I watched a video during class that blew my mind a little bit. In a fourth grade classroom, the teacher used Minecraft to create a virtual world where his students then were assigned a country and a socioeconomic class. They had to set up a government, interact with each other in their country, trade with other countries among other things. It wasn't the fact that the students were playing Minecraft that surprised me. It was the depth at which they were using it. They were exploring issues that I never thought fourth graders would understand at that age. They held group discussions as a country to discuss the future of their country and their relations with others. They had to think about how citizens of a low socioeconomic class could create more opportunity for themselves. They had discussions about civics and economics, natural resources, and so much more through this experience. Here is the video if you want to watch it yourself.
I think that this type of activity is on the modification, maybe redefinition, level of using technology in the classroom. You could certainly set up an activity like this in the classroom but I think doing it in the game makes it so much more real and in depth of an experience. It puts big real world issues in the context of something that they are likely already familiar with. It deepens the experience because they are required to follow the rules of the game. They are actually experiencing the struggles and issues that adults experience within the context of something that is fun and meaningful to them.
There were several other videos about MincraftEDU as well. I think this is a phenomenal tool that can be used in so many different ways to enhance education and make it more fun.
Wow! This is so cool! I would love to implement something like this in a social studies class, especially if I teacher economics. We did a simulation in a microteach lesson, with pen and paper, but I think it could make more of a impact with technology. Especially with the students who live in a technology world. I had no idea about this and think it does modify the simulation and could redefine it as well. It really applies the concepts to the real world and that is great!
I don't think we give kids enough credit as to what they can comprehend at certain ages, but perhaps the students were able to latch on to these more advanced ideas because it was through an easily accessible gaming platform that most of them were probably familiar with. It also maybe helped make those ideas more tangible to students since they were "living" these ideas in the game. I honestly kind of wish this approach was more easily applicable to my subject, like music history, but maybe in the future i'll think of some way to work in something cool like this into one of my lessons!
Wow! This is so cool! I would love to implement something like this in a social studies class, especially if I teacher economics. We did a simulation in a microteach lesson, with pen and paper, but I think it could make more of a impact with technology. Especially with the students who live in a technology world. I had no idea about this and think it does modify the simulation and could redefine it as well. It really applies the concepts to the real world and that is great!
ReplyDeleteI don't think we give kids enough credit as to what they can comprehend at certain ages, but perhaps the students were able to latch on to these more advanced ideas because it was through an easily accessible gaming platform that most of them were probably familiar with. It also maybe helped make those ideas more tangible to students since they were "living" these ideas in the game. I honestly kind of wish this approach was more easily applicable to my subject, like music history, but maybe in the future i'll think of some way to work in something cool like this into one of my lessons!
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