Minecraft Day 2 - Thursday 6 June

We got started more quickly today, and everything went smoothly. But, first things first...

Students were reminded about their contractual agreement with the Charter they had created. We agreed that no animals would be spawned today - they would have to wait until everything was built and they could be properly fenced in. There would be no use of invisibility either. Fireworks would have to wait until the end of our construction.

Groups were then given sheets of A3 paper and had to come up with a rough sketch of what they were trying to build, from a profile view, as well as a birds eye view. They needed to have a conversation about how they were going to start on their construction, and who would start where. I'll let this run its course from now on, and see how well they collaborate and work things out in discussions within the room as well as via the built-in Chat of Minecraft.

I need to find a way to print the Chat log because I'm interested in the conversations that will occur from a literacy perspective, as well as in the collaborative talk. Two students were keen to communicate via the Chat, but wanted to do so accurately so were checking with me on how to spell words correctly - great, authentic motivation for wanting to communicate in written form!

I made use of MinecraftEDU's ability to freeze all students twice today, when I needed to talk with them once during the session, and at the very end of the game so that they would get on and pack up the Macbooks, ready to take to the next class that was needing them.

Students were working well together today, helping each other, helping me, and one kindly lending a computer mouse to someone having trouble with theirs. Very good to see, and students having lots of fun and being very focused.

I'm wondering about offering the MinecraftEDU Tutorial World sometime - I've been working through it myself at home and really enjoying it. I'm not sure when to fit it in though... we only have our hour and a half on a Thursday each week (which includes set up and pack up time).

Here is a flyover, after the day's session finished - is that some hokey pokey icecream that I can see? We have a couple of vacant lots for fast finishers to use later. Carparking, ticket offices, food stalls etc will also be constructed in the future. Keep in mind that I'm a complete newbie to all of this, so I'm still working on my flying skills!

I've created a Minecraft Playlist of our videos on SpringstonTube (our School's YouTube account).