Minecraft has been a source of endless entertainment and a mean to let our creative (or destructive) juices flow for several years now. Now, you might start seeing this best selling game within classrooms.
Microsoft posted a news announcement on their website stating that they had purchased the rights to MinecraftEdu, a third-party application made by Teacher Gaming LLC that uses the Minecraft engine in an educational manner. “By creating a virtual world and then advancing in it, students can learn digital citizenship, empathy, social skills and even improve their literacy,” wrote Anthony Salcito, Microsoft’s Vice President of World Education. He addresses the fact that over 7,000 classrooms in more than 40 countries already use Minecraft as an educational tool, such as a New Zealand college that is re-creating the landscape of the 1915 Gallipoli campaign, and American middle schools using the game to learn about coding.
Salcito continues, stating that the partnership between Microsoft and MinecraftEdu “will offer an expanded set of features to empower educators to foster deeper student engagement and collaboration.” A Minecraft Mentors program is also in the works, which is meant to pair those familiar with using Minecraft in a classroom setting to those who have little to no experience with the game.
It will be exciting to see where this project goes, especially for millennials who have children entering school for the first time. I really wish we had this sort of thing back when I was in grade school instead of Mavis Beacon!
MinecraftEdu will be rebranded as Minecraft Education Edition, and will be available this summer for free trial.
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