Streamers as Arts Educators: Exploring Their Streaming Approaches as Pedagogical Practices

In this paper, we focus on video game streaming and content creation as educationist or pedagogical practices where viewers can learn through the streamers’ unintentional approaches of constructivism, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and emergent curriculum. We posit that online gaming streaming services create and support informal learning spaces within virtual communities as communities of practice and that they need to be considered more closely from a scholarly perspective. We begin with a cursory overview of online content creation and streaming in general, then transition to brief backgrounds on two specific sites, before exploring gaming streamers’ various actions and approaches. We then delineate three pedagogical concepts that we as educators immediately recognize when viewing streamers’ actions from an educationist lens. We conclude with suggestions that arts educators can learn from streamers’ unintentional approaches as well as what streamers could learn from arts educators’ intentional and purposeful pedagogical practices.