MinecraftEdu

Minecraft is insanely popular among children and there are educational resources for Minecraft and worlds to explore.

Guests today include a grade 7 teacher who uses Minecraft in the classroom and 5 grade 8 students from her school to share about using Minecraft in the classroom.

MinecraftEdu can be used to hit all of the core competencies, because communication, problem solving and critical thinking are all important aspects of the game.

From the students:

They have learned a lot about communication and group work by having to cooperate in the game.

They have also used Minecraft to learn about agriculture.

They can use coordinates to find people in Minecraft, which links to the middle school math curriculum.

Minecraft allows students to explore possible future career options, such as an architect or become more interested in art.

Within Minecraft, there are a bunch of servers that you can join and play in through the Internet. This allows people to create a community and play games and work together with people outside their physical community.

In terms of assessment, anecdotal notes for the core competencies and other observations are most common. You could also use detailed reflections from the students and justify what they contributed, discuss their strengths and weaknesses as a group. This is how you can negotiate a grade for an assignment in Minecraft.

As a teacher, you have an immense amount of control over what the game will look like for students and what will be allowed in the game.

SO it’s super cool but I’m bad at it. More practice would be needed in order to explore this as an optional teaching tool.

PS. don’t eat spider eyeballs.