I am a huge fan of using games to teach. However, I have been less inclined to use online gaming. This is mostly because I have never really been a fan of playing video games. I have a competitive nature and it has always seemed to me that video games are only fun if you are at least semi skilled at them. Those skills are built as a kid, as as a child to a set of parents who sent their kid outside to play instead of letting her sit in front of a screen all day, I never got to build those skills. I like the concept of video games. I like the story and the art in video games. I just really don’t like the frustrating repetition of dying because you don’t know how do to do something. You’ll keep on dying and resetting until you figure out what you’re doing wrong, and surprise surprise, no one will help you figure it out either.

That being said, I did play some educational games like Jump Start or some more exploratory computer games like Neopets back in the day and I did really enjoy those. Minecraft reminds me Neopets in that regard. There is a world to explore and it is very much up to the player how they will choose to play the game and earn points. I can see how if I was familiar enough with the game itself that I could lead students through different activities on a Minecraft server might be a fun way to engage students in learning. My only concerns is the amount of time I would have to put in to figure out how to use the game before I could be in a place to help students who have never played before, and the amount of time it would take out of the day to set this up. I know that setting up technology can be a pain, as is getting students organized to use technology. I would guess that those two things I just mentioned would take anywhere from fifteen to twenty minutes to set up before the students could even start working. The whole class would likely need an hour long block to make it worth it. Honestly, that is not always possible with something that requires a shared resource. Sometimes you only get half an hour for PHE, or a music class might take up a good chunk of a morning block and leave you only twenty minutes on either side to squeeze something else in. I guess what I am trying to say is that in an ideal world being able to use a game like Minecraft to teach school would be fantastic. But I also have to consider the constraints and make a call whether or not to use it in the classroom.

I am not against using games in general. I really liked a few of the coding and math games that we looked at. However, they really do seem a lot simpler to set up and execute in comparison to Minecraft.

Basically the jury is still out. For future reference I have compiled a list of games that I could possibly incorporate into the classroom below:

  • Civilization
  • Oregon Trail
  • khan academy
  • Prodegy
  • Teach your monster to read

Here are a few of my additional wandering thoughts on the matter:

I love using gamification and game based learning! Games as learning, learning through play is so effective because learning becomes “intrinsically game-like.” Adding in elements of competition and point system for behaviour, badges add reward, dice and bingo, etc to prexisting assessments and teaching such as quizzes, tests, worksheet works so well!

Paywall: There are so many for teacher related products? Why are they making it so hard to educate students in effective and fun ways?

Here is a list of some ways Minecraft can be useful in crosscurricular teaching:

  • shows where and how resource extraction works
    • if you find one block of coal you will find 5 or 6 blocks behind it ready
  • breaks down how to build things and the process that you would need to take
    • do before going out and doing survival stuff in the forest (building shelters etc)
    • recipes for building something
  • homesteading/settlers
  • building different culture’s and historical civilization
  • education edition
    • chemical reactions possibly?
  • build battles, build and destroy/ survival, creative play and
  • recreate a setting of a story/ novel
  • make a working elevator –> engineering and math
  • architecture
  • graph paper for self portrait of myself as a Minecraft character
  • ancient Egypt (decide their hierarchy, survival mode, build)
  • x, y, z coordinates (spawning points and finding people)–> hide and seek?
  • recreate works of art
  • biomes
  • trading: Barter and trade and exploration: give different groups different areas of the world and access to only those things there. They have to trade to get it all that they need to build their civilization
  • Assessment: Walk through, screengrabs, co-created criteria and checklist

This to consider:

  • has to be hosted by a teacher. launch from one computer with the right server. you open a cloud based world as teacher (set the perimeters) and invite participants. creative mode–> no one dies or survival mode–> need to make tools to harvest food to survive (easy to difficult levels)
  • Teacher controls: you can prevent the weather and the daylight etc. make it more difficult as the game progresses, teleport to find lost students.
  • setting a spawn point by making a bed and sleeping in it.