Sounds weird but it’s part of a new wave of games based learning that schools all over the world are using. With over 100 million copies of Minecraft sold, it’s reach is only surpassed by Tetris and now with the officially backed “MinecraftEdu”, Minecraft has the opportunity to be one of the staples of the classroom experience.
If you go into a classroom of primary school kids and ask who plays Minecraft, chances are you will get an enthusiastic and the affirmative will be an overwhelming majority. Boys and girls love Minecraft equally which is an amazing achievement for an industry which has been very much male focused for a long time. So the first hurdle of classroom engagement has already been done for you.
So what has Minecraft been used for in a classroom setting? Here are a few examples:
- Maths
The obvious subject was always maths because of the cubic nature of the game. Students learn about volume, digital to physical objects, map co-ordinates, the game lends itself to endless possibilities in this area
- Foreign language
The signs in the game gives teachers a way to have a quest where the instructions are in a foreign language and the student has to recall the words to proceed
- Social Studies
Deforestation of the games forests, doing a 'haves' and the 'not-haves' experiment
- Digital citizenship
Online privacy, communication, collaboration and being responsible for your actions online
- Geography
The entire country of Denmark has been recreated in Minecraft at a 1:1 scale and can be downloaded as a file to explore! Click here to learn more.
- Quantum physics
Yes that’s right, quantum physics. There’s a version of Minecraft that is dedicated to showing and teaching quantum physics in action called 'qCraft'.
The are countless ways Minecraft can be used in the classroom and these only scratch the surface of what’s available and what can be created.
Click here for more information on MinecraftEdu.