As you probably know, on the 28th, Mrs. Benton's class will be visiting our class. So what are we going to build? As I read everyone's responses, I noticed that many of the ideas were quizzes, and they all were educational. One thing that I noticed personally is that small groups would be easier, and even withing our groups of seven or so, we tended to divide into groups on 2 or 3. I think a great way to show people around would be to create signs, with fences on either side, so the visitors could follow the path. One problem with this is the visitors could break the fences and escape, so maybe there could be stations of two computers, one "administrator", and one visitor. The member of our class could walk in front of the visitor, directing them on their tour. We could also create ways to show the red stone underneath, revealing how your contraption works.
So In in class we worked on making things out of redstone on Minecraft. For a example some people made redstone houses on Minecraft in their group and some people made lamps with redstone and a a lot of neat stuff. The one thing that bothered me is the way we were to one another and just to our selves. For an example some people were digging tunnels to get to other peoples group and some people were destroying other people's creations. That's not okay. It doesn't just affect other people it also affects you. So really on this experience with making really neat things out of redstone it was really neat what was not fun was us not following the and really just being really disrespectful to one another by doing that.
Last week in class we did a obstacle course in class. The general thoughts were that it got a 3/5 or lower. Some of the main problems are as follows: First the main part of the map was parkour, which is punishing for new players. Next, people would take everything out of a chest even if there are 2 distinct sets of items. Then, The was the fact that the map was unfinished. There were walls you could jump over to get out of the map. Also, in ne part of the map there was a area that was impassable if you don't know the double wall jump glitch(break onto a block, jump n that block for the fraction of a second before it came back due to protections then hold forward and jump again) Lastly and most importantly there was nothing to learn from the map(other than a few minecraft mechanics). For experienced players it was an interesting challenge, but for new players it was hard or just plain impossible and many simply gave up. I personally enjoyed the challenge but I think that the class as a whole did not. it was an interesting concept but not executed well.
Last week in class we tested the probability of a dispenser dropping out different colors of dye. We tested this by having nine sheep and nine different colors of dye. After the dispenser dispensed nine colors we looked to see what colors were distributed among the class. During this test students were assigned to record which colors were more common than others. This test was also used to find out if crowd sourcing was a viable process to find the most common and uncommon colors dispensed. The colors that were able to be dispensed were green, red, purple, black, grey, light grey, yellow, pink and blue. Many people thought that black and grey were the least common colors. I think this test was helpful to the whole class and I woud rate it a 7 or 8 out of 10. Thank you for reading my post.
So last week my classmates and I were asked to explore and Beta-Test this 'Treasure Hunt' map. The goal was to use the provided G.P.S to find a series of treasures. We were each assigned a partner to assist us in finding these treasures. When I read my classmate's comments on last week's activity , I found myself a little disappointed. Some people didn't exactly enjoy the activity. I myself found it a little intriguing, but at the same time there were some minor issues. For one, the chat was a humongous issue. Some people found it funny to spam ( Saying things useless or irreverent to the topic/task at hand with the simple goal of annoying people) or just saying rude things in general. While this is a problem, the chat can be helpful. Say, one of us gets stuck, Mrs.Dupriest can help us out by teleporting us. Another thing is the players. I am an experienced player, and from what I've seen, the experienced players (guilty) tend to leave the inexperienced behind. Lag may be a problem, maybe finding a way to have two seperate worlds open, with certain classmates in charge. I would rate this a 4/5.
My class and I brainstormed ideas for why Minecraft is a good tool for learning about x-y-z coordinates. Since Minecraft is a 3D world, you play this game simply by putting a block down on the x-y-z coordinate plane. For example, 1 block would be on the 1,1,1 point. It would be helpful to learn about the x-y-z coordinates in this game so you can make your way around the huge world. Teachers can teach this concept by making a scavenger hunt. The students would locate the points on the coordinate plane and receive prizes for doing that. Also, teachers can tell the students to make a city according to her calculations so the students would have to pinpoint where the buildings would have to be located. Most of the time students don't enjoy learning this concept, so Minecraft would make learning about the x-y-z coordinate plane much easier and more fun.
We all as a class came up with rules as the answer to a prompt and it was my job to summarize them. I think that one of the rules should be to stick together it seems that the people who have played minecraft run ahead while the people who haven't and are confused end up getting left behind. I say a lot of other people saying that people would destroy their structures so I think that we should make a rule that makes it so you can't destroy other peoples structures. Another thing that people talked about was kind language in the chat I agree that should be a rule because the chat I have noticed myself should have less mean words. I noticed one thing that someone said that really stood out Kenny H said "Don't treat people like dirt" and I agree. It has taken us a while to get MinecraftEDU installed on all of the lab computers, but now it is ready to go. For our first couple of classes, this group of 7th and 8th graders explored the question: What can you learn from Minecraft?
We asked the question and then read a couple of articles. Article 1: Hey, Parents. What Minecraft is Doing to your Kids is Kind of Surprising. Article 2: Five Things Minecraft Teaches Kids After reading one of the articles, everyone answered the questions on Google Classroom: What can you learn from Minecraft? Should Minecraft be used in school? The responses fell into these different categories. Some students think Minecraft teaches creativity, resourcefulness, and teamwork. These are certainly valuable skills. They aren't normally taught or graded in school. As a teacher, I wondered how you would know if you were doing a good job at these. Could I tell if a student was more creative or more resourceful after playing Minecraft for a while? Would I be able to judge if the students were working better as a team? Are these useful skills for schools to teach or should they be learned outside of the classroom? Other students said that Minecraft teaches knowledge about certain topics, like architecture, farming, minerals, and civil engineering. These are not usually taught in school. What should middle schoolers know about these topics? If you learn how to create a subway system or grow wheat or smelt gold ore, is that a valuable life skill? Students said Minecraft can be used to make models from history, geography, and the fine arts. You could create a village or design a backdrop for a play. Maybe Minecraft can replace the cardboard diorama! And finally, we had some students who are skeptics of Minecraft in the classroom. These students felt Minecraft is a video game, and while it's fun to play and is creative, it isn't meant to teach anything academic and it would be pretty tough to make it academic. This is definitely what we hope to find out this quarter - we think Minecraft can be used to explore things like geometry, but is it useful for middle school math topics like algebra? Can you use it to learn about science or history, or is this mostly just a fun video game? Today, we will use the tutorial world and ask the question: What rules and norms do you need to have in place when there are 30 people interacting together on a server? This year, we're trying something new at Preston Middle School - MinecraftEDU! Minecraft is one of the world's most popular video games. It was invented in 2009, and toward the end of 2014, it was sold to Microsoft for an incredible $2.5 billion dollars (article). Minecraft is part survival game and part open-ended creative building tool. MinecraftEDU is a special version of Minecraft that allows a class to play on a server together, with lessons in a world provided by the teacher. Many people are skeptical that Minecraft can be used to teach anything worthwhile in schools - especially middle schools. Isn't it just a game? We're here to explore what you can learn with Minecraft. We will analyze lessons that we do as a class and reflect on what the experience was like. We will create our own worlds and lessons to demonstrate what teachers can teach with this amazing tool. We are looking forward to sharing it with you!
You will see posts from student bloggers in this space as we start the semester. It's going to be a great experience! |
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