Over the last couple of months, my students have been experimenting with Minecraft EDU in the classroom. I would say for the most part it has been a very positive experience. There will always be bumps in the road when navigating new digital platforms, but the most exciting part of this Minecraft journey is how engaged the students were throughout the entire process. To the point where it is the only activity they want to do if they have free time with technology at school.
The first activity that we did as a class was “Sustainability City”. I wrote about this in my previous blog post about Minecraft if you would like to check it out. This was a guided exploration through an already created world where students learnt about sustainable food production, water treatment, green buildings, and much more. This directly connected with our social studies unit at the time for grade 6 resources and wealth.
The second Minecraft Edu lesson that we explored was creating a campsite. In health, we learnt about outdoor safety and survival. To wrap up this unit I ask the students to create a campfire/campsite on Minecraft. This was their first time building within Minecraft and using the Screenshot feature within Minecraft Edu. They uploaded their project to Seesaw and included what was needed to create a successful campfire.
Lastly, to wrap up our comic book unit in English Language Arts, students were to create their own interactive comic strip using Minecraft. They screen-recorded using screencast-o-matic and explained their story, and then uploaded it to Seesaw. This was a great opportunity for students to practice their speaking skills and experiment with recording an audio project.
Check out both of my videos to see the progress! I hope to continue using Minecraft EDU throughout the rest of the school year and see how we can utilize it in different ways and keep the students engaged in exciting lessons.
Ms. Mihial's Classroom 
I am just mindblown by this! So many skills and tools the students are demonstrating using to create these projects. How fun and what a great, interactive, and engaging way to assess! Kudos to you, this is just amazing! (P.S. I can’t see the first video – it says it is private).
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This seems so neat! I bet the kiddos are loving it. I tried to watch the video but the link says that it doesn’t work :(. Anyways, I am thinking that this is one of those units that the kiddos are going to remember forever. I like that it is using technology for a purpose and tying in into the curriculum!
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