I’ll admit it. I was hugely into Minecraft for a good chunk of my life. I still remember the excitement being a 12-year old and playing it for the very first time. To be honest, I felt a lot of the same excitement when I heard that we would be exploring the educational qualities of Minecraft in our EdTech class. We had a Middle School Teacher and students come visit our class to discuss how they used Minecraft to learn in their classroom. If you’re new to Minecraft EDU or Minecraft in general, feel free to click this link or check out the video below in order to get some background information.
I have only ever played Minecraft for entertainment purposes, so I was excited to see what the visiting teacher and students had to share. They explained there were a number of potential uses for Minecraft in schools, the most interesting (in my opinion) being the possibility to explore ancient civilizations within the game. For example, take a look at the video below to see how it could be used to show student a brief history of humanity.
While I am excited about the prospect of incorporating games like Minecraft into our education system, I am still unsure how it would fit into some like an upper level Biology course (currently I am of the opinion that it doesn’t). However, I think it has a place with younger students being introduced to concepts for the first time. I am excited to see how Minecraft grows as an educational tool throughout my teaching journey!
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