Minecraft and Education

At the Connect 2013 conference I attended a few weeks ago, I saw a group of middle-school aged kids walking around.  The conference was mostly attended by teachers, administration and salespeople so I was a bit confused as to why they were there.  Turns out they were a group of Grade 7 students from a school in Hamilton that were there with their teacher hosting a poster session on a really cool project they worked on: redesigning Hamilton's West Harbour... using Minecraft.  Apparently, they presented their design to city officials.  This CBC article has a slideshow of the creation process.  Unfortunately, I missed the poster session and found out about it from my supervisor later (she was super excited about it).

What is Minecraft?

In case you haven't hear of it, Minecraft is an extremely popular 'sandbox survival' game.  What does that mean?  You build stuff out of blocks and try not to die.  There are 2 main modes to play in: creative and survival.  In creative mode you don't have to worry about the dying part so you can just create. Further explanation here if needed.

Minecraft and Education...

I am a gamer.  I love video games. I think they are a largely untapped source of educational potential so when I hear video games + education I get really excited.  As a  player of Minecraft, I can see tons of ways the game can provide fun and entertaining ways of teaching math and science.  

Just to be clear, Minecraft and Education is not a new idea.

In fact, there is a version of the game called Minecraft EDU that is specifically tailored to education.  Teachers have more flexibility with the environments their students create in.  Here's a video about the growing Minecraft EDU community:

As mentioned in the video, the creator of Minecraft EDU is Joel Levin, the Minecraft Teacher.  Most of his work is directed at elementary level students.  Check out some gameplay footage from his YouTube Channel.

Playing in the Sandbox...

In the documentary Minecraft: The Story of Mojang. Peter Molyneux (famous and sometimes controversial ex-Microsoft game developer) compares the evolution of video games to the evolution of Lego.  

Lego used to be a bunch of blocks that you dump on the floor and build whatever you want with.  Now, it is a kit made up of a bunch of specialized pieces that you follow the instructions to build.  After you finish building it, you put it on a shelf and leave it there to collect dust.

Similarly, Molyneux states the best selling video-games have overwhelmingly become linear, polished products.  Though they serve their own purpose as a form of interactive media, they generally leave little room for real creativity or creation.  When your done playing it, you put the game it in its case and put the case on the shelf to collect dust.  

On the other hand, there is Minecraft.  Notch (the creator of Minecraft) has done the exact opposite.  There are essentially no set goals or creative limits (other than gravity).  Minecraft has brought gaming back to the original lego bricks; back to playing in the sandbox. 

I like to think this analogy applies to education as well.  We generally have courses with predetermined outcomes and use the same lessons year after year for different students.  So much of what students learn feels useless to them after they pass the exam.  Instead, we should be providing students with the tools and environment to create and continue to learn by themselves.  Minecraft is one such environment and toolbox that enables students to set their own goals to create without limits in a highly collaborative environment.  

Teaching with Minecraft in High School...

The Hamilton West Harbour and Joel Levin's classroom are examples of elementary school Minecraft projects.  Would the game be able to engage high school students in the same way?  I think so.  Because the game is so open-ended, I believe a teacher could potentially come up with projects that addresses the curriculum from any course.  Some projects having to do with physics and math that immediately come to mind are:

Physics

• Find gravity in the game by experimenting with falling objects.  How does it compare to gravity on earth?
• Measuring momentum and velocity of a mine cart
• Measuring friction on a mine cart track
• Study circuit operation using redstone
• Examine gravitational and potential and kinetic energy and use it to design and build a roller coaster track

Math

• Find optimal ways to mine for diamonds (related to maximizing surface area)
• Cost to build different numbers of things (related rates)
• Surface area/volume relationships of structures
• Analysis of how the random world is spawned based on a seed (ties into Computer Science)

I'll try to explore these ideas and others in coming entries.

Why Minecraft?

The creation of a product is an integral part of the 21st Century Learning framework, especially for Knowledge Construction, Real-World Problem Solving and Use of ICT to be authentic and transformative.  If this is the case, why use Minecraft at all?  Why not physically build something?  Having a physical product isn't always practical.  Time, money, material and size constraints limit what is possible in the physical world.   

Resources and space are practically infinite in Minecraft.  Fairly complicated works can be built fairly quickly, especially when there is effective Collaboration.  In addition the game itself is cheap, user friendly and is available on almost any platform.  Its accesibility makes it appealing from an equity standpoint. In addition, students on the same server are accountable for their actions and interdependent on the cooperation of all players.  After all, there is nothing stopping from one student from completely destroying the work of the rest of a class.

Minecraft has potential for awesome Self-Regulation as well.  The game responds to the players actions as opposed to telling the user what to do.  Students can challenge themselves with goals they collaboratively set with the each other and the teacher.  

Basically, Minecraft is able to tie in all the neXt Lesson competencies.

Learning from Minecraft...

In addition to using Minecraft to teach, educators can learn from the game's success in engaging players and inspiring creativity.  This article from teachthought.com called '5 Lessons to Learn from Minecraft in Education' highlights some of them.  I would add 'Be Collaborative' as number 6 the list.  Though Minecraft does not have to be played collaboratively, some of the world's largest and most intricate Minecraft constructions are a result of the combined efforts of groups of people.  

Education should be about providing students with the tools to create and share their creations.  What those Grade 7 students in Hamilton accomplished is an example of how transformative 21st Century Learning can be.  Minecraft is just one platform that makes this kind of creation and collaboration possible but it sets a new standard on the possibilities of education.

Connect 2013

I attended the Connect 2013 conference with the 21C/AICT team and other representatives of the TCDSB on Monday and Tuesday.  

The conference is a 'Canada-wide' exposition of educational technology and 21st Century Learning.  Representatives of several Ontario school boards had booths and gave sessions that demonstrated how they were supporting 21st Century Fluencies the their schools.  At the TCDSB booth, I explained to visitors what the neXt Lesson framework was and how it is being rolled out in TCDSB schools.  I had some interesting conversations about 21st Century Teaching and Learning with some of them.

The majority of the booths were educational technology vendors advertising their products to the school board representatives.  The keynote was given by Robert Herjavec who discussed trends in technology and education (while promoting his company and book). 

I have highlighted some of the main things I learned throughout the conference below:


Blogging as a Portfolio

George Couros gave a talk on using your blog as a portfolio.  I like this idea in principle.  Its way more convenient and practical than a paper portfolio.  You can easily put the URL on a resume.  It gives the public an opportunity to comment on, critique, share and steal ideas: an absolutely essential part of PD!  For OISE, we were required to put together a portfolio containing examples of our teaching practice and teaching philosophy.  I think it would have been a lot more useful in blog format.  I could have started building it from the beginning of the year.  My classmates could provide me with feedback as it was built.  My biggest regret of the past year is that I didn't start blogging earlier!

Couros also talked about the great opportunities for students to start creating their digital footprint by blogging.  The feature I am most drawn to is how it is completely under the student's control.  They can carry whatever work/projects they choose over their school careers.  Couros did make a point of saying that he would never evaluate a student's blog.  This can undermine the awesome freedom of expression the blog gives to students.

I understand that blogging is just one way to create a digital footprint. It's just where I am going to try and start taking ownership of mine.

The Third Teacher

I had heard the term before but I wasn't really sure what it is.  Some of the members of the 21C/AICT team lead a poster session on the Third Teacher so I took the opportunity to learn about it.  From a discussion with one of the team members, the learning environment is the third teacher (a student's peers is the second teacher).  Its interesting to think about why I go to different places I go to study, read or write this blog. The Third Teacher got me thinking about what kind of environment would be most conducive to the learning I would want to happen in my class and what freedoms I would give your students in creating their optimal learning environment.  This ties into Bioregion Based Learning, an aspect of Sustainable Development Education that interests me.  It's something to look into and discuss more in the future.


Using Technology to make Learning Visible

This session gave me a few ideas for a classroom.  One of the activities the presenters demonstrated was how they took video and pictures (on iPads) of their kindergarten/junior students working on problems and then played the video or showed the pictures back to the students and their peers and asked them to explain what they or their peers were doing.  The idea was to improve metacognition among students as well as give the teachers a chance to share authentic data with other teachers and even parents.

Derrick Muller is the creator of one of my favourite YouTube science channels, Veritasium.  I recently read his Ph.D thesis is on Designing Effective Media for Physics Education, where he studies the effectiveness of a video exposition of lecture material, where the material is presented directly to the students by an instructor, and a video dialogue of comparable length and concept content.  The dialogue video portrays a student attempting to answer questions with a tutor.  On their way to the correct answer, the student encounters misconceptions which they work through with the aid of the tutor.  Muller's conclusion is that a student watching another student struggle through a question and working through their misconceptions is a more effective way to learn a concept than the concept being presented explicitly to them.

Though the presenters from the session were specifically talking about younger students, I think the idea of making learning visible through technology could be modified for a high school classroom based on Muller's findings.  Recording students working through problems or taking pictures of solutions and playing them back to a class could be a powerful way to address misconceptions and improve metacognition in a math/science class.  I haven't really thought through the logistics of how this would actually look in a class.  Alternatives to this are blogs (as discussed above) or using an app such as Explain Everything, where students can record what they write and say and play it back at a later time.  


21st Century Learning does NOT equal Technology

On Monday, I spent some time at the TCDSB booth explaining what the neXt Lesson framework was to representatives of other school boards and various technology vendors.  As I have discussed before, a common misconception is that 21st Century Learning just means using technology such as Smart Boards and iPads to teach.  I found this was the predominant feeling among attendees at the conference.  Although it was an educational technology conference, I was still surprised at this stance.  I explained that there is so far we can come (in the other 21C competencies) before even considering the use of technology and the fact that there are equity issues that come with the assumption that technology itself will transform education.  

Day 6 - The neXt Desk

The Problem...

What is the best way to move the neXt Desk?

Why?

• Opportunity for students to demonstrate real-world problem solving skills
• Illustrate the usefulness of several math concepts

I'm posting this a day late but it's because I was at the Connect 2013 conference yesterday and today. Great few days connecting with representatives from different school boards and vendors.  The neXt Desk is an art installation that is a symbol for the TCDSB's Project neXt and the neXt Lesson.  This is a picture of it set up at the Connect 2013 conference in Niagara Falls (which I'll definitely blog about later).

Ask the questions...

In an art class, students might critique the effectiveness of the piece in challenging how we normally look at desks but I thought it would be cool to turn the piece into a math problem as well. 

I would start by giving the students the picture.  Tell them they are the moving crew responsible for moving the sculpture! What might they want to know about it?  What if the only information they had was from the picture?  What would they want to know before agreeing to move the piece?  Students could work in groups and may come up with entirely different sets of questions.  Some examples may be as follows:

• How tall is the piece? 
• How much does the entire piece weigh? 
• The piece comes apart into sections.  How many sections should it come apart in for two people to be able to carry it? (I came up with this because I did this multiple times in the past few days)
• How much tension are in the cables?
• Would the piece stand if the cables weren't there?

How can we find the answers...

Then, in groups, students can discuss how are they going to solve the problem posed.  This may take some research and data collection.  Some possible methods are described below:

• How tall is the piece? They could scale the picture from the size of one desk that they measure in the school.  If they had access to the piece, they could just measure it.
• How much does the entire piece weigh? Students could estimate/measure the weight of one desk and multiply.  But then what is their method for weighing one desk?  Look it up or find a scale and somehow measure it?  What about hardware and connectors?  Does their contribution to the total weight matter?
• The piece comes apart into sections.  How many sections should it come apart in for two people to be able to carry it? They may ask questions such as: what is a reasonable weight that 2 people are able to carry? What are the size constraints such that it would fit through a regular door?  It takes more time to take it apart into more sections.  What is a good balance between weight and time to construct/deconstruct?
• How much tension are in the cables? This is hard!  At least I think so.  Even with a Civil Engineering degree.  I think it is still an interesting question to pose.  Students could try building a scale model and directly measuring tension (but this  brings into question problems with scaling up loads, one of the many causes of the Quebec Bridge Disaster of 1907).   They could also come up with a range of possible values based on the weight of the structure.  Another method would be to compare the different sets of cables: which ones would have the most/least tension and make some assumptions for them.  Another interesting method would be if the students had access to the sculpture, they could theoretically pluck the cables and measure the frequency of the vibration.  They could then calculate the tension using the length, density and diameter of the cable.  I have done this with my guitar students to find out how much compression their guitar neck is resisting.  Another topic for another day...
• Would the piece stand if the cables weren't there? They might look at the tension in the cables.  They might try (safely) experimenting with a desk in the classroom to see how strong it is.  If you are wondering, the answer is yes it does stand but it ain't pretty!

Educated guessing...

Before actually applying their calculations, students should hypothesize what their answers would be.  This is an important part of solving real-world problems.  Know the answer before you find the answer! This is one of 3 Engineering Tenants I learned in my undergrad (which I will dedicate another blog entry on problem-based learning to).

What I like about questions like this is that I (as the teacher) dont necessarily need to know the answer.  To move it, we took the sculpture apart into 4 segments of 5 desks to move it but maybe there is a better way!  


What if...

Once the students have a good understanding of the sculpture you can take it one step further by asking questions such as:

• Why might the artist have used 20 desks?
• How tall would the piece be if there were 10,25,30,50 desks?  What assumptions would you have to make?  This can turn it into a geometry (something I didn't explore but another good way to go with the sculpture) or even a calculus question (rate of change of perimeter to diameter).
• What are some limitations of increasing the number of desks?

Curriculum...

Depending on the grade level and questions the students ask, the investigation can cover topics such as measurement, scaling, relationships between variables (weight of sculpture vs. number of desks, height of sculpture vs. number of desks).

21C...

Though it may not be a real-world problem that the students themselves face, it is one that we had to face moving it and the artist had to face when designing and building it!  Next time the neXt Desk needs to be moved from its location at the TCDSB headquarters to another conference, have some students test out some of their ideas!  (Only with adult supervision.  The piece is not the easiest or safest thing to move)  


1. Collaboration: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
3. Real-World Problem Solving & Innovation: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation




A final point.  Obviously this is a TCDSB specific sculpture but the problems students are solving should be specific!  This problem may engage students from Cardinal Carter who walk by the sculpture every day but may not for a student who hasn't seen the piece before.  Teachers should seek out opportunities for investigations such as these in their own school communities.  Put on those math goggles and see what you can find.


Future Lesson Ideas:

• Guitar String Tension vs Pitch