Today, almost everyone, from kids to parents, has heard about Minecraft coding platform for kids game. Some even became a fan of the popular game.
But Microsoft went further with Minecraft and has created a unique platform – Minecraft: Education Edition. It is almost identical to the standard version, but the main difference is a set of new tools created specifically for teachers. The game now has blackboards, teleports for fast movement around the map, and the ability to track students’ activities. Also, “camera” and “portfolio” tools allow students to quickly capture and send results remotely.
Minecraft: Education Edition is an excellent tool for a teacher to illustrate a lecture. For this purpose, the system has several template cards on specific topics of the lessons. Teachers can pre-download and edit them at their discretion, then adjust the difficulty, create NPCs, rearrange locations, and change tasks.
The presence inside the simulation of a historical period or the plot of a classic work helps students remember information, and various quests stimulate them to solve problems and equations. Such lessons turn into collaborative work that the teacher can track online, immediately analyzing the results of each student.
You may ask how does Minecraft coding platform work with specific lessons?
The answer is anything can be taught with Minecraft.
Math lessons for Minecraft coding platforme : Education Edition are designed mainly for elementary grades, that is, for the rules of addition, multiplication and division using game blocks. For senior classes, there are more complex quests and geometry tasks in which students build a figure and calculate the figure’s volume. Learning math with Minecraft primarily trains logic and spatial thinking. Children not only master the basic rules but also immediately learn to apply them in practice.
Literature is the second most popular subject to teach with Minecraft coding platforme : Education Edition. In this case, it is mainly about recreating worlds from popular and classic children’s literature, within which students can get to know the characters better and complete story-based quests. The most famous example of fairy tale recreation in Minecraft is the Fantastic Mr. Fox world by Roald Dahl. Students might fully interact with the world – build villages, dig up secret messages and communicate with characters.
History could be taught through immersion into key locations and monuments from specific eras. For example, students can explore details of Rome’s coliseum through a virtual model.
Copies of artifacts can be used as an illustration or as a backdrop for an educational theatrical performance. Another way to diversify the lecture on history is excavations, during which cubic copies of ancient artifacts are found in the game.
Like any constructor, Minecraft coding platform lays the foundations of design and plays a crucial role in the education of future architects. Construction design is one of the foundations and leading features of the game. The Minecraft community regularly challenges themselves to recreate iconic objects, from famous paintings like the Mona Lisa to architectural structures and even an entire planet.
Biology. Students might learn and explore different types of plants, animals, minerals and various organisms. All of them are broadly presented in the Minecraft cosing platform: education edition. Therefore, the approach to teaching biology using Minecraft can also be as diverse as possible.
For example, Minecraft: Education Edition has a whole lesson on the study of the life of elephants and their protection. Thus, the platform gives kids the idea of how to protect wildlife for future generations.
The game has enormous potential to transform teaching and learning processes. Minecraft: Education Edition is perhaps the first time a popular game has become a full-fledged tool for school education.
You can register for a free trial class with Minecraft Education by clicking on this link.