As much as it pains me to say it, I’ve been converted!

I’ve mocked my youngest daughter for her time spent in the Minecraft universe, “playing with blocks.”  I’ve taunted my oldest daughter about using her boyfriend’s account to build and be dorky. Heck, I’ve mocked a lot of people in my head for the money and time spent on this game.

However, we’ve started toying with the idea of using Minecraft in our tiered study hall system.  We’ve also toyed with possibly adding it into our tech sessions for next year.  So of course, I get tweets from one of my teaching partners: “Oh check this out!” “I’m putting you in charge of this!” “Oh wouldn’t this be awesome!”

Well, if we are going to be doing this, I suppose I better figure the dang thing out, kick the tires, and see if it will fit for our group.  So, I attended a #MinecraftED chat on Twitter to see what things were about in the Twittersphere and found lots of happy, helpful, and uber-excited teachers!  Lots of great ideas and I grabbed onto their archive to save some great links.  Next, I dropped a little cash to purchase a regular Minecraft license and started in.

#wow

Not just wow about the game (which is pretty cool in itself) but wow in “look at all the skill needed to play this game”!  My daughter and I spent Wednesday night geeking out playing in our separate worlds.  She’s been playing more than I have, so was able to offer some advice for certain things (“Dad, don’t fall into holes!!”), and I actually was able to point out something right off the bat that she didn’t know either. But I can see where students could be working together, building something, each with a certain set of skill they could be teaching to the other. The creation portion of this game is a struggle for me because I am very much a black and white kind of person. However, this has pushed me to be more creative, looking at how different materials can be combined to make a new tool or material. If it’s pushing an old dog like me, how would it be to let young minds loose to make something?

So, I’m creating a whole new folder in my bookmarks specifically for *sigh* Minecraft. Some days, I wonder how much more I can stretch my mind, and something like this comes along, showing me there’s much left to learn for the good of my students!

And in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about? 🙂

Now, if anyone has suggestions on resources, how they’ve moved a class or a lesson into the Minecraft world, or a detection system for Creepers (got blown up twice yesterday), I’ll take all with great appreciation! 🙂