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'Minecraft Education Edition' will let kids build with code
Minecraft Education Edition is getting a big upgrade: Code Builder. Essentially, students will be able to learn coding by traveling around the game's pixely world. Typing "/code" will bring up a list of commands and code snippets. From there, an adorable robot avatar dubbed "the agent" appears and acts on code to do things like work while you're away, light your fortress at night or delve deeper into the earth for resources. On the stage, the agent built a windmill and columns for the Parthenon automatically. And that's about it! Codebuilder is available in beta right now.
UK education expert dismisses 'Minecraft' as a 'gimmick'
After offering teachers early access to Minecraft: Education Edition this summer, Microsoft's classroom-friendly version of the immensely popular sandbox game was formally launched at the beginning of November. Not everyone is keen on Minecraft being used as a teaching tool, though, and ahead of Microsoft's UK launch event tomorrow, behavior expert for the government's Department for Education Tom Bennett has voiced his skepticism to The Times. "I am not a fan of Minecraft in lessons. This smacks to me of another gimmick which will get in the way of children actually learning," Bennett said.
'Minecraft: Education Edition' launches in early access
A new version of Minecraft developed for the classroom is now available in early access. Minecraft: Education Edition was announced back in January alongside Microsoft's acquisition of MinecraftEdu, a team that had already been tweaking the game for teachers. The replacement is available for free this summer before a per-student pricing model is introduced for the academic year. As a small thank you, Microsoft has promised existing MinecraftEdu customers a year of free access to Education Edition -- presumably that will kick in once the early access trial wraps up.
Minecraft free for every Northern Ireland secondary school
Minecraft has been heralded for its focus on building, creativity and exploration. Players learn about architecture and construction, as well as the simple joy of self expression. The game's open nature has also given birth to countless mods that teach budding builders about coding, geography and art. Recognising its power as an educational tool, a free copy of the game is now being offered to every secondary school in Northern Ireland.
Educators battle Eternal September by teaching digital citizenship with MinecraftEdu
Eternal September is now somewhat of an antiquated term, but its relevance as a concept is nonetheless alive and kicking on the internet today. Once upon a time, September was the month when a whole new group of individuals -- primarily college students -- were introduced to Usenet discussion boards, and many took a few bruises as they were introduced to online etiquette. Eventually, tightly knit digital communities became unable to cope with the deluge of new users, and it's said that online discourse has never fully recovered. So the saying goes, we now live in Eternal September. As proof that not all hope is lost, developers and educators are now collaborating on a project known as MinecraftEdu, which aims to teach digital citizenship in the classroom. Through virtual interaction with others, the game exposes students to a wide variety of concepts such as ethics, privacy, research and safety. From there, educators are able to use the in-game experiences to lead discussions that focus on protecting oneself and taking responsibility for one's actions. In effort to reinforce these concepts, developers are also integrating quizzes and lesson reviews into MinecraftEdu. Much like the real world, Minecraft's open-ended style is thought to demonstrate that an online community is what you make of it, and as development progresses, perhaps we'll all come to benefit from its lessons. In the meantime, you can stick your nose into these forward-thinking classrooms with the video below.
