Today we had a brief introduction to Minecraft taught to us by Colquitz Middle School teacher Heidi James and her students. They did a great job! They walked us through how to join a Minecraft game, and then we had half the class to play the game. I did a lot of exploring of the landscape, collected fruits, fought a zombie, steered a boat in water, and climbed up really tall structures my classmates had built. While it was entertaining for some and I can see how some people would love it, I don’t think it’s for me.

Here is a screenshot of the Minecraft world I was in. Moments earlier there was a giant squid in the water! Apparently, as a Minecraft character, you can get ink from the squid. I tried, but no luck 🙁

Uses of Minecraft
While you can’t get too specific with Minecraft features, it is possible to use it to learn general information in a subject. For example, if you were teaching a gardening class you could use Minecraft to map out the structure of the garden, and what vegetables would go where. However, you would be limited to a certain few vegetables, so there may be veggies that you would want to include in your actual garden that couldn’t be put into the Minecraft garden.

I also learned that the Colquitz class had used Minecraft as a way to learn about ancient civilizations. How cool! In this way, I could see MInecraft being very useful in the classroom as it gives students an interactive way to learn about and discover a past civilization.

Things I Noticed While Playing Minecraft
– most people were really engaged with the game
– my peers who had previous experience with Minecraft were helping those who didn’t
– there was lots of laughter and excitement in the room; we were having fun!
– I felt a little nauseous after playing for about 25 minutes straight 🙁

Interesting Sources to Check Out
– https://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/benefits-minecraft-classroom-students.shtml
– https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/
– a video of educators speaking about the uses of Minecraft in education