In class today, Heidi James, a Grade 7 teacher from Colquitz Middle School and some students spoke with us about the educational benefits of Minecraft. I was made aware of Minecraft Edu; MineCraft specific for educational purposes. Minecraft Edu allows the teacher certain privileges over the students’ servers.
The teacher side of Minecraft Edu allows the educator countless privileges:
- freeze the game to get students attention
- change the game mode (survival/creative)
- allow fire/ TNT or take it away
- generate structures
- allow animals
- change the time of day within the game
- allow them to engage in combat
- allow students to use chat or otherwise
- get in touch or change setting for individual players if they are causing trouble
- teleport students to them, or teleport to students
As a class, we entered the tutorial mode and worked our way through a pre-made obstacle course to teach us the mechanics of the game. As someone with some previous experience with the game, it was merely about remembering how to control my character.
As a class, we discussed with Heidi and the students, the numerous learning opportunities of Minecraft Edu. Minecraft can be used for:
- socials (build an ancient civilization)
- math (learning coordinates on x and y-axis’ (built into the game, can pull up on screen))
- English (building competitions (create words and something to represent them)
- science (mining, water currents)
- art (creating pixel art)
- developing communication and teamwork skills
