11/10/2023 0 Comments Minecraft education edition![]() ![]() We did two of those, and they've had over 59m play sessions. "We launched Minecraft Hour of Code Tutorial programmes two years ago. The activity of coding is not the thing you are investing in, the thing you are investing in is to become a game developer. We think about Code Builder as a means to the end. "If we can take a generation of Minecraft players and encourage them to become content creators and software engineers, that would be amazing. "If we can take a generation of Minecraft players and encourage them to become content creators and software engineers, that would be amazing" Deirdre QuarnstromĪnd of course, this coding education will hopefully (at least from Microsoft's perspective) create a new generation of programmers and game designers. But when you connect that to the 3D environment within Minecraft, and see the impact of the coding that they have actually done, it is just amazing. I know from my own use of Scratch, and coding with the children, it is difficult sometimes to get that wow factor. James Protheroe, a Minecraft Education Edition mentor and an assistant headteacher agrees: "It is all about making that link. "You take that basic experience, which is a very good learn-to-code experience, and you expand it out to a full 3D Minecraft world, then all of a sudden they're using their imaginations and creativity, because the toolset they have is so much bigger." "You can connect Scratch into Minecraft, so you can take that Scratch world, and the sprites and commands that are available in that, and then it opens up and expands to all Minecraft commands and inventory items," she tells us. Quarnstrom says that Minecraft: Education Edition doesn't necessarily replace these services, but can actually augment them. Learn-to-code software - such as Scratch, for instance - has been utilised in schools for some time. They had taken it, they've learned it, and they were actually building a future environmentally-friendly version of their city using Code Builder." Minecraft Education Edition now features a Code Builder "We were in Brussels last week for a Microsoft event, and there were two classes that had been using it for just two weeks, and the level of competency that they have with it was just amazing. So there has been a tonne of excitement around that. The idea is to solve those issues through Minecraft, which is an environment where students can feel comfortable and confident. Sometimes the students even have a point-of-view that coding is boring. "They see the enthusiasm and engagement that they have with Minecraft, and coding is both top of mind as a critical skill, and something that feels inaccessible to educators who don't have the technical training in it. "One of the top things we hear from educators is that they want to be able to use for coding," says Deirdre Quarnstrom, head of education for Minecraft. ![]() Deirdre Quarnstrom, Minecraft's head of education The Education Edition has been used in schools to teach a broad range of subjects, but with the introduction of Code Builder this month, it's now a means for teaching kids to code - even from as young as six years-old. That's why what Microsoft has been doing with Minecraft is so important. But it's hard to implement, because first you need to teach the teachers they weren't taught programming at school, either. In the UK, Computer Science has recently been worked into the school curriculum, which is good news for our industry. I learned writing at a young age (as most of us did), but my brother had to teach himself the basics of coding, and strolled into university with little prior understanding of what he was about to study. Not only is computer science a difficult subject to master, you're simply not taught it at school. It's the latter Dring that has had the most challenging of the career paths. He's just found his first programming job at a major studio. Meanwhile my youngest sibling was fascinated by the science and coding of games. My middle brother discovered a knack for management, so ended up pursuing a career in business development. I always loved the writing, so I found my way from there into journalism. ![]() All three of us began our working lives as video game testers at the same company. ![]()
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