Tutorial world
We started out in the tutorial world from the world library http://services.minecraftedu.com/worlds/ . I found that, like all classes, the students are at different levels, but these levels were two distinct ones- students who play all the time and know more then me, and students who have never played, yet still know more then me! To buy myself some time, and allow new users a chance to get used to the controls and building, I gave them time to "Show me what you do best in Minecraft" once they completed the tutorial. Free time in the Minecraft classroom, DOES NOT equal chaos or off task behavior!
World of Humanities
Our next stop was World of Humanities
http://services.minecraftedu.com/wiki/Wonderful_World_of_Humanities since I was getting my feet wet, and I wasn't brave enough to design my own lesson yet. The kids each found something different that they really loved! Some students went on quests, others searched for codes, others completed the scavenger hunts. To facilitate grading, I made daily reflections that the students had to fill out to record where they went each class period, who they worked with, what they did, and what they were planning on doing the next class period. They also received extra credit for finding codes and completing quests. It was an extremely successful unit!
Next, we worked on our World Religions unit. Part of how I want to use Minecraft, is by using it to delve deeper into core classes (English, math, science, and social studies), and providing extensions to the classroom teacher's curriculum. In 7th grade social studies they study world religions. My Minecraft students, in small groups of two or three, picked a religion to research, they wrote a series of mini essays covering such topics as important people, geography, key events, festivals and holidays, and modern history. They then choose an important religious site to recreate in Minecraft. This involved getting site plans, and figuring out ratio and scale. After building, they went back to their essays, and put together fact sheets. They used these fact sheets in a game that designed and created in Minecraft. One group did a quest and the players get a book of facts as a reward. One group created a maze, the correct answers to questions help lead you through the maze safely. We needed to extend the time we spent from four weeks to five, the math part bogged us down, and honestly I didn't plan for it. After they created their games, the other students in the class tested the games by playing them. We talked abut the process known as beta testing that video game designers go through, and students had to fill out a google form on each game they played with the information that the student's felt they needed feedback on to improve their game.
Here is my first recording of our world religions world. Don't judge the recording, well judge it if you must but please be kind, It's only my second Minecraft recording ever!
When the 7th grade students are studying world religions in social studies, the teacher is going to bring them into the lab and they will play the games their classmates created as a learning experience! I love when other teachers jump on my bandwagons (My wife Lindsay pointed out that it's actually one wagon, not wagons, but I think that I have SO MUCH stuff it won't all fit in one wagon. Therefore *she* might have a bandwagon, but *I* have bandwagons)!
Working on world religions.....
Coding
Our next unit was a week of coding with ComputerCraft Code Academy http://services.minecraftedu.com/worlds/node/65
I had never tried coding the "Turtles" on minecraftEdu before, but one of my 1st hour student had, so I let him lead the way for the class and me. I really liked how the coding process forces students into a problem solving cognitive process. The students found this unit really hard and frustrating, but every single student stuck with it and was able to finish all the quests and activities. My theory, and I asked the students about this and they agreed, is that because MinecraftEdu and the quests and activities were so engaging, they were willing to push through the difficult and frustrating parts to continue the unit. My experience teaching robotics demonstrated this same phenomenon, but in robotics, not "every student" was engaged enough to be willing to push through. The next time I teach this, I would like to investigate how students can learn coding mods in MinecraftEdu because I think the engagement level will shoot from 100% to 150%!!
Survival!
Our last two weeks was spent in a survival unit. For those of you not familiar with Minecraft, survival has monsters that can kill you, you need to mine and craft all your tools and supplies, you can die from falling, drowning, and lava, and you need to make sure you find, kill or grow enough food items. Up until this unit, I directed all our class norms and expectations around griefing (destroying things) and stealing. But, for this unit I let the students have class discussions about these norms and I took my thoughts out of the mix. They decided that students were not allowed to do any griefing, but that students were allowed to steal. The stealing was very contentious, so they came up with the solution that if you put a sign in your house, or mine, or wherever your chests were that said "No Stealing", then people were not able to steal from you, AND that you also agreed not to steal from anyone else regardless of if they had a sign or not. The students who were newer to Minecraft mostly put signs up, but a group of students who were experienced players chose to be able to steal from each other. One issue arose when some of the students came in during my lunch and stole from a group of students who were not playing at the time, and we had a class discussion that resulted in those students retuning the items and agreeing that you could only steal if the student you wanted to steal from was also in the game at that time. The students approached me about turning on their ability to harm and kill each-other. I had originally put my foot down, and said absolutely no, that I wasn't comfortable with them having the ability to harm each-other, but they pointed out that there was no way to defend themselves from stealing without the ability to harm each other. I understood their point, and let them have that ability. I don't think I would do it with every class, but this group was especially respectful of the game and each other. One experience I was really hoping for was watching how small cooperative groups might form, and how students might set up bartering or trading systems, and I was completely not disappointed!! The class ended up forming five loose groups, and one group included me in their quests, adventures, and sharing system! I usually log on as teacher, but for this I equalled the playing field and signed on as a student also. My log-on name was "ScaredyCat" because it was my first time laying survival and I was, well scared! Students really enjoyed helping each other, they would attack a creeper or zombie if it was trying to kill a fellow student. When you are killed, your inventory (all the stuff you are carrying) falls to the ground, and they would ask each-other to go pick up their stuff and keep it safe until they re-spawned in the game. Students gave each-other permission to go into their homes and chests to borrow or keep items like tools, food, and the like! To keep the theme of "This is still a class after all", I had a quest packet that I handed out with a wide variety of quests worth different amounts of points. To get an A, you had to accumulate 2000 points. I found the idea on another MinecraftEdu teachers website, and I'll link to it just as soon as I recreate the random search that unearthed it! I'll also link to my modified version. Students really enjoyed this, but I figured out that 2000 points is too much for two weeks, so I'm revamping the quest packet! This unit was amazing in so many ways!!!
That survival unit marked the end of our time together. If any students from that class reads this, I want to thank you all for being the very best first MinecraftEdu class any teacher could hope for. You were all amazing and fabulous!
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