About Steve Isaacs

Steve Isaacs is the Education Program Manager at Epic Games. His mission in this role is to support educators and students in exploring career opportunities that leverage interactive 3D skills. Prior to his role at Epic, Steve was a public school teacher for 28 years, teaching game design and development as well as other courses related to creative uses of technology. Steve enjoys spending time with family and friends. His hobbies include video games, biking, snorkeling, hiking and live music.

Connect with Steve online at Twitter / LinkedIn

Links Mentioned - Unreal Educator Accelerator

Episode Transcript:

PODCAST INTRO: Hello, and welcome to the “Game On” podcast. My name is Adam Bellow. I am the CEO and co-founder of Breakout EDU. But I'm also a father, a serial edtech entrepreneur, and an advocate for positive change in the classroom. Each episode of the “Game On” podcast is going to feature a new voice from someone who's making an amazing impact and helping to pave the way for the future of education. We're gonna get to explore their ideas and opinions, as well as learn from those successes and failures from these amazing educational gurus. Alright, let's get started.

 Adam Bellow: Welcome to the “Game On” podcast. I'm your host Adam Bellow, and I'm so excited to be joined by just an amazing, amazing educator and game expert, game guru, and just a good person, Steve Isaacs, and I'm really happy to call Steve a friend. So welcome, Steve.

Steve Isaacs: Thanks, Adam.

Adam Bellow: Well, before we get started, I mean, you and I have known each other for quite a while. I was actually thinking about this the other day, I was thinking about a memory I had was when you and I think it was you and Lucas Gillispie and myself were walking around in Seattle at some Minecraft education event.

Steve Isaacs: Right, wow.

Adam Bellow: And you guys were teaching Ingress.

Steve Isaacs: Yeah, oh gosh, it's awesome.

Adam Bellow: This was pre-Pokémon Go. It was just such a cool experience to have the two of you were obviously are so passionate about games and all these new things. And it was just something I had never seen before. So it was very, very cool.

Steve Isaacs: That's a great memory fun. Ingress is, gosh, it makes me want to go play again. But especially with people in different cities and stuff those games, that's the beauty of them for sure.

Adam Bellow: I'm so glad to we've crossed paths in so many different places over the years. But, you know, I guess Games is a great place to start, and that's our icebreaker question. Before we get to that, you know, I introduced you a little bit but why don't you tell everyone who's not familiar with your work, like kind of who you are, what you're doing and, and all that good stuff?

Steve Isaacs: Sure. So yeah, my name is Steve Isaacs. I am currently the Education Program Manager at Epic Games, which has been awesome. I get to work now with teachers helping support them in bringing great technology and tools, you know, basically game technology into the classroom. Prior to, I was a teacher for 28 years, I retired just over a year ago to come over to Epic. And in my years of teaching, you know, in terms of highlights and stuff, my wife and I owned a computer training and soon-to-be gaming center in New Jersey 20 some years ago before I think it there were LAN centers around but it wasn't very common and became this amazing like hub for kids in our community to come. And both the camps and things were all these great creative camps. We did game base camps, we did web design, game design. But then in the evenings, kids started coming to play games on our network. Gosh, I mean, I remember the first kid that actually taught me how to play, how to get a game on our network and my life changed forever. And you know, and then seeing them engage and enjoy the space was I really see it as foreshadowing to where we are now with Esports and stuff. And then I started teaching at a local middle school teaching technology courses and with a specialty as time went on in game design and development, and started a program in game design and development at my middle school later also brought that to our high school, started an Esports program at my middle and high school and ultimately worked with Chris Aviles to found Garden State Esports which is awesome, but I give him 100% of the credit for everything. Because right when we formed it, I kind of had to exit stage left. And as I started, you know, my second career, but Chris is doing amazing stuff there. And we also wrote a book together with Christine Lyon Bailey and Jesse Lubinski on Esports. So yeah, I've been around games and learning for quite some time and am certainly passionate about it.

Adam Bellow: That's amazing. I mean, I feel like you're definitely one of the first people I think when it comes to games and education, kind of like the longevity of it, not someone who's in the -  there's so much Esports stuff going on right now. But I think about even I don't know how many years ago was maybe five or six years ago, I went to one of the Minecon’s with Breakout. And I remember, like my favorite part of the event besides like, we got to do a little Breakout room there, which was super cool. But I loved that there was an entire section set up with just laptops set out for kids to teach their parents Minecraft. And there was a sign that said, “Parents sit down kids, teacher parents.” I loved it. It was such a cool thing to see. So, just incredible.

Steve Isaacs: Thanks. I do have to recall too. I remember when you first released a game and I was quite impressed because I never published a game to the app store anything. So kudos to you on that. That was a breaking moment for me seeing where your trajectory was headed so awesome.

Adam Bellow: Was that Circuits years ago?

Steve Isaacs: Yeah, I think so.

Adam Bellow: Yeah, super fun. Yeah, I mean, I know you're of the same mind. Like we can teach kids you can do anything. Like everything you interact with that Steve Jobs quote is like, “the world was built by people just like you.” Playing games and making YouTube videos, there's nothing to stop you from doing either one.

Steve Isaacs: Right.

Adam Bellow: Very, very cool. So I think we're going to take it to the first level, which is our icebreaker question. And so play is something that's so important to me. It's something we take very seriously here at Breakout EDU. So I have a question for you, two-parter. What was your favorite game to play as a kid? And then I'd love to know how about now like, what's the game you're playing recently?

Steve Isaacs: Yeah, so play spans so much right? So I remember very fondly, you know, our games of beyond hide and seek, I forget what the other things you'd call it, whatever we would play in the neighborhood late at night, I don't know, and that kind of stuff. And then games in the neighborhood and we use, we had a field behind our house. So we would have pickup baseball games all the time. And that sort of thing was, of course, great. But in terms of, you know, and I am passionate about video games and stuff. When I was a kid, there was definitely our Atari 2600, which, you know, I'm forever grateful for and we used to go to the 7-11 and play well, the game was actually it might as well have been Donkey Kong, but it was a knockoff called Congorilla. And we would go there. I mean, I can't tell you how often, you know, I'd ride my bike to 7-11 with a bunch of quarters or whatnot. And so just the stand-up arcade games, you know, especially Donkey Kong back then.

Adam Bellow: That's awesome. And what about now, what are you playing these days?

Steve Isaacs: Now, man, so it's funny, I have always thought of myself as beyond just a game player, I kind of finally came to the point that I realized I'm somewhat of a game collector because I buy a ton of games, many of which I'm never going to play. And in order to rationalize that, I have to say that I enjoy collecting games. But part of that is having the fact that I had taught game design, I love seeing kind of how games are made. So there is a lot that I'll dive into for a short time. So recently, I think it's Salt and Sanctuary is when I was playing a bit, a new version, a new second one came out recently, but my true favorite game, always and continuously is StarCraft 2, and I still play it all the time. We have a group of guys that play, and gals, to play every Monday night, you know, and sneaking it in throughout the week. You know, I have a buddy who will text me sometimes in the middle of the day (Don't tell my boss) “Hey, do you have time for a quick round?” you know, or something like that. But StarCraft is what I'll always go, always with the back too.

Adam Bellow: That’s amazing.

Steve Isaacs: And, you know, it's just.

Adam Bellow: It's funny because you said something that makes me feel less nuts is that I also buy a lot of new release titles. And my rationalization is like at one point, I'll play it and I just love the cut scenes like I'm that nerd that's watching what they've done and how it's evolved and how human forms take shape. And like I loved in what what's the I'm looking at my collection over here, there was a game, Oh God, Last of Us Part 2 where it does that guitar are playing? And it's just using the controller in a different way, which is cool.

Steve Isaacs: Oh wow, yeah. And thank goodness for people like you because I'm always amazed at the work that goes into like, that's the neat thing about the whole game industry is like all the different jobs for different people. And when you think of those cut scenes, and that's pure cinematics and cinema, and luckily, people do appreciate it, man, watch them, because the amount of work that goes into them is pretty awesome.

Adam Bellow: It's amazing. My kids cut, they just tap ‘X’ on everything. And they don't want to hear the dialogue. They want to get to the “good stuff” in their opinion. I'm like, no, no, the good stuff is movie that you're playing.

Steve Isaacs: Yeah, yeah, right.

Adam Bellow: That's very, very cool. Alright, so we got your games. Level Two is about History. Right? So everybody's got an origin story. And this, maybe you touched on some of the things you've done in the roles you've had, but like, what was it that put you on the path that made you or helped make you who you are today, you know, doing this work working at Epic Games?

Steve Isaacs: Yeah, and that's such a great question. Because for years, I think I forgot what really got me on that path. And then I remembered that back in school, I had a few experiences that were really instrumental in, you know, in my appreciation for learning and all of those had some sort of game attached to them, Mr. Dennison, my, like social studies and economics teacher, he did like a similar, like a World Peace type game, sort of like what John Hunter did. And it was this massive game that we would, I don't even remember what we did, I just remember a lot of negotiation, big butcher, block paper, big maps and stuff. And that was great. And then he's the same teacher who, in economics, we did the stock market game. And, you know, he gave us a portfolio or an amount of money, like, I think $100,000 and we were able to invest and, you know, and just track on paper and pencil, our stocks and our trades and our profits and losses and stuff. And that even led me to, funny because it all ties back to games. But Coleco had mentioned that they were coming out with ColecoVision, which to me was like that was gonna break it be the breakout console, because they're kind of thing was, they were bringing arcade games to the home console. And I was like, Oh my God, like, this is my thing. So I invested real money, my fake money and real money. My grandmother on my great tip invested a bunch of money and showed a good profit and other people in my family. So it was like an interesting thing there with that stock market game because what it also proved is that, hey, you we are consumers and we know. So that was kind of interesting. And again, a learning experience based on that. And then Mr. Besian, my Senior Computer Programming teacher, we were learning basic on Apple IIs and our project which is so funny because I fancied myself somewhat of a forward thinking educator of giving kids a lot of choice and stuff, but this goes back to 1987 and Mr. Besian was thoughtful enough to say okay, we've learned this much and basic create a project that you want to do whatever it is that is meaningful to you. And I created an adventure game, and it was just in basic it You know, it was awesome every once in a while, I would figure out a way to do something like loading graphic, which, of course was just a, you know, 8-bit picture that took forever to load. But it was cool that you got it to load in a graphic and stuff. So that was huge. And then years passed, and, you know, took me a while to come back to this idea that, you know, I can take what I'm excited about and passionate about, and turn it into something. And that's when all that other stuff started with like the game center, and then starting an after school Game Design program in school, because it seemed a little outlandish to start right out of the gate with the game design class. And then when we proved that it was kids, were learning some great stuff, that's when I approached administration and whatnot. And then it's just kept going and then getting involved with and you've probably done, I'm sure you've done the same with getting involved with edtech companies. Before we were a bigger part of edtech, where it was like I was using a tool like Game Maker. So I would connect with people at Yo-Yo Games, because I had, you know, I was a consumer that had suggestions for them and knew what I wanted for my students. So I learned real quick that they were all receptive and such. And so I'd say that's what got me over this hump of like teacher to thinking, wow, there's that combination of educators communicating with edtech companies is so crucial. So that's probably what kind of tipped me over that scale. But all that stuff. I mean, it was you look back, and it makes sense, but I didn't connect those dots for a long.

Adam Bellow: Yeah. But it's amazing to hear like the passion that you had as thinking about, A) I love the fact that you were can recall those teachers and I can as well, like, you know, those people that made such a big profound impact on you from educational standpoint, but also, B) Just the passion you have for games, and I find it with everything in life doesn't have to be education, or whatever. But if you're passionate about it, you're going to be better at it. And if you can figure out a way make your passion, your livelihood, it's like a secret sauce that is very, very lucky. I love it.

Steve Isaacs: Now, I agree. And I think we both managed to pretty well in that regard.

Adam Bellow: And that brings me to level three, which is about Challenges. Questions at level three, you know, there's a boss battle in here somewhere, Steve, I don't know. What has been the biggest challenge or obstacle that you've overcome when you think about the journey to get where you are, I mean, doesn't have to be a personal journey. It can be a professional one, obviously, like what's been a challenge that you've tackled and been?

Steve Isaacs: Great question, which is why I guess it's level three. You know, I think I gotta think and it's funny, because I didn't have you hear a lot of stories about a lot of resistance around games in learning and bringing games into the classroom. I mean, I definitely had the parents who would ask the question, “if my kids playing Minecraft at home so much, why do you need to bring into the classroom?” And my answer was very often, “that's exactly why we need to bring it in is because like, they have this expertise. And if we can leverage that to meet our learning outcomes, then we've really got something”. So I think the challenge, and maybe it was a slow road that I wasn't really thinking too deeply about. But I mean, I did like I knew I wanted to bring game design as a course into my school, but I knew that was going to take time. So that goes back to that part of the story, that was you know, what I was like, I bet if we, I don't know what my real goal was, like, a lot of people will say like, Oh, so you know, I want to do what you did how, you know, what do I do? And it's not like, here are these three steps and you do it in one year. It was like, everything I did, I think was just kind of allowing it to evolve at its natural pace. So with game design as an after school program that kind of gave, but it was a lot of years that I did that before we actually started a full program. Esports is similar because you know, you have those same questions. You have the questions about the content and the potential violence of games and things. So, I guess having started this may be a little ahead of the curve, I was alongside a lot of people who were kind of hitting those roadblocks and having to kind of be persistent and push through. But I'm so grateful because I feel like I got so much support along the way. My administration, I think grew to sort of, you know, I think there's something about trust there and building a program and being able to document and say, hey, look, this is what these kids are learning this they're doing. So I think as long as I was patient, it was fine. I think if I were impatient about it, I think it would have felt like much more of a challenge per se, because I know there was a lot there. That was a lot of pushing and pushing and pushing. And I've always pushed the envelope, I think in that regard. So yeah, so there were times where the challenge was speaking dead air at times, and like people not getting it. I would guess that would be kind of out there.

Adam Bellow: Yeah, all right, I totally, I'm sure everyone listening could totally relate to that. There's times where we want to go faster. And be - we what other people to kind of see it from our point of view, and they're not able to, or not able to yet.

Steve Isaacs: And I guess if I can add one thing to that that I think is so interesting is I remember the days when we were the ones pushing for like Esports, pushing, pushing, pushing, and it was having to make convincing arguments. Now it goes the other way around. And like all these superintendents have bought in and they're like, “Okay, we have to have an Esports program”. So there is a part of the, it's like, man, I guess I'm proud maybe of some of the legwork we all did.

Adam Bellow: You should be.

Steve Isaacs: But I'm like, “Man, it'd be a little easier going there now”.

Adam Bellow: Well, I mean, that's you start thinking about what what's next? And then have these other people help pave the way.

Steve Isaacs: Yeah, climb another hill.

Adam Bellow: Yeah, that's what it's all about. That's so that's so cool. And I'm glad you know, to be honest, we I'm glad that the challenges were in hindsight, were really surmountable, because I feel like so much of the work that you've done has really paved the way. And you mentioned Chris Aviles, and there's so many people that I think when you come up together in the space when you're passionate and you're able to, like, connect with them that’s so great.

Steve Isaacs: 100%. And when I think of the people along that journey with us, and the close relationships we have, maybe there's beauty in that going through that together because that has been fantastic.

Adam Bellow: I mean, it's amazing. I've gotten that question a lot too, like that whole, like, “how'd you do this?” And I'm like, a lot of luck and timing.

Steve Isaacs: Right, right, right, for sure.

Adam Bellow: Like joining Twitter at a time where you can scroll back and read, but you missed over the evening.

Steve Isaacs: Like that's true too. That's funny.

Adam Bellow: It's really remarkable to hear kind of, and I know you and I have chatted about a lot of stuff. But I feel like this is getting a real deep dive over here, which is so fun. And it makes so much sense as to like all the things I've seen you accomplish in just the years that I've seen your career, which is which is awesome. And that brings us to passion. And like I know, you've been at Epic now for about a year, I'd love to know, you know, level four is, what are you most passionate about right now in education, it could be something you're trying to teach you're trying to learn yourself or trying to teach others it could be really anything that you're really most interested in excited about right now?

Steve Isaacs: Sure. Yeah, I feel so fortunate working for a company like epic, because so much is happening at Epic. And it's been exciting. It's there have been interesting acquisitions that have brought new titles to you know, like, I mean, you might have seen the Lego stick, you would have seen the Lego so that to me, I can't wait to become a bigger part of whatever that'll be, because that'll fit right into my job in supporting whatever happens with the Lego and Epic partnership. But right now even we have really ambitious goals around teaching teachers, and we're doing extensive training. And so what's been really neat is that there's a lot of educators that are super excited about what we're doing. So it makes, you know, again, it's not like this hard sell, it's more like people are like, wow, you know, yeah, sign me up, let me be part of these trainings and these resources and things. So it's exciting to be on this other side now, where it's like making that impact and figuring if we do reach our goal of say, training 700 educators this year, and they can truly adopt the software. Imagine the impact that's going to have on students, and we're talking about industry standard tools, the Unreal Engine, and that's been used across so many different industries right now. So that the idea of supporting kids in preparing for those careers, some of which will be able to enter the job market right out of high school, which I think is an area that we all need to be kind of thinking more about, right. Like, it doesn't have to be the kid on the path to four your university or whatnot. So just to think that a kid could come out of high school and be prepared excites me a lot. And some of the other tools and things we have coming up that are gonna help support that it's just, you know, I'm just excited, like every day is, you know, granted, there's the day to day stuff, but there's this adrenaline that flows through me at least around all these possibilities and where I think we're headed and what we can accomplish.

Adam Bellow: It's incredible. I mean, the tool is like Unreal Engine, I looked at the SDK and I download that and playing around with it. It's so cool to give students and democratize the ability to create, you know, those type of titles like a Fortnite or any of those big titles. It's really cool.

Steve Isaacs: Right. In fact, one of our lesson plans is creating like an escape room experience in fortnight creative. So maybe that brings up a good valuable conversation.

Adam Bellow: We definitely should touch base on that. That sounds awesome. It's funny, because we've done, As you know, we've done like a game with mine gaffes team and it fits well. And you know, lots of things that that'd be very cool. So we should chat on that after the episode, so stay tuned folks for that. So yeah, I mean, that's it's incredible that and I feel like epic is really you've been there a year. I feel like they're at the forefront of so much gaming. My kids are when I told them I was like, Oh, I'm having a talk with my friend Steve, He works at Epic Games, and my kids were like, jaw dropped. Like, what do you do? What do you do? Yeah, it's like, it's very, very cool hearing your journey. I feel like one thing I love to ask, what's the best piece of advice you've gotten along your education journey?

Steve Isaacs: Perfect question. And I was praying for a second. I wasn't going to come up with the answer. I was going to be one of those that later I would have said, “Oh, you should have said this”. The greatest advice. So a couple of things. Well, really Marianne Malmstrom. I always go back to her she's @knowclue on Twitter. She now is out in New Zealand doing great stuff. She was one of the first people I met that really became a big part of my professional learning network. And I was starting to think about how to use Minecraft in the classroom. And I had this idea for this project that I was gonna be like, well, I can have all kids create like an adventure game in Minecraft and this and that. And first he said, “Well, why does it have to be an adventure game”? Like why don't you just essentially it was like, why don't you just have them create a game and so it became very open ended - create a game no in Minecraft and the kids still wrote a design document and they had so much freedom about what they created. We got one of the games that kid put out early on was a soccer game where what I didn't realize so much is when you kick the villagers, they move forward. So the villager was the soccer ball. And these teams were kicking the villager back and forth until they got it the goal. You know, I didn't mean that was something I would not have thought of. So that became everything like everything was like the kids leading and paving the way the first time I brought in Minecraft and knew that I wasn't or any tool like that where I wasn't the expert. And I still allowed that to be part of our classroom experience changed everything for me in teaching, I became a co-learner with my students, I empowered them because they were the experts, they taught each other they did things that supported the whole class. I mean, amazing. So that was a huge pivotal moment in my career, going from that whole, I should be the keeper of the knowledge and I will teach you and then you will do to being like, let's totally flip that on its head that to me changed everything. And I bring that into my job at Epic 100% Because it's like, let's get kids acclimated to just how to get started with these tools, they're gonna pick them up, they're gonna know what they want to accomplish with them, we can just kind of guide the process and that for me.

Adam Bellow: I love it. I love how you've internalized that advice, and you kind of are able to bring that to whether it be now at Epic previous roles you've had I feel like that's it's so important because there's great people this goes back to connections and people being able to run that forward. I think that's so cool. And it's funny you keep on mentioning adventure games, and we are kindred spirits in that as well because I grew up like eating Sierra games and like the point and click adventures. Did you see that there's…?

Steve Isaacs: Go back, I don't know if you played Zork.

Adam Bellow: I played Zork - I played Mystery House. I mean, I've played them all. They have a special place in my heart. I was looking around I have a book around here so I need to there's a great book called Point & Click and it's literally like a picture of ontology of all of those goes back at best like yeah, Island loom and all that beautiful. Did you see Colossal Cave 3D is coming out? Kevin Roberta Williams, they're doing it for the Oculus. It's gonna be this out.

Steve Isaacs: Wow, get out, cool. But I almost would want it to be I don't know how good I want it to be in terms of the graphics or if I want it to be like very, you know, wizardry like or something?

Adam Bellow: Well, I saw a quick demo of it. It looks pretty cool.

Steve Isaacs: Oh gosh, okay, cool.

Adam Bellow: I figured, you know, you can say Adventure Game and I'm like, Oh, I got to talk about this view. So yeah, check out the trailer for sure.

Steve Isaacs: I definitely will.

Adam Bellow: Alright, Steve, thanks so much for joining today. It was really just so awesome to talk to you. Why don't you tell the listeners where they can follow you online?

Steve Isaacs: Sure. Yeah, thank you, Adam. I mean, it was really a treat. It's always a treat. So on Twitter, I'm @Mr_Isaacs, and on LinkedIn, I believe it's as simple as Steve-Isaacs and I guess and actually email also steven.isaacs@epicgames.com. You can reach me as well.

Adam Bellow: That's awesome. That I would say that is quite the Epic email.

Steve Isaacs: Pretty cool having an Epic email.

 

PODCAST OUTRO: Very, very cool. Well, Steve, thanks again. Really appreciate it and everyone else, until the next time, Game On!