‘Minecraft’ 101: Get to Know the Blocky Blockbuster
It’s official: Minecraft is now owned by Microsoft. The price? A cool $2.5 billion, which, even in a world where big money regularly flies back and forth, seems extravagant for a company with one hit video game to its credit. So what is it? Minecraft often draws comparisons to LEGO, and for good reason: It’s all about building things. Initially, that world is like a huge pile of unmolded clay, a blocky frontier. There are two modes to Minecraft: Survival and Creative. It looks scarier in the game. But most players would agree that this isn’t really a game about beating anything — it’s a game about flexing your creative muscle. That must have earned a big smile from Markus “Notch” Persson, the 35-year-old Swedish programmer/billionaire who invented Minecraft in his spare time. “I designed the game for myself — that’s an audience I know,” he once said, though he clearly underestimated his knowledge of the broader gaming audience.
Can Minecraft teach team building?
It was October. My Introduction to Computer Science class had been meeting for two months, and we were deep into a discussion about game design. One of my students gestured casually at the student across the room. “That’s right! I was shocked. Minecraft is an online 3D fantasy world where students build structures using digital blocks of glass, sand, brick and other materials. What I really wanted to find out, though, was if this digital collaborative experience would translate to the face-to-face classroom. The Minecraft experience is fun and engaging, but it is also a catalyst for powerful learning. Making the rules I challenged students to build and maintain an entire community and village that would parallel their experience in the face-to-face classroom. Some students argued that if we were to live together, we would need a strong set of rules, consequences for breaking them and some way to enforce those penalties. Ultimately we decided to come up with some basic rules:
A Lesson in Digital Learning from Minecraft | Christine Nasserghodsi
How might today's technology eco-system further meaningful, progressive education? This question was posed by Dr. Mimi Ito during her plenary, The Digital Revolution, at The Future of Learning Institute this past July at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As Dr. Ito pointed out, most learning technologies reinforce traditional models of instruction. They may seek to teach, but they do little to foster purposeful learning. I resisted Minecraft for as long as I could and caved this summer. Reflecting upon my son's Minecraft experience, I could see how truly multi-dimensional and integrated his learning network was. The answer to the question posed above comes from a triangulation of curating digital resources, enabling and encouraging learners, and re-imagining teaching. I had the privilege of hearing Mark Treadwell, education consultant and author of Learning: How the Brain Learns, coach a group of teachers on enculturating a learning process in the classroom.
The secret of Minecraft — The Message
This wouldn’t be enough on its own. Obscure techniques have been a part of video games from the beginning; Nintendo Power surely had a dusting of secret knowledge. What’s different here is that Minecraft connects this lure to the objective not of beating the game, but making more of the game. “Game” doesn’t even do it justice. What we’re really talking about here is a generative, networked system laced throughout with secrets. Five years in, Minecraft (the system) has bloomed into something bigger and more beautiful than any game studio — whether a tiny one like Markus Persson’s or a huge one like EA — could ever produce on its own. Turns out you can do a lot with those blocks. We’re in a new century now, and its hallmark is networked humans doing things together, mostly on screens, at scales unimaginable in earlier times. In the 2010s and beyond, it is not the case that every cultural product ought to be a generative, networked system. It’s made of blocks, I suppose.
How to Make Your Macbook a WiFi Access Point for Minecraft PE | David Lee EdTech
Our Boundaries & Volcano (Minecraft PE) project had been interfered with some inappropriate activity by the students. Students from other classes would join their peers’ Minecraft worlds and destroy their projects. We could have allowed the students to create their volcanos and plate boundaries with Wifi, but that would take away from their ability to research online. 1. 2. 3. Make sure to click on Wi-Fi Options in the bottom corner to create a password for your access point. You are now ready to go! Like this: Like Loading...
Use Minecraft to Teach Economics | David Lee EdTech
Mike Rugnetta’s video inspired me to think about how Minecraft can be used to teach economics. If you have played Minecraft (adventure mode) before, you would know that the 3D procedurally generated world contains limited resources for you to use to survive. This means that your tools, food and natural resources can be used up. This feature of the game can help illustrate the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Content Standards You might be asking, “What grade could I use Minecraft to teach economics?”. Grade 1: 1.6 Students understand basic economic concepts and the role of individual choice in a free-market economy. 1. 2. 2nd Grade: 2.4 Students understand basic economic concepts and their individual roles in the economy and demonstrate basic economic reasoning skills. 1. 2. 3. 3rd Grade 3.5 Students demonstrate basic economic reasoning skills and an understanding of the economy of the local region. 1. 2. 3. 4. 2. 5. Post-Scarcity Economy Like this:
New Minecraft Mod Teaches You Code as You Play | Enterprise
Like many nine-year-olds, Stanley Strum spends a lot of time building things in Minecraft, the immersive game that lets your create your own mini-universe. The game has many tools. But Stanley is one of many players taking the game a step further by building entirely new features into the game. And, more than that, he’s also learning how to code. He’s doing this with a tweak to the Minecraft game, called LearnToMod. Strum is one of 150 students who are now tinkering with LearnToMod, an educational add-on teaches you the basics of programming while creating tricks and tools that you can use within the Minecraft. “Kids are already spending ridiculous amounts of hours on Minecraft,” says Stephen Foster, the co-founder of ThoughtSTEM, the company that’s built the LearnToMod module. ‘Kids are already spending ridiculous amounts of hours on Minecraft. Stanley Strum signed up for the class earlier this year, enticed by the promise of college credit. Stepping Outside of the Virtual Classroom
How Videogames Like Minecraft Actually Help Kids Learn to Read
Brecht Vandenbroucke Minecraft is the hot new videogame among teachers and parents. It's considered genuinely educational: Like an infinite set of programmable Lego blocks, it's a way to instill spatial reasoning, math, and logic—the skills beloved by science and technology educators. But from what I've seen, it also teaches something else: good old-fashioned reading and writing. How does it do this? This is complex, challenging material. How could they do this? Hannah Gerber, a literacy researcher at Sam Houston State University, found much the same thing. Passion for games drives writing too. I'm praising Minecraft, but nearly all games have this effect. Go Back to Top.
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