Carpenter Blocks mod

If you know Minecraft, you know that there are hundreds of mods. (Mods is short for Modifications and refers to anything that changes the game content from what it originally was). One of my 7th grade students, Mitchell, has been asking me to download the Carpenters Block mod for months. Being new to Minecraft, and not very comfortable with all things coding, I have resisted. But, I finally relented. Let me tell you, it was a VERY painful process involving lots of emails to our tech department and a few class periods where Minecraft was down and we were on cool math.com or math playground.

We finally got to try out this mod today, and it is AMAZING!! Minecraft is a block based game, so anything with angles or curves beyond a square just don't exist. Well, with Carpenters Blocks, they do exist! Basically, you get wooden structures- blocks, wedges, stairs, doors, and more. As well as two tools- a hammer and a chisel, and with these you can make slanted blocks, curved blocks, change the materials in blocks, and rotate blocks. This is essential for our World Religions unit where students are making arches and domes.

To illustrate this, here is a picture of a traditional block created arch next to a arch created with a carpenters block wedge block-

So cool, right?!

So, what did we do when some of the computers were running MinecraftEdu and some weren't?

This-

Sustainable community peer reviews

Yesterday I broke all the border blocks, and let the class explore the entire community. They were extremely impressed with what they had created together! Here are a sampling of the peer and self reviews they wrote-

Farm Review

I really like the farm in our minecraft community. The structure and design was cool. It looks like they really took time and effort to build it. Also, i liked the horses with blue armor. However, I wish the farm had doors or entrances to get into the animal pens. Overall, the farm was cool and neat.

Self Assessment

I think my group building the water park went great. We didn’t have any major issues during the building process. I built the water slides, stairs, and the lazy river. Jon and Alex built the pools, fountains, entrance, and front check-in offices. Jon also built the porta-potties and food stand. Justin helped us all with whatever we needed help with. I am especially proud with how my waterslides came out. If I could change something it would be the flow of the water in the slides.

House Review

My Review is on Simon N’s house. There were many great things about it. One of them is that he had a great garage and car idea. The house also had many aesthetically appealing features in the house such as plants,a pool table, and a bar. The outside had a stream, some topiary and some nice lighting.

Self Assessment

At the rec center we all worked together to build everything. The building process went fairly smooth with some occasional quarrels and some changes. I am especially proud of the lobby and food court. If we had more time I change is the outside because we do not have any sports to play outside. We could have added a soccer or football field.

House Review

I chose to review Laurens’s house because it looked like she worked hard perfecting and decorating it. Her house is extremely organized and neat. There are signs labeling certain areas in the house which i think looks professional. Her house meets the requirements of being green by including things like waterfalls and gardens of plants.

Aside from her house meeting the basic requirements it’s really creative and fun to look at in general. You can tell she put a lot of effort and time in making it appealing. I definitely recommend anyone and everyone to visit and enjoy laurens house.

GROUP STRUCTURE

Structure: Hospital

In the hospital my group and I admittedly didn't stick with our original plans but we all ended up doing what we were good at and still maintaining a fair and equal amount of work.

Lauren and Ashley both did the ceilings on every floor. I created the structures of the floors by building and shaping rooms and hall ways. Taylor decorated and made the hospital roomy and welcoming. Taylor also built hospital essentials including receptionist desks and the emergency room. Lauren and I both contributed to building outer walls.

The process of building wasn't planned but it worked well. Everyone communicated well and no conflicts occurred involving decision making. I was especially proud of the finished product of the first floor looking like a real waiting room. If i had the time id add more art.  

-Amber R

Do we have to leave?

We, like pretty much all classes in America, are doing weeks and weeks of standardized testing right now. As a result, the bells that signal classes ending and beginning are turned off. Both yesterday and today, one of the teachers in the hallway my classroom is in, let their class go early. Yesterday, when it happened, I announced to my classes, "You have two minutes until the bell would ring, but there are kids in the hall, so you can go if you want." One kid immediately asked "Can we stay?". My reply of "yes" was met with a chorus of "I'm staying!", "Me too!" Today when I announced that they had one minute until the bell but that there were kids in the hall, they called out "Can we stay?" What could I reply but "Yes!"

Here are some pictures of what they are so excited to work on!

The very beginnings of a Hindu temple

The outside of The Church of Hallgrimur

The inside of The Church of Hallgrimur

Taj Mahal

The 7th grade students are working on our World Religions unit. This group is building the Taj Mahal and I'm just so impressed with their progress, that I had to share it!

Shout out to Ben G, Max Z, and Gavin M!

and yes, I checked with my students, and "shout outs" are neither lame or old ;-)

View from the bottom of the tower

Looking at the Tower

The entire building area

Skype in the Classroom!

I'm very excited about this, so I wanted to share it with all of you. I was asked to be a guest speaker on Skype in the classroom! 

They found me because I tweeted a few pictures of my 8th grade student's projects and Joel Levin, one of the creators of MinecraftEdu, saw and recommended me for Skype in the Classroom's earth day promotion!

Check out skype in the classroom here-

https://education.skype.com/

and my lesson here!-

https://education.skype.com/projects/11978-minecraftedu-building-a-sustainable-community-in-minecrafedu

Just a note about Skype in the Classroom... I went to a presentation on using this at MACUL this past March, and it's incredibly cool!!

Thinking out loud

I really think this is the best part of being a minecraft teacher, hearing my student's thoughts as they are thinking them. In a traditional classroom, the emphasis is on quiet listening, answering specific questions, quiet work, or sometimes group work, but all the thinking is teacher directed. Very little is open ended, and even less often do teachers encourage every student to talk about their thinking at once.

I can't take credit for this, actually, in the beginning, I tried to limit talking and encouraged using the in-game chat feature because the room was just too loud. But, two things happened.

One- They just didn't follow my directions! Yes they use in-game chat, but not to collaborate in real time. It's more general questions- does anyone know how to make something, or craft something, or have anything to trade, funny comments, inside jokes, and friendly banter.

The second thing that happened is that I realized just how valuable it is to me as a teacher to hear everything they are saying. It's fascinating to hear their thinking as they work through problems, collaborate with others, evaluate decisions they have made, and analyze their progress. As educators, we talk about higher thinking skills all the time, how crucial they are to student success, how to develop them, and how to get students to demonstrate that they have been engaged in them, but it is a completely different experience being inside their heads and witnessing their thinking as it's happening in real time and real life.

I'm not an English teacher, (and my students can attest to the fact that I'm not a math teacher), so I find it hard sometimes to capture my experiences in words. Here is a transcript of three students working together that will hopefully illustrate what I'm trying to communicate:

We are starting mid-conversation....
Student 1- I know I'm trying to do this, making it look right
Student 2- actually I kinda like that
Student 3- I'm not sure
Student 3- do we have the spacing the right way
Student 1- yea its gonna be looking....
Student 2- this direction (points to screen)
Student 3- thats gonna be awesome
Student 2- yea its kinda fun
Student 2- why are you breaking that up?
Student 1- you're breaking the toes
Student 3- their separate toes
Student 2-  yea but the feet are together
Student 1-  actually in the picture their are but we're modifying it
Student 1- hey we made progress!! We made the entire pedestal!!
Student 2- that's good right there
Student 1- what we should do maybe....
Student 3-well the feet aren't one thing so we should break one block
Student 3- do you like that?
Student 1- It's good

And, for the most part, the entire room is like that. I can hear problem solving happening, I can hear analyzing happening, I can hear collaboration happening, and I can hear evaluation happening.

I can hear real, authentic learning happening

Math!!!!

The 7th grade is starting building for our world religions unit. The step after writing their essays is finding a building and converting the measurements into minecraft block measurements. The first part of this process, is searching up blueprints and floor plans to get the various lengths, widths, and heights of their building. After that, they convert the measurements into yards, then into minecraft blocks. One block in minecraft is equal to 3 yards. Some of them are then realizing that they have to size their building up or down to make it proportional to the other buildings in the world. It's a lot of math!!

Guest bloggers- The Beast Roller Coaster of the Century

While making the best house in the world we upgraded it with the best roller coaster in the world. After some hard work from Simon N, Nick C, Owen S and Brixhildo D, one of the best creations in Minecraft was made. It is the most beast thing alive. A roller coaster of great fun and of amazing size. To just look at it will blind you from the awesomeness. This roller coaster will set records, bring laughter, and cure world hunger. It started from the bottom and now it's here. This new structure will help people across the world who are looking for fun and to become blind from the light of fun. Thank you to these gentlemen for creating the best roller coaster in the world.
- The Roller coaster Men -

Roller coaster video

Bud Not Buddy. Connecting English to Minecraft

One of the units that my 6th grade students LOVED was our Bud Not Buddy unit. They read the book in their ELA (English language arts) class and we reviewed the plot, story line, characters, and setting in class together. In groups, or working alone, I'm generally very flexible about this, they chose a part of the book to recreate in MinecraftEdu. The basic requirements of the project were:

Project requirements-

1. You will build a replica of all the elements of the scene- buildings, surrounding area, landscape…. Build some sort of boundary or border around your area so that players know when they are entering or leaving your scene. (Note- I ended up building border blocks around their areas to help with a few student's behavior choices)

2. You will spawn NPCs as characters in your scene. We should be able to interact with these people because their job is to help the player learn about the scene. (Note- NPCs are Non-Player Characters that players can create and program to be interactive)

3. You will create some chests with books, or a series of info blocks to teach players about the following (NPCs can also be used to tell about some of these)

1. A summary of the scene (who, what, where, when and how)

2. A description of the setting

3. Descriptions of the main characters and what they do in the scene

4. Two Text-to-Self connections - Connect your personal experiences to Bud not Buddy. Think about the following questions: ● What does this remind me of in my life? ● How is this similar to in my life? ● How is this different from my life? ● Has something like this ever happened to me? ● How does this relate to my life? ● What were my feelings when I read this? ● Have I changed my thinking as a result of reading this? ● What have I learned?

Like every project we do, they completely surpassed my expectations! I videoed a very small part of their world for a presentation I did, and thought you might be interested in seeing it. I narrated the video during the presentation, so the only sound on the video is background noise, sorry about that!

Bud Not Buddy video

Sustainable building update

The 8th grade students have been eating up this sustainable building project! I was worried it might feel too confining and "sciency" for them, but they are loving the challenge. As usual, I am completely impressed with what they are coming up with!

Here are some pictures: