The Minecraft Teacher

MinecraftEdu 1.5.1 is now available!

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:45:05 -0400

After a long winter of bug fixing, polishing, and cramming in new features, we are delighted to announce that MinecraftEdu has been updated. As always, MinecraftEdu customers can grab the latest version on our Members’ site.

You can see a detailed changelog on our wiki, but here are some of the biggest additions and improvements:

Based on Minecraft 1.5.1 (we caught up, woo!)
Support for most Forge mods (this is a big deal!)
Improved in-game world controls
Improved teacher’s ‘Give Menu’ to allow any item to be given, including those from mods
More informative server displays
Improved Mac support
Updated WorldEdit functionality
Ability to automatically upgrade or downgrade (we also changed our version number system to make things more clear)
Lots of polish including tool-tips, new icons, and more!
Support for Online World Templates (still experimental)

We’d like to talk about that last item for a moment. One of our dreams for MinecraftEdu has always been to allow the seamless sharing of educational Minecraft worlds. That dream is one step closer to reality with Online World Templates.

The idea is that anyone can make a world/lesson/activity, augment the content with custom MinecraftEdu features, and then share it with teachers everywhere. Teachers can browse what’s available, download a world, and get a server running with that content in just a few clicks. This basic functionality is now working!

We still have a long way to go, and we haven’t made much content available yet… but we didn’t want to keep this feature to ourselves. We think Online World Templates will be an indispensable feature of MinecraftEdu and we can’t wait to hear your feedback!

~Joel

MinecraftEdu: How to Connect with MinecraftEdu

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:39:25 -0500

MinecraftEdu: How to Connect with MinecraftEdu:

From the official MinecraftEdu news feed:

The past several months have been busy ones!

Schools from all corners of the Earth have purchased Minecraft from us and are embarking on amazing projects. In fact, we are rapidly approaching our 1000th school! The game is being used in literally every subject area across all age groups.

We consider it part of our mission to network these trailblazers, provide support, and share ideas as widely as possible. Here are some of the most effective ways to connect:

MinecraftEdu Forums - there is a lively community of educators sharing ideas, solving problems, and providing inspiration. It’s actually just a Google Group which allows a variety of ways to participate (including email) and handy browsing tools.

MinecraftEdu Chat - This is the most direct way to gain access to the MinecraftEdu team. We conduct a large portion of our daily business over IRC (Internet Relay Chat), and we are happy to welcome anyone to our channel. Especially if you are interested in Beta testing new versions of our MinecraftEdu mod! Either use the link above, or point your favorite IRC client to #MinecraftEdu on irc.quakenet.org

MinecraftEdu Wiki - Our wiki contains a wealth of tutorials and details about how our mod works. But a good starting point might be this list of Real World Examples.

We are trying to figure out what sort of formalized training and materials we will offer in the future. But for now, these resources are the best way to jump in, get help, plan your use of the game, and share your experiences.

Join us!

Off to Paris... and some "thanks".

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 19:44:45 -0500

My blog has been sorely neglected for far too long. I do apologize. But I thought I’d dash out a quick note to reflect on a few things. And perhaps give thanks as us Americans are prone to do on certain Thursdays in November.

I’ve just come from my parents’ house where I enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with my family. I’m now sitting at Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey waiting for a flight to Paris, France… my first trip to Europe!

I am, of course, headed to Minecon, the second annual convention for the Minecraft community. I’m going to be participating in two panels. For the first, I’ll be moderating a discussion with other educators about using Minecraft with children. And for the second, the entire MinecraftEdu team will be joining me on stage to talk about the creation of our mod and the ways it is being used worldwide.

If you’re going to be at Minecon, make sure to find me and say hi!

It still makes my head spin to think about all the changes in my life and opportunities that have come my way over the past two years. All because I decided to try this crazy new game that was still in Alpha with my students.

I am thankful for the many supporters who have sent me words of encouragement or helped to promote my work. I’m thankful for the dozens of other teachers that have shared their classroom experiences with me, offered inspiration, discussed intricacies, and shared pedagogical ideas. I am thankful for Mojang’s continued support and guidance, and for the awesome MinecraftEdu team who have been on this roller coaster with me. And I am thankful for my students and their crazy, passionate, innocent energy that reminds me every day why it’s so important to advocate for new ways to teach and to make school relevant, engaging, and meaningful to today’s children.

And, of course, I am overwhelmingly thankful to my family, friends, and colleagues whose support means everything to me.

Come play MinecraftEdu!

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:23:02 -0400

Come play MinecraftEdu!:

minecraftedu:

We are really proud of how far MinecraftEdu has come in a short time, and so we’re excited to start showing it off and hearing feedback. You can have the chance to play it for yourself at two completely free events…

Read the rest..

MinecraftEdu: New Features and Summer Plans

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 01:15:00 -0400

MinecraftEdu: New Features and Summer Plans:

minecraftedu:

Things are moving fast for the TeacherGaming Team. As we begin Summer, those of us with academic jobs are now able to concentrate fully on MinecraftEdu, and we’ve welcomed several interns to our headquarters in Finland.

About a month ago we released a MAJOR update to MinecraftEdu that brought…

Read the rest!

Teens playing MinecraftEdu at the Brooklyn Public...

Sat, 26 May 2012 02:47:52 -0400

Teens playing MinecraftEdu at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Minecraft Jam.

I recently participated in a Minecraft Jam at the Brooklyn Public library. It was an amazing event and I will be sharing more information about it soon. For now, there are some great pictures online from the daylong event.

Go check them out!

(photo credit: Owen Long)

Watch my panel

Sun, 20 May 2012 20:52:00 -0400

UPDATE: You can now watch my entire panel discussion (and the rest of the conference) right here: http://events.theatlantic.com/technologies-education/2012/

(direct video link)

ORIGINAL:

I’ll be appearing at the Atlantic Technologies in Education Forum in Washington D.C. on Tuesday. I’m taking part in what looks to be a really interesting panel on the roll teachers play in game-based learning. My panel starts at 10:25.

It looks like you’ll be able to watch it live here.

Some other nice things recently. MineShift/KQED recently did an article on MinecraftEdu that was great. Lots of really nice quotes, like this:

Though Coia’s school was willing to pay for the game, he says he would have gone for it anyway. “Looking back, I would have paid it out of pocket if I needed to,” he said. “It’s that good.”

MindShift - Teachers Transform Commercial Game for Classroom Use

Also fun… my work was recently talked about on the CBC, Canadian Public Radio.

This has a special personal meaning for me… Although I’m from New York City, I spent a lot of time in Nova Scotia, Canada growing up. The CBC was always on and it’s really my idea of a perfect radio station. So I’m delighted to have reached those particular Canadia airwaves!

CBC Airplay - Exploring the World of Minecraft

Mapping out a Hunger Games activity for a library Minecraft Jam...

Wed, 09 May 2012 10:49:37 -0400

Mapping out a Hunger Games activity for a library Minecraft Jam with @pathough. Really excited to explore themes of the book with Highschool age kids! No arena deathmatch, but there might well be combat if it evolves organically. http://i.imgur.com/HX1oW.jpg

Gaming teacher case studies

Thu, 03 May 2012 20:27:23 -0400

Recently, I had the privilege of being interviewed by Jessica Millstone a filmmaker and researcher working with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. She, along the good folks at BrainPOP such as Allisyn Levy pioneered a groundbreaking study into teacher attitudes towards gaming. They’ve just made public their survey results and it’s a fascinating read. Lots of confirmation that we gaming teachers are really on to something!

Read this announcement to learn more and access the full results of the survey.

As a core part of the study, they are also presenting case studies of various teachers using games in their classrooms. I am honored to be in the first round of case studies!

They edited together this fantastic video which I’m delighted to share:

There are two more inspiring videos that were released along with mine, that you should also totally go watch.

MinecraftEdu collaborative server project for teachers

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:20:00 -0400

The talented and handsome @warrenbez has taken the initiative to start a great server project for teachers using MinecraftEdu. I’ll let him explain:

I am setting up a MinecraftEDU server that can be accessed by any teacher. The hope is to have teachers collaborate and create a Minecraft unit that can then be made available for download. I think that having teachers collaborate on a particular unit will yield a better product than if any one teacher attempted this on their own. So, my initial idea is to create a Unit or Lesson based on the architecture and history of Ancient Rome. The idea came to me after finding this map available for download. The map has several identifiable Roman structures that could be used in a lesson about Roman architecture. My hope is that teachers will jump in and start adding assignments.

There’s more information and instructions for how to jump in and get started here on Warren’s blog. Personally, I think this is a fantastic idea. I’ve been hoping to do something like this, myself, for a while. But kudos to Warren for getting the ball rolling.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll log in and build some columns…

Worth a read (and listen!)

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:21:05 -0400

Lately I haven’t been posting here when me or my projects are covered in the media. Mostly because I got sick of talking about myself. ;)

But there have been two really good pieces lately that I’m proud to share.

The first is an article by the prolific and talented Audrey Watters of Hack Education called MinecraftEDU: Minecraft for the Classroom. Audrey was one of the first reporters to write about me last year, so it was fun to catch up with her at DML2012 and show her how far all of this has come since then.

Next up is a podcast I did with some fellow NYC teachers last week for the EdTechTalk network. I managed to yammer on for over 20 minutes, but I think I did a decent job of explaining some background and the potential for Minecraft in schools. Go listen!

And if you like this kind of stuff, I usually throw interesting, on-topic links on to my Pinterest page. So if you like this stuff, go read: Minecraft/EdTech/GBL on Pinterest.

Wanted: Teacher and Student Testimonials

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:01:51 -0400

Students and fellow teachers! I need your help for a super-secret, super-exciting project that I’m working on. I need a large number of testimonials and soundbites about why Minecraft is so great in an educational setting.

I’m not looking for a lengthy dissertation. I really just want a paragraph that sums up your own experiences with the game. You can leave it in the comments of this post, or email it to me directly. Even better than writing a paragraph would be filming yourself speaking your thoughts!

Say whatever you’d like, but if you are unsure what to talk about, here are some questions to consider:

What made Minecraft click for you as an educational tool?
Why is it effective?
What was learned?
What do you see as the future of Minecraft
What’s a real-world example of something cool that happened with Minecraft in school?
Why does playing Minecraft in school represent something fundmentally new and awesome?

If possible, please include your name, and the name and location of your school. If you are a teacher, please say what you teach. If you are a student, say what subject you used Minecraft with.

And if you’ve specifically used MinecraftEdu, I’d appreciate if you’d mentioned that fact. And I should probably say that if you share something really glowing about MCEdu (and you don’t mind), I’d love to put your words on the MinecraftEdu.com site.

Even if you’ve sent me something before, please paste it in again… I’m terribly disorganized these days!

Thank you so much. This is going to be cool!

MinecraftEdu: New version soon!

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:31:10 -0500

MinecraftEdu: New version soon!:

Repost from MinecraftEdu:

We’ve been quite busy preparing the first public release of MinecraftEdu. You can see screenshots of the latest build below. This version will first be sent to our pilot schools in the next week, or so. And then after some testing, we will make MinecraftEdu available to the general public!

Read more…

Looking for ideas

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:18:49 -0500

What would make Minecraft the perfect tool for your classroom? This post is mainly aimed at other teachers, but we’d welcome anyone’s input!

My MinecraftEdu colleagues and I are hard at work on our custom version of the game. The focus has been on a powerful (yet easy to use) set of tools to help teachers utilize the game in their classrooms. But so far, most of our additions have been either basic student management tools or world construction shortcuts.

We are starting to look ahead at some fundamental changes to the game that educators would find useful. We want to know what specific additions we could make to mesh with your curriculum. I’m talking about actual changes to game mechanics.

For example, if you wanted to teach chemistry, we could add a certain number of compounds and then program their interactions. That kind of thing.

Please let us know your thoughts. Don’t worry if you think your ideas are too ambitious… we’re just brainstorming now. Add a comment below, email me, or join the under-utilized Minecraft Teachers Google Group.

This just in...

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:38:36 -0500

I’m really bad at updating my blog. It’s unfortunate.

I am much, MUCH better at getting out my thoughts (and links to interesting content) on Twitter. Please consider following me there if you aren’t already. That is… if you are into that sort of thing. If not, I totally understand. No pressure. I’m coming on too strong, aren’t I?

Anyhoo, I’m @MinecraftTeachr over there. Maybe you’ll swing by later if you aren’t too busy.

Digital game based learning: Minecraft English - final evaluation

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:54:27 -0500

Digital game based learning: Minecraft English - final evaluation:

gamebased:

After yesterdays final lesson in minecraft english I did an evaluation with the students. I have also regrouped and reflected on my failures, and here’s a list of things I will be considering for my next course:

Server, server, server!
Before I start next time I will need to run some…

MincraftEdu's upcoming features.

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:38:42 -0500

Wow. Things have been moving very fast for me. I have a backlog of Really Cool Stuff that I need to post on here. I will do that very soon. But for now, an update from Aleksi Postari about one of the things that are keeping myself and my partners busy. Aleksi is the Lead Developer for MinecraftEdu. Check out the progress of our custom Minecraft mod designed for educational use!

Aleksi / kulttuuri writes:

Peek of new features…

Few screenies here about what’s coming up… We will try to aim next release to be also available for individuals, so that has taken some time from us (had to develop separate mod install tool and such for it), but now we are mostly just waiting for the bugfixes for 1.0 and next release that could be merged into Edu!

But for the screenies, here we go:

Paging English/History/Theater Teachers...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 06:25:25 -0500

@townesy77Megan Townes

I built the Globe Theatre in #massivelyminecraft this week: #lovethisgame

A MineraftEdu Beta Report!

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:45:00 -0500

A MineraftEdu Beta Report!:

minecraftedu:

A Danish teacher using Minecraft to teach the English language dives in head first… using MinecraftEdu!

Read all about it on his Digital Game Based Learning Tumblr.

He mentions that the clients crashed a few times. This is most likely due to a memory allocation error that is fixed in the next version.

Keep the feedback coming!

~Joel

The Minecraft Teacher

MinecraftEdu 1.5.1 is now available!

MinecraftEdu: How to Connect with MinecraftEdu

Off to Paris... and some "thanks".

Come play MinecraftEdu!

MinecraftEdu: New Features and Summer Plans

Teens playing MinecraftEdu at the Brooklyn Public...

Watch my panel

Mapping out a Hunger Games activity for a library Minecraft Jam...

Gaming teacher case studies

MinecraftEdu collaborative server project for teachers

Worth a read (and listen!)

Wanted: Teacher and Student Testimonials

Trending Topic: Structured vs. Unstructured Play

MinecraftEdu: New version soon!

Looking for ideas

This just in...

Digital game based learning: Minecraft English - final evaluation

MincraftEdu's upcoming features.

Paging English/History/Theater Teachers...

A MineraftEdu Beta Report!