iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Teaching Computer Science at school just got easier as Microsoft is making a 30-hour curriculum, targeted at students in the age range 11 to 16, available as a free download.

My students come from a small, rural community and lack a broad understanding of the larger world around them. This inspired me to seek out a game, or online environment, that could provide more expansive experiences for them—a place that would allow them to explore, on their own or with others, and where I could embed history content for them to discover. On Twitter I came across an exploratory discussion of Minecraft’s potential for school use. I dove in and began a journey that ultimately changed my perception of teaching and how I interact with my students.

Minecraft is easy to use and implement in a classroom. It promotes student independence and creativity, but it is also an immensely collaborative tool that I have witnessed being integrated across all grade levels and content areas. Students can apply their understanding in truly unique and often unanticipated ways. Previously, my kids struggled with writing. Today, they are more creative and confident writers. Instead of getting 125 essays written in the exact same style with the same details, I now get unique historical narratives, rich with sensory experiences and observations made with their own eyes.

More than 50 percent of jobs require technology skills, and in less than a decade that number will grow to 77 percent of jobs.1 Just 40% of schools have classes that teach programming and if you are a girl, black or Hispanic, or live in a rural community you are even less likely to have access.2

Minecraft and Microsoft are committed to helping close the STEM gap and expanding opportunities for students to learn computer science. For the fourth year, we are partnering with Code.org to support Hour of Code, a global movement demystifying computer science and making coding more accessible through one-hour tutorials and events. Hour of Code helps students get ‘Future Ready’ by connecting them with STEM learning experiences and career opportunities. 

Today, we launched a new Minecraft Hour of Code tutorial, the Voyage Aquatic, which takes learners on an aquatic adventure to find treasure and solve puzzles with coding. Voyage Aquatic encourages students to think creatively, try different coding solutions and apply what they learn in mysterious Minecraft worlds. 

Minecraft: Education Edition is coming to the iPad platform in September.

The iOS version will share the features found in other versions, including the Update Aquatic package for underwater STEM activities and the Chemistry Resource Pack. It will include a touch interface that is "functionally equivalent to the standard control scheme for the game," according to Microsoft, which owns Minecraft.

Jeremy is autistic. Jeremy was passionate about his interests but not super thrilled to explore outside of his comfort zone. “Traditional” evaluation methods produced results indicating Jeremy was not very bright academically. But there was something about Jeremy. He was brilliant in his own right. It was our definition of compliance that needed next steps.

Jeremy was introduced to Minecraft in his grade 8 year of elementary school. Having spent nine years in the system that wasn’t working for him, his parents were desperate to find a solution before high school. Jeremy was obsessed with Lego but had not used Minecraft before. It didn’t take long to see him beam with excited as he created structures and constructed growing patterns.

What we recognized (we, as in our school staff) is that Minecraft had almost become a voice for Jeremy. He could build things to demonstrate understanding, use signs to express language and create video clips to narrate his worlds. Jeremy was able to participate in math class by building patterns and structures to scale. He could visualize settings for his story and bring them to life in what Seymour Papert used to describe as a Mathland.

I have had a couple of students at my school who love, or I should rather say who are obsessed, with Minecraft. My own kids actually love the game as well. As an adult, educator and parent naturally dismissed the game. I didn’t get what the fascination was with pixel blocks in an 8 bit format. Keep in mind that I am a gamer myself. A year and a half later, I am hooked. Whether you are playing the pocket edition or using the Minecraft EDU platform, there is so much to explore and create.

Michael Fullan (2013) describes critical thinking as the “ability to design and manage projects, solve problems, and make effective decisions using a variety of tools and resources” (p. 9).  Papert (1980) supports exercises that “open intellectual doors” (p. 63).  Minecraft tasks can be used to create experiences that can be otherwise challenging to design, which according to Drake (2014), should address real-world problems that may not necessarily have one clear answer.  Digital tools such as Minecraft demand higher order thinking skills, which include “the ability to think logically, and to solve ill-defined problems” and “formulating creative solutions and taking action” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 12).

Remember the Oregon Trail? Of course you do, it’s the game the internet won’t let you forget.

Thirty-two years after the first full-color graphic version hit the Apple II, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt—the current owner of the Oregon Trail franchise—is teaming up with Microsoft on a new world that ports many of the landmarks and features of the original game into Minecraft.

Announced this morning in a Microsoft blog post, the new world, called The Oregon Trail Experience, is exclusive to Minecraft: Education Edition, the version that replaced the popular MinecraftEdu late last year. Microsoft acquired Minecraft from Swedish game developer Mojang in 2014.

Coding curricula is sweeping into classrooms across the country, thanks to programs such as Code.org. According to the Education Commission of States, about 20 states now require that districts allow students to apply specified computer science courses toward completion of mathematics, science or, as a foreign language. But is coding preoccupying the hearts and minds of students after school hours? This is the question that researchers at the MIT Media Lab are asking.

Pull your kids away from the screen and into a book with these popular Minecraft books for kids. Let them get sucked into the world further within the pages of a Minecraft novel or guide. Whether your kid enjoys reading or not, there is a book that they will enjoy. Minecraft has a lot of official and unofficial guides that help kids unlock more secrets and information on how to play the game at a more advantageous level. There are also Minecraft based novels by people who love the game. Follow characters around the Minecraft world as they learn lessons in friendship and growing up. Pick up one of these 12 popular Minecraft books for kids and watch as they have fun reading.

I’m serving as a “Minecraft Consultant” to our 6th grade Social Studies teacher (Sara Zedlitz) and middle school librarian (Michaela Freeland) who are collaborating for a second year on an awesome 3D design and 3D printing project that is part of a study on ancient Rome and Roman structures. Yesterday I helped students who had designed their 3D structures in Tinkercad export their files as “schematics” for Minecraft. Today I used MCEdit to import those objects into a flat Minecraft world and add some modifications to them, including lighting and water in the aqueduct. In this post I’ll highlight the key steps of this process and share both a Google Doc how-to document as well as a 5 minute screencast I recorded of my initial import efforts.

Looking for innovative ways to bring computational thinking and computer science skills to your STEM classes? MINECRAFT: EDUCATION EDITION might be just the teaching tool for you, whether you’re an experienced player or are just learning about Minecraft.

Below are all the resources you’ll need to kickstart a game-based learning adventure in your classroom—no advanced degree in gaming required.

When Roanoke County Public Schools gathered educators for their first training in how to teach with Minecraft: Education Edition (M:EE), “you could hear the rumble in the room,” says Jeff Terry, the district’s director of technology. That was early 2018. Today, his district is among the top ten for M:EE usage worldwide.

The image of screens strapped to students’ faces is what the future of education looks like to some, but others see it as a passing fad that educators will look back on and say, ‘What were they thinking?’

Many proponents of immersive virtual reality in classrooms—using devices like Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard—say one question will be key to the fate of the tech in education: Will these new systems make students and professors content creators, or merely consumers?

A Regina high school teacher is using the international smash hit video game Minecraft to teach his students math.

"I was inspired by my own kids — seeing them play Minecraft and building things," said Dean Vendramin, who teaches math and photography at O'Neill high school.

Minecraft involves building structures out of blocks.

"It's almost like playing with digital Lego," Vendramin said.

Last year, we had the opportunity to create several great podcasts featuring Minecraft Education Edition. This year, we had a teacher email us asking for additional resources to learn how to bring Minecraft into their classroom.

The internet can be an ugly place, but you won't find bullies or trolls on Stuart Duncan's Minecraft server, AutCraft. Designed for children with autism and their families, AutCraft creates a safe online environment for play and self-expression for kids who sometimes behave a bit differently than their peers (and who might be singled out elsewhere). Learn more about one of the best places on the internet with this heartwarming talk.

Like many adults, Benjamin Kelly didn’t initially get the global Minecraft phenomenon, which has seen millions upon millions of kids investing endless hours exploring and creating within a blocky virtual world. Eventually he came around.

“I consider myself a late adopter,” says Kelly, who teaches technology at Caledonia Regional High School in New Brunswick. “But the students’ passion for the game was unyielding. I adopted Minecraft mainly because of that.”

By “adopted” he means he not only began playing it himself but also brought the game into his classroom. In addition to the 120 million-plus copies of the consumer-oriented version that have been sold since the Swedish-made mining game launched in 2011, Microsoft Corp. has sold more than 2 million Minecraft: Education Edition licenses specially designed to help kids learn to code.

In a few weeks, people around the world will celebrate Computer Science Education Week. Millions of kids and others will participate in an Hour of Code, a global call to action to spend an hour learning the basics of coding.

Today, it’s my privilege to announce that Microsoft has released a new Minecraft tutorial for Hour of Code, called Hero’s Journey, that will be used in classrooms, at after-school programs, community centers and homes everywhere. The tutorial uses game elements loved by so many young people, and introduces a fun character called the Agent, to present computer science concepts in a fun and creative way. Learn more in a post today by Deirdre Quarnstrom, Minecraft Education general manager, and start planning your Hour of Code.

The cubist revolution, now in its eighth year, is thriving.

That's Minecraft cubes, of course.

The game where you build virtual Lego-like worlds and populate them with people, animals and just about everything in between is one of the most popular games ever made; it's second only to Tetris as the best-selling video game of all time. There's gold in them thar cubes: More than 120 million copies have sold since Minecraft launched in 2009.*

So what's behind the game's enduring appeal?

Microsoft's popular building-blocks game gets a tool to help students learn how to program.

The image of screens strapped to students’ faces is what the future of education looks like to some, but others see it as a passing fad that educators will look back on and say, ‘What were they thinking?’

Many proponents of immersive virtual reality in classrooms—using devices like Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard—say one question will be key to the fate of the tech in education: Will these new systems make students and professors content creators, or merely consumers?