Success! (sort of)

My students are smarter than me.

We have a cart of old (5+ years) MacBooks. I struggled with them for a few hours and couldn't find a way to get Minecraft to run. The OS, I believed, was too old. And it is, kind of.

Last week one of my students brought me a piece of paper with 18-step directions for getting Minecraft to run on the computer. Several of them involve writing a batch file from the console. I didn't really believe him, so it joined the large stack of random papers scattered around my desk. He asked about my progress multiple times a day and so, eventually, I figured I had to try so that he would stop bugging me.

I tried it. And it worked.

The student and one of his classmates stayed after school for two hours on Monday and installed Minecraft on all of the other computers -- we now have 22 beat-up MacBooks that run Minecraft 1.4.8 and MinecraftEDU 0.984. They're old, they're outdated, they're beautiful.

Tomorrow the eighth grade math teacher is starting a stairwell and roller coaster project on Minecraft for the kids to practice ratios. We're talking about creating a cross-curricular project. More details to come.

Hopefully, many more projects to come.

Frustration

I can't get Minecraft to work.

LAUSD took most of our MacBooks away this summer, since their schools need all of their computers in preparation for the big Common Core push coming our way. We switched to Chrome Books, which I think will open up some great opportunities this year. Unfortunately, getting Minecraft to run on a Chrome Book appears to be a lengthy process that I don't currently have the time for.

It shouldn't have been a big deal, because we also have a cart of older MacBooks that actually belong to the school. But the MacBooks' OS is too old to run Minecraft.

Last week we looked at maps of the map (there must be a better way to phrase that), hooked my computer up to a projector and wandered around the map as a group for a while. The kids are extremely excited about this America Expansion project. I'm not sure what to do.  

Hello, 2013-2014

It's been a while.

I became a very bad blogger at the end of last school year. In fact, just as the Minecraft project became exciting, I stopped. I hope to avoid doing that this year.




(Sidenote: If you want to skip my musings, just scroll down to the next two posts. One is an outline of a Minecraft project I want to try this year; the other is the curriculum outline & handouts for the Civilization project from last year)

It's been a busy few months away. While working at the same school, I now teach 8th grade humanities. This means I have a lot less time and freedom to incorporate games into my class. We have tests to prepare for, standards to cover, and around 100 years of American history to get through. I'm excited about quite a few projects my partner teacher and I have planned -- essays about revolution, a spoken word poetry performance, pen pals in the developing world -- but I will, as much as possible, keep this blog close to its central theme of games in education.

My view of the role play-based-learning & games can . . . play in education has expanded drastically over the last several months. I started working with the wonderful USC-based CollegeologyGames team and their games designed to help prepare under-privileged for the college application process. A couple of my friends started the summer camp Learn By Gaming, and interest is high enough for them to continue the program every Saturday throughout the school year. Over in Playa Vista, The Incubator School, a middle school with a mission based on entrepreneurship and 21st century learning,  is starting its first ever school year just a few short weeks after hosting a professional development in conjunction with the Conney Center that I attended with a few other LA-based educators. And, last week, I was on Southern California Public Radio talking about Minecraft.

The times, it seems, are a-changin'. Game-based learning isn't a mainstream practice, but it is becoming a part of the mainstream conversation about education. The values of play are gaining recognition, a "gamer" philosophy is something the majority of people can relate to, at least tangentially, and the tools at our disposal are getting better by the day.

I want to try a few things this year. I'd like to extend my use of games and gaming concepts beyond activities with Minecraft or Games for Change, and make them more of an integral part of how my students and I approach learning and problem-solving. I don't want game-based learning to be perceived as something that only exists on a computer or tablet -- far too many schools and children don't have access to those luxuries (well, except for cell phones, but that's a whole other fascinating conversation) -- so much as an active, creative and joy-filled way to interact with the world. I have no idea how this will look. I don't know how to achieve it. Let's try to figure it out together. 

This Year's Minecraft Project: Manifest Destiny

This is from a handout I'm sending home with kids next week. We'll see how it goes.

MANIFEST DESTINY MINECRAFT

This year in Humanities class students will learn about America’s expansion from a small group of colonies on the east coast to an expansive nation that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the coasts of California.

Students also have the option to experience this journey in the game of Minecraft. Students will play on a model of the North American continent built to scale. This model is a geographically accurate replica of an untouched America and includes rivers, mountains, and biomes for the different regions of the country (desert, plains, forests, etc). There are no cities, towns, or roads.

The students’ goal throughout the year will be to “civilize” this land. They will develop paths, towns, and stable food supplies all with one goal in mind – to be the first to reach and settle on the Pacific coast. The student(s) who reaches the coast first will receive a prize, yet to be determined.

Mr. Thalkar will run Minecraft sessions once a week after school and host a server that students can access from home if they have a personal Minecraft account. This server will only be accessible to NewLA students. Mr. Thalkar will maintain logs to keep track of who access the server, when they are on, and everything that is typed in the game. Please see the back of this form for a Code of Conduct that every participating student must sign.

THIS PROJECT IS COMPLETELY VOLUNTARY AND WILL NOT COUNT AS A GRADE OR EXTRA-CREDIT. It is simply an opportunity for students to have some fun with Minecraft and compete against their classmates for the opportunity to win a cool (TBD) prize.