Minecraft Day 3 - Thursday 13 June

Today we welcomed a visitor, a teacher (Principal) from another school, who was very keen to see what Minecraft being used in a school might look like.

Before getting the Macbooks out of the pod, players had to sit with their teams, look at their plans, and briefly discuss with their team mates what they needed to do next and who would be doing the different tasks. There was some urgency for this because the students really just wanted to get onto the game, and get building. It's a bit of a hit and miss approach to building and a lot of planning is done 'on the fly'. But certainly, the session went pretty well for quite a while.

There were lots of signs appearing all over the theme park today, with messages for 'visitors'. Just about every group is building a roller coaster of some sort - all built around their chosen Kiwiana icon. It will be interesting to see how these work when finished.

One student got frustrated with computer mice not doing what he needed, having had problems with a computer in the first week, and his own mouse last week, and in the end the frustration got too much for him and he sadly made the decision not to continue. His team mates were left a little in the lurch because he was the experienced player, but he had really been focused on the issues he felt he was having, more than supporting the group. They had to figure out what they could do themselves, and how they would do it. A little help from DOXINWHAT, an experienced player from another team was all that was needed to get them going again.

The student who had been on his first warning in Week 1 mentioned, at one point, "I can't spawn any animals!" That caught him out, because he knew that I'd decided there would be no more animals getting in the way until fences were solid and everything else was organised - probably at the end of the project. What he didn't know was, this week I'd used the MinecraftEDU settings to turn off players' ability to spawn animals (one up for the teacher and MinecraftEDU)!

Players seemed completely focused for most of the hour and 20 minutes of play, but I started to notice two or three players starting to have other players complain a little about what they were or weren't doing. The earlier mentioned student was wandering around other teams' areas to have a look, but causing concern (players were suspicious of his intentions), and at one point was talking about doing enchantments - no way Jose!

Later, another started to wander into other areas because he felt he didn't have a job at that time with his own team. Is it because most of the teams are young boys (only 2 of the 12 students are girls), that they can't work this out between them and make sure they're all busy and needed and included? Still, it's a great chance to remind them of how to work within a community - even a Minecraft one. Next week I might talk about this a bit more, and ask them all how they think they might avoid this happening, and find solutions if it does occur - eg - talk to each other, and listen to each other.

A player in another team was concerned about chests and signs being placed at the entrance to their section of the theme park, by a player from another team. I suggested they talk about what was going on, and he found that the actions were innocent. I wouldn't say those actions were helping the player's own team and their building though...

During the session, I took one member from each group out and videoed them doing a tour of their area, and explaining what they were building. They did a good job of that and you can see the videos below! It will be great to get students starting to add short updates to this blog, but right now I want the path of least distraction from their play - our sessions are only short, and I need to smooth the path of being able to have them add their thoughts here. The 3 senior students have been invited to be blog authors with their own school gmail accounts, so we'll see if they can add something in the future.

All in all, everyone was busy and focused on the assignment they had been given. Progress was good, and all teams had at least 2 of their 3 players completely part of the action. The noise level wasn't bad, and at times it was very quiet. There didn't seem to be much chat going on within the game, people were doing their jobs.

Here is a flyover of the Kiwiana Theme Park after today's game: