Massively Minecraft
A new community for educators has been launched by my fellow Minecraft Teachers, Dean Groom, Jo Kay, and Bron Stuckey. They are attempting to lay the groundwork for getting kids, parents, teachers, and schools playing together. The site is called Massively Minecraft and it appears to be a perfect place to get some real experience working with kids in Minecraft. From the site:
You are invited to join Massively Minecraft, a professional community of educators preparing to explore a new game suitable for children as young as 4 years of age, yet expansible enough to still stir the imagination and interaction of late teens and adults.
The purpose of this community project is to trial the use of the game Minecraft (http://www.minecraft.net) in schools as part of voluntary student activity. The community will engage in exploration and research, not to decide or direct any particular application of the game but, to understand where students might take it and how they and their teachers visualise possibilities for it use within the curriculum. This ethnographic approach relies on you, as the professional in the school, to observe and reflect on student imagination, initiative, interaction, engagement and learning.
The project appears to be an offshoot of another great site, Jokadia Minecrafts which is also a really good read. I’m looking forward to getting involved and seeing where all this leads!
