program will study five hours a week during the three-year program.
Folk High Schools—boarding schools that offer one year of non-examined training and education—have already offered some e-sports training, but this will be the first time that e-sports find a place in a regular high school.
Students on the program will not simply spend five hours a week playing games at school. While gaming skills are important, the classes will include 90 minutes of physical training optimized for the games in question, with work on reflexes, strength, and endurance. Each class will be split; 15 students will play while the other 15 perform physical exercise. In an interview with Dotablast, Petter Grahl Johnstad, head of the school's science department, says that the students will have their performance graded, with game knowledge and skills, communication, co-operation, and tactical ability all being assessed.
Ender shall be Norwegian...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2016, @07:41PM
Spectator e-sports are bullshit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FreeUser on Wednesday January 13 2016, @07:43PM
Spectator sports are bullshit.
Fixed that for you.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy, a Novel
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2016, @07:48PM
Sports are bullshit. You should toil in an iApple factory until you die from exhaustion. Get back to work!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2016, @08:17PM
No way is "FreeUser" a Chinese national.
(Score: 1, Troll) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday January 13 2016, @10:14PM
Sounds like someone got their ass handed to them by a 12-year-old Korean girl on WoW.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2016, @07:52PM
The crusty old gym teacher will tell the kid that fucked up,
Knudsen - upgrade those two laptops to Windows 10. Let's go!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2016, @07:57PM
So, sit quietly and watch some spinning dots while the laptops do all the hard work automatically? Might as well toss Br'er Rabbit into a brier patch, coach.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday January 13 2016, @08:21PM
The punishment is that the "upgrade" is actually a "downgrade".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Wednesday January 13 2016, @08:42PM
Assuming you were upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, I would definitely call it an upgrade.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2016, @11:07PM
As an I.T. Expert for the past 20 years, I take great offense to the idea of calling the process of infecting yourself with malware an "upgrade."
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday January 13 2016, @11:19PM
Windows 7, 8, and 10 all have the telemetry features now as part of a standard up to date install.
1 So you can update to 10, and play whack-a-mole with the telemetry stuff.
2 Or you can stay on 7 or 8, stop updating it, and put up with all kinds vulnerabilities and other issues.
3 Or you can play on 7 or 8, keep updates coming, and play whack-a-mole with the telemetry stuff
Option 2 is unacceptable; leaving 1 or 3. If you are going to play whack a mole you might as well do it on the current release.
I don't see any advantage to option 3 over option 1, especially if you are on windows 8 or 8.1.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2016, @09:30AM
4) Put XP on the machine, and turn on POSReady to keep getting updates until 2019.
By then, hopefully Microsoft has finally released a new desktop OS, instead of continuously betting the company on smartphones.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 14 2016, @07:04PM
Sure, they will probably have a new desktop OS by that time. With the same issues you are having with the telemetry data on 7, 8, and 10. Though, they may start pushing their subscription model at that time.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Wednesday January 13 2016, @11:37PM
As someone who has a computer infected with Windows 8.1, more MS bullshit is never better.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 14 2016, @07:01PM
Keep your Windows 8.1 infection, then . . ., if you don't think they are doing the same things on 8.1 as 10 then you're living in a dreamland. "The only winning move is not to play" MS's game. I am currently using Windows 7, but could be happy enough using Linux. The only thing that still keeps me on Windows are the games, but I may eventually get fed up enough with MS.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by ticho on Wednesday January 13 2016, @10:35PM
The enemy gate is down. (someone was bound to make this post, I'm just speeding things along)
The paranoid in me wonders if this is really meant to profile future candidates for some military thinktank for their country.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Bot on Thursday January 14 2016, @01:32AM
Maybe it's a masterpiece in reverse psychology: picture the kid entering rebel age at 13
- Josh?
- Mom?
- you did your homework? the professor said you gotta finish that multiplayer ctf map for next week and your clan is doing poorly
- yes mom (scuttles down the stairs and goes to play dodgeball with the bullies)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2016, @09:32AM
Not that far out.
I bet for many of us (and definitely for me), P.E. was what made me hate exercising, especially team stuff.
The only forms of exercise I don't hate is bicycling and rollerblading, two things we never did in P.E.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday January 16 2016, @02:44PM
I live 1hr from Venice, here are the carefully collected stats:
first school out of town trip: Venice;
second trip: Venice;
first day of skipping school with car availability: everywhere from the snowy seaside in december to crossing the then existing iron curtain for Yugoslavia, to Austrian sweet shops and tech oriented malls, to running 'round the roundabouts in second gear, everything. As long as it's not Venice.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2016, @12:23PM
Basically this is an "elective", something that students can choose to do as part of their year but that is not part of any final education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2016, @05:04PM
We had such a unit one trimester in college (y11) so kinda high school, back in '88. Was the only unit i failed in computing, because we spent the whole time playing golf and california games instead of doing the assessables. Not sure if it being formatted as training would have helped. Probably why to this day, i do poorly in competative sport of any kind. Games are for lesiure.