2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Twitch.tv is a live streaming platform that typically caters to videogaming and other social conversational communities, however, there is a growing sub-section of live streamers that focus on STEM topics and software and game development. The Software and Game Development category features developers from all over the world live streaming coding and other aspects of the development cycle for all to watch. Live streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube have seen significant increases in viewership hours since 2020, with over 40% increase in viewership between 2020 and 2021.

Prior work was shown that developers who choose to live stream do so as a way of holding themselves accountable to work, continue their education, find a community in which they can build and participate in, and have visibility and feedback on their work. In this paper we aim to investigate what types of interactions between streamers and their viewers, what types of knowledge is transferred in these interactions, how they lead to informal learning opportunities within these streams, and if these opportunities affect real time problem solving for streamers. Additionally, we aim to define the different types of interactions within the stream and how they lend themselves to forming an informal learning environment. We have obtained over 50 hours of live streams from Twitch.tv and YouTube to analyze the types of interactions during the stream, whether or not they are streamer or viewer initiated, and if they lead into being an informal learning opportunity. We are currently in the middle of analysis, but have defined several types of interactions on stream -- information seeking, expressions of opinion, entertainment, information sharing, and general social conversations. These interactions may be about what the streamer is currently working on, or interestingly, are seemingly “off-topic” but computing related questions that viewers seek the answer to or validation for from the streamers. From this paper we aim to situate live streaming within software development education through the lens of informal learning and emphasize how opportunities like these are an invaluable resource for novice and experienced developers alike.