Synopses & Reviews
Learn how educators are using Minecraft® as a powerful instructional tool to engage students and teach subjects as varied as math and humanities.
This book offers ten classroom projects from teachers using Minecraft® to teach math, science, languages, and more. Each project includes learning objectives, project organization and tasks, and ideas for reflection and assessments.
You’ll also find detailed instructions for setting up and running a Minecraft® server in the classroom, both the regular and the popular MinecraftEdu versions.
In this book, you’ll discover
- What Minecraft® is and why it’s such an engaging tool for the classroom.
- How to set up and administer servers that students use for their projects.
- What MinecraftEdu is, how to set up and manage it, and how to use its teacher controls.
- Techniques for using the game in special-education settings.
- Step-by-step instructions for printing 3D models of your classroom projects.
- Ways to use the game in a variety of different subject areas.
You’ll find essential advice and captivating projects for using Minecraft® to enhance students’ learning experience from educators using Minecraft® in the Classroom: Shane Asselstine, Dan Bloom, André Chercka, Adam Clarke, Stephen Elford, Colin Gallagher, David Lee, John Miller, Eric Walker, and James York.
Minecraft® is a trademark of Mojang Synergies/Notch Development AB. This book is not affiliated with or sponsored by Mojang Synergies/Notch Development AB.
Synopsis
Teachers are attracted to using Minecraft in the classroom more and more because it engages their students with a game they already play and allows teachers to be creative in how they teach a subject. Simply put, teachers have taken advantage of the openness of Minecraft to fit its gameplay to a variety of educational topics, from humanities to quantum physics. This book is for teachers who don't have the time or who don't yet have the knowledge to start using Minecraft in the classroom. The book starts with a description of what Minecraft is and then explores the pros and cons of the vanilla version and MinecraftEdu. It also shows how to set up and run a basic server; as well as how to set up and administer a MinecraftEdu server.
The book then jumps into a collection of 20 or so five-to-ten page lesson plans, each lesson plan starting with a short introduction—an interview with the teacher who created the lesson plan—that may include an "A-ha!" student moment. A chapter looks specifically at Digital Citizenship and how to use the Internet to successfully engage in society.
About the Author
Colin Gallagher is an educator based in Singapore who loves computer games and using computer games in education. Colin is the host of Minechat YouTube channel and editor of edutechniques.com, an educational technology website. Colin have been named an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Teacher and has given a TedX talk on bringing technology into the classroom.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. What is Minecraft?
3. MinecraftEdu–Setup, advantages/disadvantages
4. Minecraft Vanilla–Setup, advantages/disadvantages
5. Minecraft Personal Edition–iPads/Android
6. Minecraft in Education - Why?
7. Minecraft and Teaching Humanities
8. Minecraft and Teaching Science
9. Minecraft and Teaching Math
10. Minecraft and Language Learning
11. Minecraft and Interdisciplinary Projects
12. Minecraft and Digital Citizenship
13. Minecraft and Homeschooling
14. Minecraft in Education–The Future