During the first half of class this week, we had a teacher named Hiedi James and a few of her past and current students come to teach us how to play Minecraft and how to implement Minecraft into our classroom for students learning. Minecraft is a game that I would play on my iPad when I was a kid/preteen with my friends and siblings. It is not a game I have played for a few years, so even though I had been familiar with the game and its concepts previously, a refresher was appreciated!
The demonstration on how to play Minecraft was perfect! There was way more of us students learning/re-learning how to play Minecraft than there were visiting students able to teach us how to play. Instead of trying to teach us one-on-one or through a class lecture, the visiting students created a Minecraft world specific for us. In this world, we completed tasks, as directed from instructions, involving moving, jumping, reading, etc. in the game. After we learned how to play, the class was put into a Minecraft server and was put onto creative mode and then moved onto a minecraft survival mode.
There was a lot I took away from learning Minecraft in class. Implementing Minecraft into students’ learning when I am a teacher could be very beneficial for the students. Minecraft could be used for multiple curriculums, such as spelling and science. In addition, the game could also provide students with the opportunity to be creative virtually, if arts, crafts, and building is difficult for some students in the real world. For example, students could use Minecraft for building a diagram virtually, instead of by hand, if by hand is too challenging for the student.
In the second half of class today, we learned about ED Camps that teachers can attend to learn about different things they can implement in their classroom. ED Camp is free and is offered to a wide range of faculties, so you can learn from multiple perspectives. As a class we looked through the ED Camp website and then created our own ED camp within the class. First, we each wrote topics on a sticky note that we wanted to discuss and learn more about. Then we voted on the top four topics and separated into groups for each of our favourite topics to discuss. The topic I picked was ‘how to teach students and parents about healthy food and sending healthy lunches to school for their children’. My group discussion was very interesting because we all had different experiences and different things we had seen in the classroom about healthy food. We also had the opportunity to brainstorm as a group ways that we, as educators, could implement learning about healthy food with both the students and parents.
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