Refugees in Minecraft, Roman History, and International Peer Collaboration.

During our time in Technology in Learning, I had the chance to view how a teacher used minecraft to teach his students about class stratification and life experiences between nations.  I was surprised to see that minecraft has made its way into the classrooms as a tool for teaching


My mind has been running with ideas of how to use minecraft to help our students better understand current and historical events.

One such event would be the migration of Goths from their homelands in Eastern Europe into the Northern Reaches of the Roman Empire in the mid third century.  The Goths had been pushed out of their lands by the Huns and the Romans were keen to have people till the lands, raise Roman legions, and commence commerce in the otherwise unpopulated territory the Goths were asking to enter.


In this scenario I would have a small group of students playing as Roman legionaries and the Roman Bureaucratic.  The rest would be the Hun refugees.  I would then instruct the Roman players to begin helping the Huns in every way from finding new lands to providing assistance where they could.  Eventually the Romans would turn on the Huns.  While in real life the Romans forced Hun families to sell their young children for dog meat so the rest of the family would not starve, I would just have my Roman playing students harass and knock down Hun Player structures, steal their resources, etc..

I would give no instructions to the Huns, but every time they complain to the Romans; the Romans would had been instructed to ignore the plea of the Huns.

Eventually the Hun playing students would have enough and start fighting back against the Romans, as in real history.  Keeping in mind this is a oversimplification of the events, but the idea serves my purposes later on.


This lesson would allow students to explore mismanagement, corruption, and the plight of refugees stuck between the Huns and the barely better Romans.  The students take the stage to create their own learning within the scenario I have given them.

This level allows the students to engage the SAMR model on the the idea hits the level of Redefinition allowing the students to experience why the Hun refugees turned on the Romans.  The Roman Players are outnumbered in the game and the Hun players get to experience mistreatment at the hands they sought refuge from.  The students use the technology and scenario to construct their own understanding.

They can then take these lessons and apply them to other migration crisis such as the current crisis facing the European Union(EU) with refugees and migrants.

The students, with their experience in mine craft, can understand how not to handle a refugee crisis and will be able to understand what needs to be done to help transient populations integrate into Europe and around the world.

I would task them with coming up with ideas.  Then I would have my class connect to a class in Europe so they can exchange ideas with students whose towns are being effected by the crisis.

This whole exercise will allow the students to better understand the plights of refugees, provide a historical lesson of great importance to the Roman Empire, allow them to construct their own knowledge on the area, and also engage with students who are being effected by a current event we are studying(the migrant crisis in the EU).