MinecraftEdu
Tonight I may have stumbled across a life changing blog when finishing up my assignments for the semester. A classmate of mine wrote a blog post about MinecraftEdu. Being the mother of a 9-year-old avid Minecraft player I was surprised I had never heard about this move by Minecraft producers to make Minecraft more accessible in educational institutions. I did a quick search and was inundated with youtube videos, blog posts, and websites discussing this move by Minecraft producers. I found teachers making Minecraft videos about cell structure, math functions, physics topics, etc. etc.
Cut to my 9-year-old making Rainbow-Loom bracelets having already used up his one hour of game time today. I yell to him to come into my office and question him about what he is currently learning about in school. He replies, "multiplication, division, Thanksgiving, the different Native American tribes of Michigan." Bingo! After a few more questions I learn that he is currently learning about the historical location of the tribes throughout the State. I tell him he can play Minecraft if he somehow incorporates what he is learning about in Social Studies. He was thrilled! He raced downstairs and 30 min later produced the video above.
This not only made me think about the ways I could incorporate more learning into Minecraft it forced Kal to talk to me about school. School comes very easily to him and he is usually bored with the topic and replies with "good" every time I ask him about anything related to school. I learned more in our five minute conversation about what he learning than I have learned questioning him every day! He was motivated. I am excited with the endless possibilities to come from this new discovery.
Below are some useful resources-
Awesome stuff! Don't you love epiphanies?
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