It can be difficult to explain how 40 students, from four inner-city schools, share 1 Minecraft server for learning and fun. It hasn’t really been done before. We have our GamingEdus site packed with resources for teachers and our Minecraft Club Hub wiki for student work. But what we didn’t have is a video tour. That is, until now.

Enjoy this quick video tour of the Multi-School Minecraft server. And if you’re a teacher interested in using Minecraft with your students, visit gamingedus.org and get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

–-

As an award-winning children’s author, gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have teaching ideas and writing news to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.

If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change.

You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.

Thanks!

Liam

That was also when I stumbled upon a newly released book called What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. It gave me an idea for an article and I was fortunate enough to land an interview with its author, Dr. James Paul Gee.

Here’s the article reprinted in all it’s 2004 glory. I think the content is still relevant today, nearly 10 years later. What do you think?

Screen Doors

For boys who shun books, video games and the Internet provide a way into the world of words

By Liam O’Donnell

“I’d be happy if he read the Sunday comics,” laments Jodi DiGiuseppe, a mother of two from London, Ont. She has tried everything to get her nine-year-old son, Anthony, to read, with little success. “We banned the TV and offered bribes, but that didn’t work for long.” Like many boys his age, Anthony just isn’t interested in books. But get Anthony playing his favourite video game and he turns into a digital demon. “I have to drag him away from the screen.”

Having a button-mashing, book-bashing son is worrying for many parents. For the last six years literacy tests conducted by Council of Ministers of Education show Canadian boys trailing girls in reading and writing skills. In 1998, 13 year old boys scored 15% lower than girls on reading tests. In more recent writing exams, girls continue to score higher than boys. Are video games and other digital distractions to blame? While some parents and teachers are quick to say yes, a growing number of educators are coming to the defence of video games. Boys aren’t becoming illiterate, they say. Boys are redefining literacy, and gaining “digital literacy” skills. And in the workplaces of the future, these skills might give them a head start on their book-reading buddies.

Video Games are Literacy in Action

“Boys are becoming literate in spite of school instruction,” says Heather Blair, an associate professor at the University of Alberta. Blair and her colleague, Kathy Sanford of the University of Victoria, spent two years talking to adolescent boys, delving into their backpacks and desks, hoping to learn more about boys and literacy. “Computer games, Internet searches and online chat rooms have shaped the way boys interact with texts,” says Blair. In chat rooms, boys communicate in a constrained shorthand of shortened words that reads like a rapid-fire barrage of customised licence plates.

On the Internet, they scoured websites, absorbing sports statistics and tracking down secret cheat codes for their favourite video game. Parents are often mystified by skill and confidence boys show as they click their way through new technologies. This, say Blair and Sanford, is literacy in action. Their findings, recently published in the study “Canadian Adolescent Boys and Literacy”, are attracting attention from educators and giving hope to many frustrated parents.

Blair and Sanford believe that we need to expand our definition of literacy to include other sources of reading material like magazines, newspapers and text found on websites and video games. “There is a certain amount of reading in video games,” says Sanford, “And in some games, a high level of reading.” From the novel-length printed manuals to the clue-filled messages on the screen, the amount of reading material in games quickly adds up. In a format that relies so heavily on fast moving graphics, this written material is often overlooked by observers, but not by players. Understanding the game text is essential to a player’s success. “You have to read what the instructions are, and follow them exactly or you fail the level,” says one boy in the study.

Button Mashing Teaching Tools

When educators mention good video games, they are not talking about the ultra-violent, shoot-anything-that-moves variety. Dr. James Paul Gee, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, studied the structure of dozens of video games to reveal their educational potential. In his book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, Gee examines the ways that video games can used as teaching tools. The best video games, he believes, offer challenges that can be solved in alternative ways, encouraging lateral thinking and problem-solving skills. The player’s decisions must affect the outcome of the game, placing importance on their choices and promising consequences to their actions. With the stakes this high, the challenges in the game should be at a level that is difficult but ‘doable.’ According to Gee, popular titles like Age of Mythology, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Legend of Zelda: The Wind Walker all have educational potential.

Gee is quick to point out that a good video game can only teach so much. The rest is up to the player. “Video games are only good for a child’s growth when played strategically,” he says. Strategic playing means that boys ask themselves questions as they face in-game challenges. Questions like: what problems do I face here? How can I best tackle this problem? What other approaches would work? Gee believes that the problem-solving skills developed while gaming strategically can help boys succeed in their literacy assignments at school. Blair and Sanford agree.

“Boys transform the assigned literacy work into something more fun, engaging, and personally meaningful for themselves,” says Sanford. Many teachers recognise this. That’s why your son’s grade-six language arts assignment is more likely to be a series of comic strips than a written book report. But even with traditional literacy exercises, boys will draw upon their outside interests to make a connection.

Boys Morphing Language and Learning

Blair and Sanford talk about one grade five student who was asked to write a short story starting from a visual prompt of a man sneaking around a corner. The boy wrote a story about a James Bond character who evades trip wires, climbs along rooftops and uses his high-tech watch to decode a safe’s combination. The language the boy used, like “wire traps” and “decoding”, and the actions of his character were all elements of his favourite “007” video game. By transforming what he had read and learned from playing his video game, the boy created a connection with his literacy assignment. Blair and Sanford call this “morphing” literacy, a term borrowed from the boys themselves. “Morphing is a word used by boys in their play to describe the transformation of one form or character to another.”

As the boys morph their school work to fit their interests, by using the words learned from their game experiences for example, they also expand the definitions of literacy to include language and skills learned from non-traditional sources like video games. These ‘digital literacy’ skills, say Blair and Sanford, will serve boys well in the coming years.

Digital Literacies are the Workplace Skills of Tomorrow

“The abilities to navigate the Internet and read multiple texts simultaneously will be perhaps more useful workplace skills than the ability to analyse a work of fiction or to write a narrative account,” Blair and Sanford predict. Email and the Internet didn’t exist 15 years ago, but today many offices expect new employees to have already mastered these technologies. 15 years from now, when today’s eight year olds are starting their careers, technology will have transformed the workplace even further. The digital literacy skills boys are picking up today, will make them more comfortable in this environment, giving them a distinct advantage.

Until then, how can we encourage boys to cultivate their ‘digital literacy’ skills while they play? Dr. Gee suggests that parents pick up the game controller and join in the fun. By playing video games with your son, parents can ask questions that will help him play strategically, while at the same time gaining insight into what attracts him to these worlds. And that could be the “game cheat” you need to convince your boy to put down the controller and pick up a book.

–-

As an award-winning children’s author, gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have teaching ideas and writing news to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.

If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change.

You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.

Thanks!

Liam

Students flying around our virtual learning commons.

As you might know, last week I spoke at the Ontario Library Association’s 2013 Super Conference about my GamingEdus Multi-School Minecraft project. It was a lot fun, definitely exciting and I had a chance to talk Minecraft with many great people. But for me, the real learning I took from OLA didn’t hit me until four days later.

One of the concepts I heard a lot about during the conference was the idea of the library as a ‘learning commons’. It’s a central space that serves as a hub for a wide range of learning activities across grades. On any given day, the place is bustling with primary grade students on the carpet listening to a story, a junior class in the computer lab researching their projects and the ESL instructor playing a game with his small group of students on the smartboard. It’s crowded and often loud, but when it works the place crackles with energy and learning.

The thing that ties together this idea of a learning commons isn’t the age of the learners or the learning being done. It’s the actual physical location of the space. Yesterday, when my students logged into our Multi-School Minecraft server, I realized that the ‘commons’ does not have to exist in a physical, real world space. It can, if conditions are right, happen virtually.

This isn’t anything radically new. Many other educators have already noticed this. But for me, it was the first time I experienced it. And it rocked.

Many Learners, One (Virtual) Space

After lunch yesterday, a small group of my students logged into our Multi-School Minecraft server for the first time. These kids hadn’t played multiplayer Minecraft yet, so were pretty excited to be able to build together and, let’s face it, fight each other. When we logged in, we were pleasantly surprised to see Miss Colby’s  students were also on the server. They were on the other side of the map working on their bridge projects, so we couldn’t actually see them. But we knew they were there. In reality, her students were on the other side of the city. My students were like “whatever” and went off exploring. Miss  Colby’s kids weren’t too fussed with us being there either. Both groups just went about their play, work and learning.

That’s when it hit me: our server had become a typical “learning commons”.

The only different element was the actual physical location of the learners. This virtual learning commons was a natural space for the learners. They thought nothing of sharing a world with other kids they didn’t know. They do that every day when they log into WeeWorld or whatever game they’re playing these days. For this space to be created within the confines of school and so easily, is what I find interesting and exciting. And it’s just the beginning.

Beyond the Single School Server

With the popularity of Minecraft in education taking off (and we really haven’t seen anything yet), I’m very excited to see so many teachers setting up servers for their classes or creating maps to run their kids through scenarios. However, I think we’re missing another very exciting application of Minecraft. Class servers and lesson maps are cool. But you know what’s really cool?

A shared virtual learning commons that links students from across the city, the country and even the world.

A virtual space with endless real estate that allows for both collaboration and individual work, play and creation. Have a class project with your students? Cool, build it in the learning commons server. Then, when it’s done, invite other classes to check it out. Keep it there as a monument and a model for next year’s class. Each year, new students build on the learning and building of the students before them. Educators themselves connect, share and grow within this space.

For me, this is what is really exciting about Minecraft (and the games to come) in education. I’m happy that so many educators are taking a chance and bringing Minecraft to their schools. I can’t wait for the day when more teachers reach out beyond their schools, their cities, their countries to share, connect, build and learn together.

For me, and my GamingEdus colleagues that day and that server is already here. Our Multi-School Minecraft server connects 30 students, from 3 inner-city schools on 1 single server. We’re looking for more educators to expand our learning commons. If you’re up for it, you can join us.

–-

As an award-winning children’s author, gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have Tech Teaching ideas and project news to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.

If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change.

You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.

Thanks!

Liam

So, here’s a very quick, very basic guide for educators (or anyone) to get started playing Minecraft.

Get Game

These days there are many flavours of Minecraft. From Xbox, to Pocket to PC/Mac/Linux, you have a wide choice of where and how to play the game. We use the PC/Mac/Linux version on our Multi-School Server, so that’s what I’ll cover here.

Step 1: Check the System Requirements

Minecraft might look all blocky and simple, but it is a complex game that requires a fairly new(ish) computer. It ain’t going to work on that old Dell with the Celeron processor. However, if you have a relatively new computer that you (or your kids) use to play video games, you should be just fine.

Just in case, you can find the Minecraft System Requirements here.

Step 2: Register with Mojang

Head over to http://minecraft.net and Register for a Mojang Account (Mojang is the company that makes Minecraft, btw). It’s the usual email/password deal, so pick a real email you’ll have access to. They’ll send you a confirmation email.

Step 3: Buy Minecraft! (or download the free demo)

Once you’ve confirmed your email, you then buy the game. Woohoo! Go through all that paypal fun and you’ll be sent a redemption link. You can also buy the game as a gift for someone else here too.

If you’re an educator, save yourself some cash and support Joel Levin’s great project by buying your accounts through minecraftedu.com.

Step 4: Set up your Minecraft Account

Once you’re emailed your redemption link, you can activate your Minecraft account.

Big Caveat: It’s been a while since I actually bought accounts, so this might have changed. I’m going from memory here, but here is the main  thing to remember:

Choose your Player Name carefully!

As of this writing, your Player Name  is permanent and cannot be changed. Why is this a big deal? Because it’s the name everyone in your Minecraft game will see when you play. I say be creative and have fun – but choose wisely!

Step 5: Download Minecraft

When you’re logged into minecraft.net and have your profile all set up, then you can download the game. Find that Download button and click it! Then install it where ever you’d like it to go.

Step 6: Play Minecraft!

With the game installed, click the Minecraft launcher (hopefully somewhere on your desktop) and log in again using your Profile name and password you created in Step 3.

From now on, you can play Minecraft by simply clicking the launcher. You only need to got back to minecraft.net if you want to change your password, change your avatar’s skin (will explain that in a later post) or buy more accounts.

You can play Minecraft by yourself in Singleplayer or with others in Multiplayer. Here’s how you do both:

Singleplayer:

1. Choose Create a New World.
2. Name your world
3. Choose Creative Mode (access to all items, flying) or Survival Mode (harvest materials, zombies that eat your face off)
4. Click Create New World. The world will “generate chunks.”
5. You’re playing Minecraft! Go punch some wood. If you’re in survival, watch paulsoaresjr’s seminal video: “How to Survive your First Night”.

Multiplayer:

If you want to play with others you’ll want to “join a server”.  To keep things civil, some servers have a list of allowed players. This is called a White List. Getting on a white list is usually just a matter of filling out a request form. Like this white list request form to the GamingEdus Professional Learning server. Once you’re white listed you will need the server’s address. This is can be a string of numbers (141.118.12.83) or words that look like a web address (gamingedus.servegame.com).

Once you have that done, here’s how you play Multiplayer:

1. Get your username added to the white list.
2. Launch Minecraft (if you’ve bought it, set up an avatar name, etc.)
3. Click on Multiplayer
4. Choose Add Server
5. In the Server Name, give the server a name (can be anything you want.)
6. In the Server Address window, enter the server address (ie gamingedus.servegame.com)
7. Click Done. The server should appear in your list of servers.
8. Click Join Server. You will be logged into the server.

Grats! You’re rocking Multiplayer Minecraft!

Wood Punching and Beyond

Okay, so this didn’t turn out to be the quick post I thought it’d be. Hopefully it’s easy to understand and hopefully it’ll get you (or a teacher colleague) started building and blowing stuff up in Minecraft.

Things change and apparently I make mistakes from time to time (who knew?), so if I got something wrong or missed something, feel free to let me know in the comments.

And one final plug: if you’re a teacher looking for a friendly, mixed-age, educator-focused world to learn and play on, then check out the GamingEdus Professional Learning server. We’re n00b friendly, kid-friendly and there to help. Come play with us!

Happy gaming.

–

As an award-winning children’s author, gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have Tech Teaching ideas and project news to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.

If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change.

You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.

Thanks!

Liam

Multi-School Minecraft server in action!

I do a lot of talking about alternative literacies in education, like graphic novels and video games. On Friday, February 1st, I’ll will be talking Minecraft with my GamingEdu pals at the Ontario Library Association’s Super Conference 2013in Toronto.

Librarians and Teacher-Librarians from across the province (and beyond) will be in town to talk books, libraries and other fun stuff. We’ll be there to talk about our Multi-School Minecraft server project and hopefully blow some stuff up (in game, of course).

I’m really excited for this year’s Super Conference because normally I’m there as a children’s author. That’s fun because I get to sign my latest book and meet the amazing people who get my stories into the hands of young readers.

This year, I’m going as a Teacher-Librarian to show how myself, Denise Colby and Diana Maliszewski use video games like Minecraft in our libraries.

We’ll be talking about the successes and challenges of our Multi-School Minecraft server project, where 30 kids from 3 inner-city schools share  1 Minecraft server. They build together, kill together and then write about it all on their shared wiki.

We gave a similar talk in October at the ECOO 2012 Conference and it was a blast, literally. We brought a bunch of laptops and invited teachers to play on the server. It was a loud, chaotic mess of learning and fun. And we’re doing it again.

If can’t make it to Toronto, but you’re interested in learning more about using Minecraft with your students, come play with us on our Professional Learning Minecraft Server. We’re n00bing it up nightly.

If you are coming to the OLA Super Conference, drop by our talk at 3:45 on Friday, Feb 1st and say hi!

We’ll save some TNT for you.

–

As an award-winning children’s author, gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have Tech Teaching ideas and project news to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.

If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change.

You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.

Thanks!

Liam

Play the game yourself. For fun.

As surprising as it might sound, this simple suggestion is often the one thing a teacher doesn’t do. As adults, we are often very reluctant to ‘play’ for play’s sake. This is unfortunate because play is essential to successfully use games in the classroom.

Playing Games = Respecting Games

I’ve been playing video games since I was a kid and never stopped. I play to unwind, connect with friends and have fun. It seems that for many educators playing video games is still seen as something only kids do. It’s something to grow out of. This, despite tons of evidence to suggest otherwise.

Still, I repeatedly talk to teachers who want to use games in their classroom, but don’t want to actually play the games themselves. There’s always the same reason: no time. That worries me because when you choose to bring something into your classroom to engage and build your students’ learning , you must respect it yourself. If you don’t, the kids will know. And then you’re in trouble.

Minecraft is a great example. (You were wondering when Minecraft was going to come up, weren’t you?) Without diving into Minecraft, exploring it and spending time building, surviving or whatever, you cannot know the game. If you don’t know the game, you don’t know it’s potential. You don’t know the amazing possibilities it can offer your students. And you don’t know what to do when things go wrong. You won’t know what advice to give the student trapped in a hole unless you’ve been trapped yourself. You won’t be able to make build suggestions to a redstone-tinkering student unless you’ve done some tinkering yourself. In short, you won’t speak the same language as your students. You won’t be literate in the language their speaking. And that’s no place from which to teach.

Hope for Non-Gaming Edus

But all is not lost, non-gaming teachers! You have your holiday break approaching. What a perfect time to find a game of your choice and settle in for a marathon gaming session. You did it for Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey. Why not do it for Minecraft, Portal or Civilization or another game you could justify bringing into your classroom? Play. Have fun. Consider it Professional Development.

And speaking of fun PD: Teachers looking to dive into Minecraft this holiday break are invited to play on the GamingEdus Professional Learning server. Teachers and their kids from around the globe are building, playing and sharing ideas in Minecraft. Get a Minecraft account and fill out the White List request and you’ll be blowing stuff up with us in no time.

Check out the video tour here:

Happy Gaming!

–

As an award-winning children’s author, gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have Tech Teaching ideas and project news to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.

If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change.

You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.

Thanks!

Liam

Inviting teachers to play on the laptops at ECOO2012. Photo: Timothy King (@tk1ng) Used totally without his permission, but I know he'll gank me on the battlefield anyway, so we're good.

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of talking Minecraft with my two GamingEdu pals, Diana Maliszewski and Denise Colby and many, many fantastic educators at the ECOO 2012 conference. We were there presenting our talk: Playing with TNT and Other Lessons from Minecraft. It was designed to be a look back at the successes and challenges of last year’s Multi-School Minecraft Server project.  It ended up being a loud, packed, energetic Minecraft gaming session and it couldn’t have gone better.

The fun started 15 minutes before we were set to start. I opened the doors to our conference room to see five girls, eagerly clutching ECOO programs.

“Is this the Minecraft session?” they asked.

I had no idea there’d be kids at a teacher’s conference but I welcomed them in and quickly found out they were BIG Minecraft fans. Denise, Diana and I knew we wanted teachers to have a chance to play the game during our talk, so we had laptops set up on the table at the front and connected to our GamingEdus server.  I invited the girls to play and within minutes they were smashing bricks and riding the trains that connect our starting area.

As teachers drifted into the room, the first thing they saw was Minecraft in action with real students at the controls, all projected on to the large screen at the front of the room. We couldn’t have created a better welcoming atmosphere if we tried. And thats not counting the fact Diana was running around the conference dressed as a creeper inviting people to our session – brilliant!

The room was packed by starting time, with people even standing at the back. It was great to see so many educators curious about using games in the classroom.

We kicked off the session and jumped into the how’s and why’s of using Minecraft and the Multi-School Server project. Check out the slides for all the details on that. For me, the best part of the session was when we stopped talking and asked if people wanted to come play on our server.  The answer was a definite yes.

People came up front and started running around our server. I did some running too, busily handing out guest accounts to people with laptops. Others were downloading the Minecraft Pocket Edition for their Ipads. Pretty soon, the place was filled with the noise of blocks smashing and creepers blowing up. It was messy, loud and fantastic.

Then there was a call for more stories about our experience with using Minecraft in our classrooms. So, we switched back to presentation mode and talked about how our reluctant-writer students were updating their wiki pages on the weekends, how they built artifacts from the game out of found materials and basically how much we as teachers learned from this whole process.

After many questions, our hour was up. I, for one left energized and excited and ready to get this year’s Multi-School Server up and running. Thanks to my Gaming Edu colleagues, all the fantastic teachers who came out and played with us and to those students who showed up and showed us teachers why video games rock.

If you’re a teacher and you’re interested in learning more about our Minecraft servers, visit us at gamingedus.org and request to be white listed on our server. We’d be happy to play and learn with you!

In the meantime, you can check out the slides from our talk below.

–

As a gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have Tech Teaching ideas to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.

If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change.

You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.

Thanks!

Liam

Triangular vistas in Patterns

Earlier this month, Linden Lab released a very early beta-version of their new sandbox game, Patterns. Clearly inspired by Mojang, Patterns takes the block-building structure Minecraft and adds two very interesting elements: triangles and physics.

I downloaded the Genesis release of Patterns and noobed it up for a while yesterday. I came away feeling that Linden Labs has a potential hit on its hands and that gaming educators around the world should be very excited about the potential this game has for learning.

Below are my first thoughts on Patterns with from an educators point of view. Check out the video at the bottom of the post, where I learn gravity beats a dirt tower every time and wheels are fun to make!

Genesis Release: Limited Tools, Unlimited Potential

I played the first release, known as the Genesis Release, which is a very early beta version of the game. Tools and worlds are limited, but already I see huge potential with what can be created. Already you can stack, rotate and modify some of the shapes. As more tools roll out, I’m excited to see where these basic building blocks will lead.

Minecraft Inspired but not a Clone

A hexagon wheel ready for rolling.

While the crew at Linden Lab openly admit to learning lessons from Mojang, Patterns is definitely not one of the countless derivative Minecraft clones. In fact, I’d say that Linden Lab are the real pioneers when it comes to sandbox games.

With Patterns, they’ve learned lessons from Second Life about creating usable GUI and a building system that doesn’t take a month to learn. I was building stuff within seconds of logging in. Unlike my time spent in Second Life where I never could get the structure building worked out before I just gave up.

LL has also learned from Mojang to release a small beta first and quickly add content/tools. I’ve enjoyed watching Minecraft evolve from basic single player version to the household name it is today. It will be interesting to see where this path leads Patterns.

Triangles & Physics FTW!

The dreaded d8 Snake of Doom!

Seriously, what sets this game apart is the potential that added shapes bring and the built-in physic engine that let trees fall and bricks roll. I can see math teachers losing their minds over the geometry lessons to come.

The built in physics engine brings something that I’ve always wanted in Minecraft: gravity! Engineering and Science teachers are going to have a ball building stuff that interacts with other stuff with plausible, real laws of physics (as far as I can tell.)

Patterns in Action

Check out the game in this quick First Impressions of Patterns video I made. In it, I discover why columns made of dirt aren’t all their cracked up to be and how to make a wheel roll down stairs. Good times.

If you’re a teacher who’s interested in using games with your students, or if you’re a Minecraft fan, then you should definitely check out Patterns as soon as you can.

These are my thoughts on Patterns. I’d love to hear what other gamers and educators think of this new game. Leave a comment and let me know!

–

As a gamer-geek and elementary school teacher, I often have Tech Teaching ideas to share with fellow educators. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my e-newsletter Reading Change.

If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change.

You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.

Thanks!

Liam

So, I was totally excited to be asked to be a judge for the Skerries Soundwaves Minecraft Competition. It’s an amazing event run by Sabine McKenna, an educator and Minecrafter living in Skerries, Ireland. She’s also the creator of Primary Minecraft, a site dedicated to helping primary school teachers use Minecraft and other video games in their classrooms.

There’s so many things to love about this project: it’s part of a larger community festival (yah communities!), it’s happening in Ireland (yah Ireland!), it takes place in Minecraft, it’s original and, best of all, the winning prize is a box of chocolate. So, it’s not about the prize, but about the fun of taking part. I think you could say win three times and that’d sum it all up.

The theme for the competition is “Skerries in 3012“, so I’m looking forward to seeing what the future Ireland will look like! The judging takes place on Saturday and I can’t wait to go in game and check out the builds.

In the meantime, you can learn more about the project at their website, or check out their facebook page for screenshots of the builds.

Watch this space on news of the winners and thanks again Skerriescrafters for inviting me to take part!

The whole process was a lot of fun and I think the show sounds great (although I still have a hard time hearing my own voice.) I want to thank the whole Babel crew for inviting me to participate.

One of the best moments of the interview actually happened after the mics were turned off. It wasn’t recorded, but it captured perfectly the connection video games can have to all our lives and the true potential they have for education (and it doesn’t involve badges.)

Connecting through Minecraft flowers

I can go on and on when it comes to the value of video games as spaces for learning. Sometimes when I speak, I can tell from people’s expressions  that I’m not explaining things well or making my arguments clear. This was happening during my interview when I was explaining Minecraft to Mariel Borelli, the show’s host. I don’t think she’d ever seen the game before, and I wasn’t explaining it very well. I could tell she was asking herself  “What is so special about this game for learning?”

Thankfully, I brought my laptop and was able to actually show the game in action. I ran my avatar around the world, digging dirt and placing blocks and explaining about how the true power of Minecraft (and other video games) is the connection it makes to a player’s real life (students or adults) and how those connections can spark opportunities for investigation, inquiry, reading, writing and all that other stuff that goes on report cards.

As I was blathering on, Mariel was listening politely, but I could still tell she was wondering what the heck was so special about blocks of dirt. Then, she saw it.

“Flowers!” she said when she spotted the roses in my inventory open.  Her eyes lit up and I knew it had happened. A connection had been made.

Mariel explained that she likes to garden and wanted to see how planting a flower worked in the game.  And that’s the moment I’ve seen in dozens of students (and adults) when they first play Minecraft. It’s the look of a connection being made to their real lives outside the game. It’s from this connection that inquiry comes from. Where can I plant a flower? How do I make a garden? And on and on.

No Badges Required

With all this talk of badges and gamifying our classrooms, I think many educators are missing the real power of video games as learning spaces. It’s the connection to our inner motivations that make people come back to the games over and over again. At their core, video games connect with each of us on some personal level (I want to be the hero! I want to be explore this topic/identity/whatever.)  As more and more educators bring games into their classroom, I feel it’s important that their true power (connection, identity, exploration) not get lost under a sea of achievements, experience points or levels.

Beyond the shine of badges, video games are about connection to something inside each of us. As a teacher, I work to spot that moment of connection in a student and be ready to feed that inquiry with resources and guidance. Where it goes from there, is up to the learner. No badges necessary.

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Curious about using Minecraft your students? Play with us on the GamingEdus server. Learn the game, share ideas with other educators and have fun. Visit GamingEdus.org to learn more.

In addition to planting flowers in Minecraft, I write award-winning kids books and teach elementary school. I often have Tech Teaching resources and ideas to share with fellow educators and librarians. I deliver these resources and ideas to your inbox in my monthly e-newsletter Reading Change.

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Thanks!

Liam