Not a new concept at all.
I allowed students last year to use it to sharing their understanding through game based learning.

A lot of my boys and girls LOVE to play minecraft, any chance that they are given free time about 80% of them are on minecraft.

There has been a few opportunities this year where they have used this game to explore and share.
A few students used our term 2 Genius Time projects to use minecraft to design things.
– Design a town
– Design a stadium

My students also used this game in maths when we were looking at fractions.
They designed a garden which had to include certain things such as 1/4 of the garden was an orchard, 1/6 contained 2 sheds. Garden beds had to have at least 1 line of symmetry.
Such a simple thing allowing the students to create this on minecraft instead of doing it in their maths book but it is has proved multiple times to be effective.

The first time a student asked me to use minecraft last year, I hadn’t used it myself.
However; I didn’t let that stop me from saying yes. I trusted the student, and eventually students, and I sat there watching them create and I was able to have conversations with them along the way so they could share their learning. In a similar situation I allowed some students to use videostar to share their learning during a history unit. Had I used it before … NO … Did I then say no to those students … NO.

I suppose the point of this post is that I didn’t and don’t let my understanding always dictate what the students can use to share and demonstrate their learning. We are in a fast moving society and our students are going to discover things before we do, of course- they don’t have to prep lessons 🙂 haha

Trust the students. As long as the students can explain the game to me and how it will help them learn or share their learning I am one happy teacher. It shows the students are taking control of their learning! Woooo 😀

How do you use minecraft in your classroom?
Add your comment below and share 🙂