Microsoft Makes Minecraft Education Edition Available To Schools (techweekeurope.co.uk) 32
Mickeycaskill quotes a report from TechWeekEurope UK: Microsoft has bolstered its push into the education sector with the release of Minecraft: Education Edition for teachers around the world. The beta is an "early access" release, meaning it is free for testing purposes for schools. It comes after Microsoft last year launched a Minecraft site for educators to seek ideas on how the video game could be used as part of lessons. With the early access version of Minecraft: Education Edition now available, teachers have the chance to install and try an early version of the experience for free throughout the summer with classes of up to 30 students (without the need for a separate server). The complete version of Minecraft: Education Edition will be available in September. It will cost between $1 and $5 per user, per year depending on school size and volume licensing offers. Minecraft shows no sign of slowing down. It recently passed 100 million sales across all platforms and Microsoft, which acquired Mojang roughly two years ago, even has plans to bring Minecraft to China.
Bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)
There are far better educational games. Minecraft is not educational. This actually distracts students from doing important things like learning to read, write, doing math problems, understanding scientific reasoning, and learning the scientific method. Maybe that's what passes for education in the US, but here in Europe, we're more concerned with the fundamentals.
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Nonsense. One of my best friends uses Minecraft to teach kids. He has the kids involved with:
* Teamwork
* Problem Solving
* Cooperation
* Communication
He builds his own levels and has a zero tolerance policy on griefing. His classes are filled due to demand.
Do kids get distracted with trying to craft Diamond Swords? Yes, but he helps redirect them to keep them focused on the lesson at hand.
Are there better games? I haven't seen any dynamic voxel games that have the basic functionality of Minecraft. The onl
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Are there better games? I haven't seen any dynamic voxel games that have the basic functionality of Minecraft.
There are two. One is a clone, it is called minetest. The other is space engineers.
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> One is a clone, it is called minetest. The other is space engineers.
Minetest is crap. I've been subscribed to the mailing list for Minetest's issues for the past 2 years; the dev's don't have a fucking clue most of the time. I've mentioend it before to my friend it doesn't meet his needs at all compared to Minecraft + Python + mods.
I haven't played Space Engineers enough to know if it was decent for teaching but I'll definitely check it out again.
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Minetest is crap. I've been subscribed to the mailing list for Minetest's issues for the past 2 years; the dev's don't have a fucking clue most of the time.
So, feature parity with Minecraft!
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LOL! Nice one!
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That's pretty funny since multiple European countries use it for some form and learning. Do a search. Everything from letting people design parts to using it help people learn geography on a HUGE scale.
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Here in Sweden we mostly care about political correctness and socialist brain-washing.
has been moderated Flamebait (-1).
Turned out socialist brain-washing and political-correctness censorship had also reached Slashdot.
Minecraft Windows 10 upgrade scheme (Score:3, Funny)
And they'll be conveniently upgraded to Windows 10!
Big Tech Wants a Microsoft 'Minecraft Generation' (Score:2)
This Computer Science Education Coalition 'sharegraphic' [csecoalition.org] calls for raising a Microsoft 'Minecraft Generation' ("our kids #gaming today could help them lead the US economy into the future").
Windows only? (Score:2)
<cynical> Have they made it Windows only yet? </cynical>
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No, but it looks like the MCPE code base is getting the most attention from MS. Oh wait, MCPE currently works on iOS, Android, and Windows 10, And Mojang just released the second stable update this year, 1.10. So, it is not Windows only yet and nothing so far makes it look like it ever will be. MS wants customers, not just Windows customers.
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Not yet.
They have released a Windows 10 version though, which is incompatible with all other versions including funnily enough home Linux servers.
Remember kids (Score:2)
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The first hit is free....
I'd be surprised if most kids don't already have Minecraft in some form at home. PC, XBox, their parents' phones... What's different about this version is that they get to play it at and for school.
Wish they would rewrite the code to C/C++. (Score:2)
The Java version is too slow.
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This is based on the Mobile/Pocket version of Minecraft which is written in C++.
MinecraftEdu was better, probably (Score:2)
We used MinecraftEdu in a previous workplace to teach a variety of things in Maths and Computing but we relied heavily on mods and this new one doesn't offer anything close to what we had. I was about to look into using in my new job but this version is Windows 10 only and has no mod support, this makes it pretty much useless for me.