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Recently, we discussed the Oregon Trail of our youth and the benefits of gamification, but Minecraft is going much further , bringing games into the classroom. Minecraft is a huge hit with children all over the world. The game that started as a small two-person company in a small French town has grown and consumed millions of little brains, with more than 200 million copies sold. Welcome to my blog Minecraft stands out from all other blockbuster games because of its blurry and graphically sluggish graphics. Simply put, the game is made up of crafting and mining. First, you search for resources, and then use them in order to build other items. The first goal is to build a shelter to keep yourself safe during nighttime, which happens every four hours. If you do not succeed then skeletons, spiders and zombies will eat your brains, and your character will die. Parents, don’t be worried there’s not blood or gore in Minecraft monster-fighting. The above description is educational however, according to researchers, Minecraft can actually teach children how to behave in real-world situations. The game is what is called an “open-ended Sandbox” which means there are no instructions and it can be difficult at first. Kids and adults alike are required to investigate and try to determine what is going on inside the game. There are sites like Minecraft Wiki designed to assist curious minds navigate the game. My seven-year old daughter was looking at YouTube videos that she had found when she searched for Minecraft assistance. Children can also get assistance from their peers who are also Minecraft players who are aiming to achieve the same goals to learn tips and tricks. The game’s resources are extremely useful. Other players can attack a character , killing them (remember that there isn’t blood) and then take all their treasures. To succeed players have to learn how to safeguard their belongings from other players in order to avoid conflict. There is always the possibility that one of the builders might be angry and ruin hours of hard work. In the end, Minecraft is a dog-eats-dog world. As cruel as it may sound, kids are still mesmerized by the game and spend hours and hours constructing their home, town historic monument, or anything else you can imagine. In Minecraft there are no limits and there is no limit to what your creativity can create. It is easy to see how Minecraft can be used to tackle real-world problems. This can be accomplished by collaboration, social skills, and security awareness. This is precisely why many educators have opted to use Minecraft to use in their classrooms. Minecraftedu.com is specifically designed to assist teachers and children in a classroom. Minecraftedu.com has thousands of teacher licenses. This has enabled children to learn important life lessons in a fun environment. The foundation features lesson plans that are developed by educators every day to function as a group or community.

As the video clip shows, digital citizenship is becoming increasingly important as technology grows more dependent on it. Children need to be able to comprehend online safety, bullying and etiquette. Minecraft is a game that is engaging for children and helps them to adopt digital citizenship concepts in a controlled, classroom environment.

As a major advocate for STEAM education (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) we encourage our local youth to explore technology at an early age and discover how far their creativity can take them. Find out more about our STEAM initiatives here when we take an elementary school and a bunch of cool gadgets such as the Raspberry Pi to explore what we can learn from each other.