Etwinning conference 2016 Minecraft in the classroom

Minecraft Workshop

Led by Ray Chambers

I am really keen to try to capitalise on the children's obsession with minecraft and use it as an educational tool.  I am however very concerned that I need to spend time understanding how it works before I do this.  I therefore, took the opportunity to go to Ray Chambers workshop on minecraft.  He began by suggesting some of the curriculum areas minecraft could be used to develop learning in a different way.  

I know from watching my own son on minecraft, the power it can have.  He was able to create some amazing structures and was even able to create and run his own servers, however I am not sure that I could do such things or have enough time to do it.  

Ray was able to explain how the educator edition of minecraft works, although there is a beta version released by microsoft which may be slightly different, as a teacher you have control over the world the children are in.  That means you can freeze the players, withhold objects, keep children in creative mode rather than survival and you can stop it becoming dark.

Ray demonstrated his knowledge and expertise with some explanations followed by a opportunity to play.  I realised how it becomes very addictive as you just want to finish what you are doing and so when the session ended I wanted to finish the house I was building.

I am still somewhat reticent about using minecraft in school as I know how addicted some children are.  However, I am going to look into having a lunchtime minecraft club once I get the educator edition.  I hope I can use it to challenge the children to build specific structures linked to stories, like the example Ray showed of a bible story told through minecraft.  I would really like to see the children create some games or challenges in minecraft as well.  Ray showed a great example of children having to use grid references to find treasure that was buried.  

I would really like to use minecraft in a traditional tales project.  I would like to see the children creating a fairy tale world with all the different building, such as the gingerbread cottage, little Red Riding Hood's house and Grandma's cottage, a giant beanstalk with a castle etc.

As Ray pointed out is like lego but speeded up.  I love lego so can see no reason why I can't combine minecraft and lego.

The final element I want to capitalise on is the use of writing within minecraft.  I think some of my reluctant writers might be willing to write a sign or in a book in minecraft rather than putting pencil to paper.