Minecraft For Education - Teacher Academy - Modules 1-5

Kia ora koutou,

I decided it was finally time to get my head around Minecraft, especially after seeing what some Ako Hiko students were creating. Check out this awesome blog post.

So I started the Minecraft For Education: Teacher Academy and I'm really enjoying it. If you want to look into it here's the link. For fellow facilitators you can ask your Fusion person to set you up with one of your school accounts.

I didn't think about a blog post until I was well into module 4 but I thought I'd share some things I've been learning.

Camera, portfolio, book and quill 

These are all tools that students can use as evidence of their progress and to document their creations. They are a great way for students to reflect on their learning and they are able to be exported.

A photo from my portfolio (sunrise selfie)

Slates, posters and boards 

These are all ways of providing rewindable instructions for groups or students. The only differences between the three are their sizes. What a great way to scaffold learners into tasks. The is also an immersive reader built in so if students aren't confident reading the text they can have it read for them.

A poster (middle sized) with some instructions. 

Non-player characters (NPCs) 

You can spawn non-player characters for students to interact with during the game. These NPCs can give further instructions, give links to external resources (e.g. YouTube videos) or prompt students to carry out commands (e.g. open the door).

 

NPC before clicking on them.

NPC after clicking on them.

Monthly Build Challenges

These sound like good places to start to introduce Minecraft to students. Also on this screen you can see How To Play which are little interactive tutorials that have been super helpful for me as a total beginner.

So I'm about half way through now. You earn little badges as you go which is nice. Funnily enough this latest one is the only one I haven't got 100% on.

See you later for modules 6-11...