Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Well, that was interesting! Or, never assume anything.



After the positive experience the students had last class, even though the situation was less than perfect, and owing to the avalanche of enthusiasm, we decided that even though the accounts were not set up, we should run the class. We thought that we could achieve a version of the class by combining Minecraft accounts from various places. I offered 2 of mine, we assumed a few students would have accounts and the tech person offered one of his.

This seemed like a good idea until it came to light that most of the students Minecraft experience was based on the iPad version. As a result only 1 student actually had a Minecraft account. This gave us a total of 4 accounts for 20 students. Eventually we put together a total of 7 accounts thanks to the support of our awesome tech guy.

The plan for the class was to pair the students with Minecraft experience with the students new to Minecraft (lovingly called noobs) and get them to teach the noobs. The challenge was that they had to teach their partner how to use the basics of Minecraft without using the keyboard and mouse themselves. It was interesting to observe the inner struggle that some went through initially when they couldn’t simply take over and show.

The goal that we gave the students was that together they had to make a house that included,
  • 2 rooms
  • a front door
  • a door joining the 2 rooms
  • a window


Given the issues we faced with accounts at the start of the lessons some students only had a brief amount of time in Minecraft but even so the enthusiasm and camaraderie was great to observe.

The conversations around the room that the staff observed were really positive and supportive. We also observed students using a broad range of Minecraft specific words terminology. On numerous occasions we observed that when the experienced student realised that their partner didn’t understand what was being said, they then had to reflect on what they wanted to say and then say it in a way that their partner could understand.

All in all the lesson was a success. We based this on the fact that the new students could apply their knowledge without assistance in minecraft, they all said they felt they learnt something and felt good about the session. The session was also a success from that staffs point of view. We learnt to never start anything until we have all the licences, and the logins have been tested.

Getting Behind

Usually I like to have every problem sorted and tested before I am prepared to start a program.  This time I broke my own rules and as could be expected we are now all dealing with the consequences.

The overwhelming enthusiasm of the students for a Minecraft project was infectious so we agreed to kick start the program thinking that in two weeks we would be able to get the licenses, create the accounts and begin.

We had an  issue getting the license keys from Minecraft Edu.  The problem was our payment had not been processed and the communication to straighten this out took a few days.

Once we had the accounts we had to create email account for each license.  As we did not want the students using their own email accounts we had to create 25 of our own.  While this may not seem such a massive job, in a busy school with limited time this took us a number of days to sort out.

In future I will go back to my normal plan, build, test, stress test then start a pilot program.

 

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Plan for Week 6 Session 3


Week 6

Session 3

Task two

Creative mode

Free for all!

 Sand box session, build, move, explore and build

TEAMs of four

Magic one minute, for team to decide and report on what will be built.

Then in teams go and build it in 20 minutes

Teams get a period of time to reflect using these focus questions,

 How did they work as a team?

What worked well?

 What could be better?

What would they identify as a focus for future students they will be tutoring?

Teams Report back on their findings/discussion and show what they have built.

Reflection Session 2 week 5


Week 5 REFLECTIONS

NOTE - Explore phase is necessary to have the kids get in and have a go before asking them to complete specific tasks. They need time to “play” in this early phase.

 Identified Future focus Skills

Time management

 Planning

Team and peer tutors

Communication

-         verbalise and relay ideas, concepts and skills

-         build vocab terms related to the project, develop on this

-         Build student ability to Identify audience, communicate in an appropriate way - use of example and demonstration

Numeracy

-         Shape, space

-         Measurement
                             -      Language of position

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Wow, the stuff we now know, and what we know we dont know.


 The first Minecraft class ran and the results and observations were as follows.

General discussion while we waited for other students to arrive.

What could we do in Minecraft
  • Teach noobs
  • Make the school
  • Make a video for people to show how MC works and put it on the schools Youtube channel

We discussed Virtual worlds in general.
            Battlefield 3 is a virtual world. One student mentioned that when he is in the VW he is free to explore his creativity. Not only can he build things but he can solve problems create strategies and work with others.

Circle time = 30 seconds each person
·      Question, what do you like to do in Minecraft?
o   This was recorded via video. The general answers included
o   Building things
o   Build an entire City
o   Build a community
o   Gather resources
o   Find mines underground
o   Make a world of my own creation
o   Fighting mobs
o   Make “Enderchests”
o   Surviving, gaining XP and killing mobs
o   Do whatever I like
o   Fight the Ender dragon in the nether

We discussed with the students that we will use our logins at school and that they wont be able to use their own personal accounts. (Though this may change.)

We mentioned to the group that we will only be updating Minecraft once a term.

What AWESOME thing would you like to do in MC if you could?
  • Summon Herobrien
  • Get mods to make the game better
  • Discover the secrets of MC
  • learn about MC
  • Defeat the Ender Dragon
  • Make the thing that I always wanted to make(it’s a secret so I cant tell you)
  • Have a Pig race
  • Build a giant pyramid
  • Have a secret code and that gives you a secret house appears and you get a gun and you shoot it and you destroy the world
  •  Just play it!
  • Destroy Herobrians castle
  • Just learn how to play it
  • Make a City
  • Use Redstone
  • Make a place where people can help you destroy things
  • Make a community (lots of agreement from the group)
  • A blue sword and an underwater city
  • Do a black ops Zombie map
  • Use Redstone to dispense zombies around the map
  • Make the starship enterprise life size
  • Go fishing in the group all at the same time



The class then divided in to pairs, chose something to share with the group and then demonstrated it
Topics include,
  • Riding a pig
  • Fishing
  • How to chop down a tree
  • How to use a diamond Axe
  • How to use redstone
  • How to move around
  • How to fly
  • How to land
  • How to make a little roller coaster
  • How a bed changes the game from night to day


There were 2 groups that didn’t get a turn. They will go first next week.

All up the class went really well and it is interesting to observe the "type" of students that we have collected. one could say they are almost all cut from the same cloth. :-)

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Day one, Plan B!


First Class

Before the first class we had planned to run we encountered numerous challenges before it began. These included,
  • We had been unable to roll out the image with Minecraft across the whole lab
  • We had a misunderstanding of MinecraftEDU’s payment terms and conditions. As a result the licenses had not yet arrived
  • A crucial member of our team called in sick the morning of the day of the class

 As a result of the Students “avalanche of enthusiasm” for the project we decided that the class needed to go ahead, though with significant revision.

The alternate plan for the class was designed to,
  • capture the students enthusiasm
  • get an understanding of the students skill level and comprehension of the world itself
  • find out what THEY would like to do in minecraft,
    • Individually
    • In small teams
    • In large teams
  •  Explore what the students loved about Minecraft
  • Find out, if they had a totally free choice, what would be something AWESOME to do in Minecraft.


At a stage in the class we will loosely discuss the bigger picture goals for the grade 3 project

They will also form pairs, select something of interest and then demonstrate it to the rest of the group including us. We will explain to the students that they should not assume that others know anything about minecraft. 

Changes to schedule


Week 4

 All of this week’s (Week 4)planning is to move to week 5 as we had not received the licences for Minecraft program.
Restart for next week!
See Peter's post for reflections.
 
Week 5

Session 2

Task one
Minecraft Creative Mode
Free build phase, explore and create
Students are asked to explore the Minecraft software and familiarise themselves with the tools and functions.
Aim of this session is to build skill in operating the software.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Term 1 2013

Minecraft Project Trial

Minecraft Modes – Adventure, Creative and Survival

AusVELS curriculum links

English

Mathematics

Communications

Humanities - Community Engagement/Civic and citizenship

Well being

Unit outline

Year 5 students

Week 3

Recruiting year 5 trial group
In discussion with the teaching teams each class will nominate 2 year 5 students to take part in this project.
Training – introduce students to Minecraft software.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Educational Benefits - source - www.minecraftwiki.net

Educational benefits

Minecraft can have a huge educational benefit for children; it can help teach numerous subjects both with and without adult involvement. Learning in Minecraft can be faster than traditional methods of education, as children are often far more motivated, get more practice, and feel that what they are learning is useful.
SubjectBenefit
ReadingThe names of items in the inventory are a great place to start teaching children to read, since each item has a tooltip and image which go together. For older children, reading the wiki and online guides can extend their skills.
 
MathThe crafting system can help in teaching basic math (e.g. I need 3 Sugar Cane for Paper), which transitions to multiplication (I need 3 Paper and 1 Leather for a Book, and 3 Books for a Bookshelf, so I need 9 Paper and 3 Leather all together) and division (When I create Paper I get 3 at once, so 9/3 = 3 times per Bookshelf I'll have to create Paper).
 
GeometryWhile the Minecraft world is only made up of cubes, the creations a child makes may resemble other shapes. Parental involvement can help teach children to recognize these shapes (cube, cuboid, square based pyramid, etc.). Also, counting the number of blocks that were dug out when making a 6x6x3 cave can help multiplication skills and understanding the of concepts of volume and area.
 
Music
With the preparation of some Redstone circuitry, experimenting with Note Blocks can teach children about notes, octaves and chords.

 
Social skillsBy setting up a private server, parents can provide a safe environment for children to interact with friends and make playing Minecraft a cooperative event. Using a Local Area Network (LAN, or "home network") will allow children to play in the same room with their friends. By using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP, or "voice chat"), a phone call, or the in-game text chat, they can play together wherever they are. Either method allows children to work together to build, explore, and learn as they develop their social skills, especially teamwork. For older children, contributing to the Minecraft Wiki can be a chance to learn about Internet etiquette and collaboration.
 
Basic Computer ScienceRedstone circuitry provides an interactive environment to build basic logic circuits and combine them for more

Technical Implementation Plan Doveton Live Minecraft Pilot

Technical Implementation Plan Doveton Live Minecraft Pilot Program.

It is our intention to initially build our own Minecraft Server on a purpose built Mac G4 LAN.

Student accounts have been purchased through Minecraft.edu. 

We have also purchased the Minecraft.edu mod to explore and to use as a guide for our modification.

Initially we have purchased 25 licenses.

We are also purchasing a number of Minecraft licenses for iPad. This will allow small groups of students in Year 1-3 to work on controlled projects.

It is our intention in the future to create a public server for students to access during out of school hour.  This will occur when a suitable moderator policy is developed.

We are also discussing the possibility of using the public server to partner with either one or more schools to create shared and co-operative projects for students to work together.

Due to the technical expertise at Doveton College, Mods, server management and development can increase the value of Minecraft for our specific educational needs.

We are current exploring the use of 3D printers to create 3D model of student work designed on Minecraft.

We are also exploring augmented reality software which allows realtime geo location of models through an iPad app. 


Pilot Minecraft Project Doveton College- Doveton Live

Minecraft Project

Doveton College 2013

Gene Geoffrey, Peter Wardrobe, Chrisi Tambakakis and Nathan

Term 1 Project Trial   20 year 5 students
Term 2 20 year 5 students (same 20 as term 1) 20 year 3 students
Term 3 20 year 5students 20 year 3 students
Term 4 20 year 5 students 20 year 3 students

Purpose and Vision

This program will introduce the students to the Minecraft software. They will be trained as experts in the software’s use, modes and functions. The long term goal is to skill the year 5 student to become mentors/tutors and teachers for the year 3 student. They will work with the younger students to teach them skills in ICT and the use of the Minecraft software.

Within the project they will be required to work in a cooperative group to design and build structures for public use/purpose for a specific audience. The audience will be the year 3 students they will eventually be the mentors for. Their explicit team goal must be reached through the development and implementation of social skills, team effort and communication skills. The long term goal is to teach younger student the skills they have developed and introduce them to the structures they have created in the software. As they work with the younger students they will be able to self-evaluate the success of their structures and their teaching/mentorship of the students.

Term 1 Trial

The trial group in term 1 will be asked to build a structure using the new Minecraft software. Staff will monitor and trouble shoot as the term progresses.

The staff will be monitoring success, failures and identifying points of interest. A high focus will be placed on student interests and skills, social and interpersonal etiquette of software users. Also monitoring the ability of the students to interact positively in class teams and in the Minecraft worlds, with the goal of creating a set of rules and laws governing the “Minecraft world” that all the students will agree to abide by.

Structure Term 2,3 and 4

Week Project outline Weeks 1 – 4 Year 5 students only TEAMS

Training - Introduce the student to Minecraft and it use/function. Students will work in teams to design and build structures using Minecraft, with the goal of introducing their structure to the younger student s. The aim is that the younger students will engage and interact with the structure in the Minecraft. The structures design and building process Investigate/Design/Produce/Evaluate Week 5 – 7

Year 5 students Year 3 students PAIRS

During this period the year 5 students will work with a year three student in a pair. The year 5 student will work with their partner teaching them how to use an iPad and use the Minecraft software, all of the functions and tools in the software.

Week 8 - 10 (11) Year 5 students Year 3 students PAIRS

The year 5 students will work in pairs with the year 3 student in the iMac lab. They will introduce the Minecraft software on the iMacs and help the students to transfer the skills developed on the iPads to the iMac (develop ICT skills) the major component of this stage is the introduction of the structures designed and built by their teams to the year 3 students. They will evaluate their teams efforts as the younger students use their structures and interact with them using the skills they have developed.

Student Grouping

Year 5 students TEAMS - Design and build stage

Year 5 and 3 students PAIRS – mentor, tutor, skill development and TEAM evaluation.

20 students, these students will be drawn from the 9 learning teams across the school. Each term the groups will change. They will be working in cooperative teams of 2 Pair 4 team. The 2 and 4 grouping has shown to be the most productive team structure. It allows for optimum input and role distribution, equal participation and individual accountability.

In order for student achievement to improve considerably, two characteristics must be present

a) Students are working towards a group goal or recognition. Cooperative learning tasks, individual responsibility and accountability must be identified. Individuals must know exactly what their responsibilities are and that they are accountable to the group in order to reach their goal.

b) Success is reliant on each individual’s learning. Positive interdependence among students in the task. All group members must be involved in order for the group to complete the task. In order for this to occur each member must have a task that they are responsible for which cannot be completed by any other group member.

TEAMS must assess their effectiveness and decide how it can be improved The cooperative learning approach promotes

P = Positive Interdependence
I = Individual Accountability
E = Equal Participation
S = Simultaneous Interaction (Dr Spencer Kagan - Cooperative Learning Strategies)