The Minecraft Teacher

Watch my panel

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

Gaming teacher case studies

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

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!)

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

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!

Trending Topic: Structured vs. Unstructured Play

Recently some spirited debate has unfolded between several teachers whose work I admire and whose opinions I respect.  And there seems to be a rift forming about the “correct” way to use Minecraft in the classroom.

I’m going to oversimplify things a bit, but here is the crux of the debate.

One camp argues that teachers should take a “hands off” approach and just let the kids play the game the way they want to.  There is plenty of self-directed learning to be found and kids will constantly amaze you with the ingenious things they come up with. There is a belief that play has its own intrinsic value which can become diminished when a teacher imposes his or her own goals and restrictions.  Minecraft worlds that support this approach tend to be large and the students return to them over and over.

The other camp sees value in using Minecraft as a platform for more structured lessons. They will place restrictions on where the students can go and what they are allowed to do. The teacher creates content and customizes the world before the students ever see it, and then outlines goals that the students will attempt to achieve.  There is usually a specific set of information that will be communicated and/or skills to be learned and practiced before the lesson is over.  Minecraft worlds that support this approach tend to be small and the students spend a shorter, more focused, amount of time in them.

And of course there are teachers whose opinion falls somewhere between these two extremes.  I guess I’m one of them.

How a teacher chooses to interact with a class is such a personal decision.  There are so many factors to consider.  The age and genders of the students.  The culture of the school and its philosophy.  The teacher’s comfort level with the subject matter and teaching tools. The objectives of a given lesson. And of course there’s that intangible and organic social dynamic in the room that forms with any group of human beings. No one would dream of saying that there is one best teaching practice. This applies to game-based learning just as it would to any other methodology. 

I have a (bad?) habit of treating each group of students I teach as test subjects to be experimented on.  I modify my approach for each class.  Sometimes it can be as simple as explaining things differently.  Sometimes I design an entirely new activity for a class.  And after all this experiemntation, I still can’t claim to have figured out what works best.

Some of my students thrive in an unstructured environment, each rising to self-imposed challenges, finding ways to leave their own personal mark on the world.  However, other kids tend to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of options available to them in an open world, and need constant direction.  These students respond much better with clearly defined limits to work within. In fact, these students are more likely to approach the activity as a self-contained adventure or quest and proudly speak of “winning” Minecraft. (A concept I find amusing… but I’m not about to question their feelings of triumph!)

I’m starting to believe that the best designed lessons and activities provide options and multiple paths to success, catering to various play styles.  This lines up nicely with traditional classroom practices of embracing a wide variety of learning styles.

We are all in uncharted territory here.  Never before have teachers had a game with the breadth of experiences and malleability that Minecraft offers.  If you are using Minecraft in your classroom, you should be paying close attention to how other teachers implementing it.  Especially if their approach is very different from your own!

Looking for ideas

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.