A Debate about MineCraft use in school

[Westfield_Techie]

I have challenged a student to give me some really good reasons for allowing use of Minecraft within school.

 

I have also said that I would find some reasons why not to allow minecraft in school (I feel I should point out I love minecraft!!).

 

The Student went online and instantly sent me 8 or so links from websites recommending uses for school. so I thought "I'm a geek!!" so am posting here for some really constructive reasons why not to allow minecraft in school and perhaps anybody's experiences of using minecraft in school if you have been brave enough.

 

Thanks to you all for reading and responding.

 

EDUGEEK ROCKS!!!

[SovietRussia]

Because you are here to learn, not to play minecraft?

[X-13]

Because you are here to learn, not to play minecraft?

 

Why not do both? [/fiesta]

[Bertie_Dellend]

We stopped it because the year 7 boys were taking most pc's available at lunch and breaks to play it.

Students who wanted a pc to "work" on either couldn't get on one or were being disturbed by the racket the boys made while playing.

[synaesthesia]

It's no more educational than having Doom or Sonic the Hedgehog on there, they have the same value.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Can it be used constructively? I'm all for games aiding learning. Sim City for example could be an excellent learning aid for geograpgy and the like. Not directly clearly but it gets you thinking about infrastructure and management.

 

If you can't use minecraft in a similar way then bin it and find them something they can use.

[Ephelyon]

Here are two resources to support its constructive use within education:

 

 

MinecraftEdu :: Home

[plexer]

Does this count? Printcraft

 

Ben

[Hacksawbob]

Hi I have been playing MC with my daughter for the last couple of months and really getting into it myself (Just managed to craft my first brewing stand last night!) . The obvious issue with an immersive world is that it removes you from "reality". Real world time suddenly seems not to matter any more and for people like me who are afflicted by an active imagination can get totally involved in a game and every thing else becomes secondary. MC requires a LOT of time to be rewarding when played in its vanilla format.

I am sure they have their own creeper filled worlds at home which they disappear into of an evening, but I want to try something a bit different. I am going to do an introduction to programming/circuits with the use of redstone levers comparitors etc this allows the use of logic gates (AND NOT etc) . The idea came about when my daughter was learning how to use redstone and following some youtube video on how to automatically harvest with pistons and water while in creative mode. I had a lightbulb moment. So I asked her to create a "quiz chamber" for a multiplication that she found hard to remember 7X8=. Initially I though this would just help reinforce the answer so she wouldn't forget it. We set up a one way door with all sorts of "dare you enter the quiz chamber" signs outside. then on the wall we put the question with 3 answers and three levers. The correct one opened the door at the far end and gave you a prize (chest with gold block) the other two levers initially just filled the chamber with water... then we changed it so the incorrect answer flushed you down to the end of the world to your certain doom! The problem solving involved in setting this up testing, altering testing again to get it just right was every bit as challenging as writing a software program or programming an arduino. We changed the walls from cobble stone to bedrock so you couldn't dig your way out, I kept finding "bugs" in her design then she would redesign to get around it. Later we added additional chambers that each had a different form of "certain doom" for the wrong answer ie lava . So I went in trying to teach one thing and we ended up learning something far more valuable!

 

I am going to be trialing this with some year 6 in the next couple of weeks to see how we get on. I have only got half an hour during lunch but it's saved so they can come back to it the following week. I have a ultraflat world with no mobs or nether so there are no "distractions" I am going to run it as a domain minecraft user account which can be disabled when not required. there is a MinecraftEdu :: Resources version which if it works out I may look into.

Edited June 25, 2013 by Hacksawbob