Minecraft Education Edition!

So, I am officially a 2018 Global Minecraft Mentor (for Minecraft Education Edition) now. It's really odd because I didn't get it last year and I gave pretty much the same reasons for this year, but I got in!

We had our first conference call today. I was overwhelmed with the amount of work the Microsoft team put in to this. There's so many resources and everyone seemed super helpful and enthusiastic.

I feel like I'm a student again, learning about something new, and being really excited about it. I know I haven't posted in this at all in 2017, (and I've always been meaning to) but this year I will be working harder at finding, no, make that, making time to share my thoughts and experiences.

I started off going through the starter kits they prepared for us on OneNote, and playing through the Tutorial World set up. At first, it was pretty standard FPS fare - W,A,S,D, Space, left click, right click, you know the usual. I've played Minecraft before, but mainly on Creative mode with my 5 year old son, trying to create weird creations. We like to do that with LEGO, so I thought why not try it in Minecraft. But this Tutorial World very quickly covered aspects I had no idea about because it's something you'd need in Survival, like crafting, repairing, smelting, cooking, redstone, etc... It absolutely blew my mind. To think that I completely missed all this - mainly because almost all the tasks I've set in class that allowed Minecraft submissions were done via Creative mode, as they were design tasks. (design a classroom, recreate a scene from the play, etc) But also because most of the material I've watched or read online about Minecraft in the classroom seemed to disregard the whole Survival aspect.

I'm not surprised though. Survival is more like a "game". It could be seen as a distraction to the curriculum they are trying to deliver. But the more I went through all this, the more I thought how this could fit in with the whole gamification I've been trying to do in my classroom the past few years. I've always felt that when you say "Okay children, today we're going to LEARN...", that straight away, I've lost half of them. They've been hardwired to see the words "learn" and "work" as negative things. Why do you think they play all these games? Because it's the opposite of work (to them anyway) and we, as adults, tell them that it's not good for them. Thus they see the value in it!

There's also a lot of STEM possibilities here as well. Our school has been approved to be a part of NSW's Minecraft Education Edition Early Access, so I've asked a few of our STEM class teachers to participate. From just the Tutorial World, the things you can do with redstone, switches, levers and buttons, it's like playing with littleBits and Makey Makeys. On top of that, you have all the crafting and smelting elements - computational thinking, maths and science again. You can grow crops, requiring sunlight, water and dirt, the list goes on. Also, with additional tools like the slates, camera, book/portfolios, I can see how it can integrate so many different Key Learning Areas (KLAs - RE: Subjects). Instead of asking students to submit task reflections separately on Google Docs, I can get them to do it via Minecraft. Instead of typing up progress journal entries, they can do it with the book or just do a visual diary using the camera of the progress.

And the more I went on the more awesome features I found. Like Classroom Mode, I could envision myself being the Gamemaster like in Hunger Games, though I can't spawn monsters, I can still teleport people around the place, change rulesets and send messages to the server. Or Code Connection, where you can connect the game to one of 6 or so different coding applications like Scratch, and the game spawns a little bot that you can use the code to do stuff. I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface here - there's bound to be things on the internet people have figured out with this stuff that is way beyond me - but as you can see, lots of exciting learning opportunities.

Personally, I'd really like to explore the Survival aspect more, and try something related to the Tragedies of the Commons. I've done something like this in class with our fictional world, but I'd like to see if the same thing happens inside the game. I know for a fact there are some students who will be very experienced in this game and would like to see how they use this upper hand.... and if things go south, get them back together and see if they can figure this tragedy out. Is it really the survival of the fittest? Maybe the fittest doesn't mean an individual?

Of course, I'll need to start with simpler projects first. I'll get the new cohort to design the classroom, get accustomed to the login system and controls for the newbies, and also steal an idea I read from a blog post here, challenging students to survive one night and write about it.

Still 3 weeks away until school restarts, so plenty of time to plan, play and test things out... As long as I spend that time wisely!

Stay tuned :)

Magicka - Science game in disguise?

I've had an absolute blast with a game called Magicka, an indie RPG (role playing game) that goes for about $10US on steam. Especially when you play it with friends... Boy oh boy, your stomach will be begging for mercy from all the laughing that will inevitably be happening...

Here's a short clip on the basic concept and mechanics of the game:




If that link doesn't show, you can watch it from YouTube here.

Not sure about you, but that seems to me like a great collaborative inquiry based learning game!
There are basic science concepts like the different elements which do not work too well together (eg. you cannot queue up electricity and water spells at once) or use at your own advantage (and so can the enemies), but it occurred to me that a lot of what this developer said in the video was close to what my friends and I did when we "seriously" buckled down and tried to complete some levels. (The first 2-3 hours was just plain experimenting different and humorous ways on how to trap/stun/knock off map/basically destroy each other!) Some would take certain roles, make plans, re-adjust these plans if they don't work out as intended, discuss alternative solutions and so on. We were doing this with none of us realising it! Something I took away from the recent macICT think-tank session, was about "Immersion" and the difference it has with "Engagement," and I can really see how immersion can really just make one lose themselves in something and subconsciously create their own learning experience. Without knowing, the four of us gained skills in collaboration, problem solving and to a certain extent metacognitive ability (Last attempt I tried to slow them, why did I think that was a good idea? Was it due to poor execution we couldn't succeed, or was there a flaw in our strategy? Other variables such as latency, disconnects, etc?).

I was thinking about this game when doing some research and work on a current SciTech group assignment. We set our IBL (inquiry based learning) unit question on "How do things freeze?" and whilst finding some awesomely interesting and informative videos and websites, the experiences of playing this game kind of crept into my head and it just got me thinking about it.

Ultimately, one major factor that this game can't be used in a classroom (especially a Primary one at that) is plain and simple. The dreaded V word. Violence.

Such a shame, and it is something i want to write about in the future here. The whole validity of violence and sex, not just in video games but other forms of media. But I have some questions first, so would like to at least do a LITTLE TINY WEENY bit of research before I do. Main question I am asking is, who came up with the notion that at age 15 people can watch/play something with low/mid level of violence and low level of sexual reference and some drug use and at age of 18 can experience everything else? Is there actually any scientific research done on this? Or is it just another generalisation/dodgy research like the one about how video games make children into psychotic killers? (Interestingly, in the U.S, M rated games are called T -Teen- and for ages 13 and up, the equivalent of our MA 15 rated games, are M -Mature- rated games over there and are for ages 18 and up, whereas in Australia R rated games are denied classification. Just shows what the rulemakers think of games and gamers. That is, made for kids, used by kids.)

If anyone actually has any answers or even links, insight, commentary, thoughts about this, please comment away as it will make my own research more clearer in direction.

Anyway, that's all for now, GAME ON! errmm.. I mean, write essays :(