Minecraft - What's Wrong With These People?!?

Crikey!!! What exactly leads people to put the kind of time in necessary to create this?!? The sheer commitment necessary for building all of the land of Westeros (from Game of Thrones) in Minecraft almost beggars belief. (If you’re a Game of Thrones fan and have a copy of Minecraft you can wander Westeros yourself - the project is hosted on a joinable server.) Of course this is just one project among many, many projects in Minecraft where people pour mad amounts of time into creating things in a virtual, blocky world. Though don’t be fooled by Minecraft’s simple look and anyone who tells you it’s a simple game because it isn’t. Like anything that is well designed, it hides its complexity well so that anyone can jump in and start making things without too much trouble. Digging holes is pretty jolly simple. Creating a fully working computer with redstone circuits is a bit more complex. Digging some iron ore, building a smelter and creating a minecart, tracks and a simple rollercoaster is a slightly more time consuming while some people get a bit crazy building, highly complex, automated minecart systems.

So if Minecraft is a game that people sink mad amounts of time into, what’s different about this to any other game and what’s this got to do with education? In recent years, games without any specific goal or end point have begun to pique the interest of gamers and non gamers alike. This is quite a big break from the traditional game design funded by large production companies which asserts that games need a goal if people are going to want to play them. The huge capacity that Minecraft has for creativity comes from a combination of its lack of a set goal or end point (which tends to restrict players somewhat in the long run) and the continued detail and complexity its creators, Mojang, continue to add to it. Players can choose to engage in the details of various parts of the game or not, it’s really up to them whether or not they’re interested in a particular aspect of it.

And this is where the educational aspect comes in. As teachers, we can lever off the incredible energy and enthusiasm the game typically elicits and can also use the game engine’s amazing capacity for creativity in ways that are relevant to our curriculum areas and learning intentions. If you think that’s a bit far fetched, check out this reddit which nicely covers the usual discussion-progression around whether or not games can be used in education. The first part is taken up with people asking how the heck Minecraft could be used in education at all until about three quarters of the way down, “furiant” points out the following: “Simply giving kids a computer with minecraft on it and telling them to go wild is probably a poor method of teaching. But Minecraft could be incorporated into many fields of learning. What's the first thing you do when you load a new world in Minecraft? Punch trees. But imagine your world not being an endless canvas. If you don't plant saplings from that tree, you'll soon run out of resources. This teaches renewal of nature. Got a building you no longer use? Instead of cutting down more trees, tear it down and reuse the materials in your next project. This teaches conservation and recycling. Redstone can be used to teach simple logic gates. Note blocks can be utilized to instruct basic music theory. As the game grows, more and more instances open up that can be used for education. It's all in how you apply it.” I’m not sure if furiant is a teacher or not, but he/she has certainly got a clear idea of one of the main roles for a teacher in the 21st century, well in my opinion at least - figuring out and levering the educational capacity and connections with technologies our learners are already using. And more often than not, these technologies might push the boundaries of what we traditionally think teaching and learning should look like.

At any rate, back to Minecraft and some specific teaching and learning possibilities. Exactly how these work might not make sense if you haven’t played or seen Minecraft so you’ll just have to believe my claims here:

• Maths (measurement and estimation, growth rates, statistics etc)
• Science (sustainability and ecology, food chains, agriculture etc)
• Social sciences (architecture, culture, mythology)
• English (creative writing – narrative, exploration, dialogue, scripting)
• Digital technology (programming, logic, binary and electronics)

And that list is far from exhaustive, it’s really just what I could come up with an internet trawl. That list listed, I’d actually go on suggest that dividing the potential of the game into curriculum areas might actuallydetract from the amazing front-end curriculum possibilities in the its demands for collaboration. In some of the larger projects in Westeros, nearly 100 builders collaborated on constructing the castles, islands, cities and landmarks from Game of Thrones. Some pretty intense coordination right there I’d imagine.

Another really, really cool thing about Minecraft (especially if you’re worrying whether you’ve got the prerequisite nerd skills to have a go at using it for teaching) is MinecraftEdu. The main programmer of this mod (who’s also a teacher) has created a version of the game that adds a whole bunch of functionality with education and teachers trying to assist a class full of students towards a learning intention(s) specifically in mind. They’re also even licensed to sell single copies of minecraft at half price to educational institutes increasing the potential for a whole class to get going on it. If you want an idea of what teachers are doing with Minecraft, MinecraftEdu have also listed some nice examples of teachers using Minecraft in education here.

Another reason you might want to think about taking a punt on using Minecraft in the classroom is that many of the teachers using it are just as crazy-prolific as everyone else and they’re sharing their content and experiences. Eric (click on the top post to expand) is one example of a teacher happily providing some absolutely amazing content in his mod “The World of Humanities.” Of course remembering that as always, we can’t just tell, “them [the students] to go wild,” in Minecraft. If we do, it’s unlikely they’ll engage with our learning intentions. We might need to also need to guide our students with something like the tools in MinecraftEdu, good planning and considered learning relationships to get the learning we’re after.

Finally, I thought I’d share my thoughts on what I think is Minecraft’s biggest drawcard - authenticity. Imagine students participating in the scenario outlined in this thread on the MinecraftEdu forum. Whenever we’re teaching in a classroom, we’re always challenged by devising and creating authentic contexts. Most of the time we’re making them up from scratch and without actually conducting a foray into the ‘real’ world with a field trip, most of our contexts are theoretical or at least fabricated to some degree. While Minecraft is obviously a virtual experience, I still get excited by the thought of a student not only learning some solid front-end curriculum skills while collaborating with others to grow their trees before moving onto their next island in the above scenario, I’m also imagining the excitement of exploration and adventure as students swim from island to island, unravelling the story as they go. And all this combines to what I’m guessing makes the chances of them remembering and understanding the concepts of sustainability and conservation far more likely than if they sat around listening to their teacher, or even some expert on a youtube video talking about it. The other really cool thing about this example (and if the 700 hours put into “The World of Humanties” freaked you out, you’ll like this) is that once you’ve got some basic building skills in MinecraftEdu actually creating the scenario that this teacher has outlined wouldn’t take very long at all. Exciting stuff!

So if you’re keen to give it a shot, book your computer lab, talk to the tech person and see how many students already have a copy of Minecraft on their own computers. If you can’t talk the relevant budget holder into getting a test copy of Minecraft you could always land your own copy for twenty euros. You never know, you might even enjoy the game yourself!