Minecraft debuted in May 2009 and quickly became one of the biggest online games of recent memory.  As a sandbox game, “(Y)ou’re given free rein in a world where there is little or no plot to drive gameplay; the gameplay emerges from the tools and the world you’re in… the entire world is generated from scratch, and all you start with are your own two hands.” (TechCrunch, 2011) Microsoft released Education Edition in November 2016.

I had this on my radar as a tool to implement in my classroom learning opportunities. Many elementary students still play Minecraft and come with a strong knowledge base on crafting in this creative outlet. For me, I wanted to set up many of my students for success using their strengths and interests. I found it was so much easier to teach when my learning opportunities came from  strengths-based model.

I recognize the challenges many teachers would have in exploring and implementing this for classroom learning opportunities. If you’re interested in dipping your toe in, visit code.org (link below) to explore their online Minecraft coding games (no installation required). These games do not replicate the actual experience of playing Minecraft but it gives any adult whose unfamiliar with it a small glimpse into the game.

Would it be easy for an educator to make this happen without prior experience in game-based learning? No… but that doesn’t mean educators shouldn’t consider how the benefits to students would often outweigh the challenges (Ex. implementation).

Consider this: I’m pretty sure you could find students in your classroom who could help create lessons (Yes – help you create lessons. I said it!) and co-facilitate by modelling what to do and providing one-to-one support to peers. I’m confident that same of the students who would engage, and benefit the most from those opportunities to create lessons with you and co-facilitate, are the same ones labelled as disengaged or academically low or “struggle.” Consider that the goal of using Minecraft is to build soft skills like leadership and communication skills rather than coding.

Minecraft could be used for Social Studies (Ex. creating a neighbourhood to discuss what is needed in one to meet basic needs and wants [micro-focus] to a large scale ancient civilization where students create it based on a limited amount of tools / resources available to them [macro-focus]. For Science, students can build roller coasters to explore physics (True story – my kid did it last week).

There are some steps (and cost) to license the program for school-wide use but, as a teacher with an Office 365 account, I was able to download it and try it out. Otherwise, there’s this online “classic” version of Minecraft here. No installation required.

Microsoft has recently made more free education content available on the Education platform. For further information, please scroll down and click on the links below.

Common Sense Education describes its education value as such:

“Minecraft: Education Edition builds on the creative potential of the original game to help enhance the learning process in virtually any subject area. From math (area and perimeter) to science (human anatomy) to history (the Roman Colosseum) and ELA (storytelling), the game empowers students to discover, create, experiment, and make mistakes through trial and error. The mix of the open-world game with added teacher controls opens up the door to a greater level of engagement when demonstrating higher order thinking; students are able to demonstrate what they know and can collaborate in a familiar, open setting, where they feel comfortable taking risks.”

If those of you who may be interested, there are Youtube videos of people recreating parts of Vancouver in Minecraft. I’ve also seen a reasonably-priced book at Dollarama which shows different world-famous buildings and locations recreated in the game. You can also find several detailed books for coding with Minecraft on Amazon and through Scholastic.

Links:

Minecraft: Education Edition – Download the program.

Youtube: Minecraft Education Edition Channel – Helpful videos

2019 Recap of Minecraft Education Edition – the amazing work done through the game from around the world.

2019 Classroom Experience Updates

code.org: Minecraft – No downloading required. Not part of Education Edition but it does offering very beginning coding games for students. Great place to start and experiment with coding.

code.org: Star Wars – Yes. Same idea as Minecraft but Star Wars themed.

Make Code: Minecraft – making code for Minecraft Education Edition.

Common Sense Education – Minecraft Education Edition Review – I really enjoy and trust the work done by Common Sense Media (and Education).

Washington Post – Minecraft offers free education content for students stuck home due to coronavirus (Gene Park) (March 24, 2020).