And... We're back!!!!

It's been a long wonderful summer!!

I realize that stopped blogging suddenly last school year. My wife gave birth to our son 8 weeks early, and I had a very abrupt start to an early summer vacation! I will write a post summing up what I learned last year, at a later date...

Last year I had the first 12 week trimester to test everything out and work out any bugs before I started teaching with MinecraftEdu, this school year I am teaching MinecraftEdu starting from day one. Technology is rarely ready on day one, and this week was no exception. Tuesday was the first day of class, and we did fun get to know you activities and didn't even touch our computers. Tuesday evening I got an email telling me that Minecraft wasn't working in my lab yet, so in class on Wednesday I had the kids log into our computer system, then they went on youtube and watched Minecraft videos. They used search terms like crafting, building, and redstone, and completely enjoyed the hour. Finally, today we logged into MinecraftEdu for the first time!

I start every class with the tutorial world, but each of my classes have a handful of kids who had the Minecraft class last year and have gone through the tutorial world, so I teleported that group to the campground and let them loose. I use border blocks to control the flow of students, and make sure that each student is completing the activities, and not just following better players through. My memory of last year, is that, for me, the tutorial world can be very labor intensive and difficult to manage, but my experience this year is that I was on top of the student flow, and easily managed the multiple student levels.

I'm very excited for this new year, both revisiting fabulous units from last year, and creating some new ones!

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