Announcing Minecraft: Education Edition
education.minecraft.net
education.minecraft.net
* 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
* DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
So this means that Minecraft: Education Edition will most likely not be Java-based like regular Minecraft.
More evidence:
> "Mods are not currently supported in Minecraft: Education Edition."
So kids definitely won't be modding this version of Minecraft. In that case, what are they going to be doing with it? I'm curious to know because last summer my son went to a "Minecraft camp" of sorts and they taught Java programming/modding to ages 9+. For that they were using Minecraft Forge.
This version of Minecraft is most likely based on the Pocket Edition which is written in C++.
Also note that this is not the same thing as ComputerCraftEdu which is vanilla Minecraft (Forge) + ComputerCraft (special EDU edition). ComputerCraft is a mod that lets you program in-game computers and robots using Lua. The latest Edu version also includes a visual programming interface which you can read more about here:
http://www.computercraft.info/2015/07/01/introducing-compute...
A Mojang dev has said that they are still supporting the Java version, that they ultimately hope to have feature parity across all platforms, that they know modding is a critical part of Minecraft's popularity, and that they want to add modding to Pocket Edition/Windows 10 Edition but probably not soon. (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-gamers-are-worried-abou...) So that's all kind of confusing, and who knows what Microsoft will decree in a few years, but in theory they're trying to do the right thing eventually.
Obviously a C++ version will never be as moddable as the Java version, since modders won't be able to get at the source code, and will require Mojang to add formal mod support to work at all. On the other hand, if all this drives them to actually do that it would be awesome; they've been promising it for years now, and in the meantime all mod development has been shackled by the requirement to reverse-engineer deliberately obfuscated code that breaks all mods with every new version release.
I checked out minecraftedu.com and they say they'll have a FAQ up soon. In the meantime, they have post on their front page that says they'll continue to sell MinecraftEdu. I have to say that this is very disturbing to me though. Did we just purchase something that really won't be supported anymore in the future? If it will, why would Microsoft go in a completely different direction after purchasing MinecraftEdu? The words are all nice, but the actions are all contradictory. :(
I know what you are saying, but it should work just fine with WINE nowadays. DX9 support is not an issue anymore.
I'd be the last person to shill for MS. Minecraft seems to work.
One of the nastier problems is how chunk[1] updates are performed. It used to be really bad: every time a block was added/modified/removed, the entire chunk (!) used to be sent to all the clients. It's somewhat better now, but modifications to the world still cause a lot of data to be sent[2] to the clients.
Even worse are the lighting recalculations. These happen on the server, which recalculates the lighting in up to a 16-block radius every time a torch is placed. These updates also happen when blocks are changed... and when redstone dust or redstone repeaters change their value, as they give off light. Of course, as these changes can span multiple chunks, changing redstone or placing a torch can trigger multiple chunks updates that need to be sent to each client.
This data-update problem is made much, much worse because of a particular design decision in Minecraft: each block stores a flag indicating if it is the top block in it's column (that is, it receives sunlight during the day). This means any change in the top block or any empty space above it causes the entire vertical space from sky to the top block to be searched. This is the cause of some of the nastier "lag spikes".
While it's a few years old now and addresses older Minecraft versions (1.5/1.6), I highly recommend watching TrazLander's investigation and analysis[3] of how these lighting calculations can destroy framerate. It is very enlightening about this weakness in Minecraft.
[1] The sparse octree that Minecraft uses to store the world is stored in 16x16 block horizontal, 266 block high sections called "chunks" http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Chunk
[2] Well, usually. Minecraft has always had bugs where updates would be dropped or missed, resulting in "world holes". This has also improved, but but not completely - world holes still happen, especially during heavy server load.
But, I ask innocently and without agenda, how is this used as a tool for educators? I know kids love it, and I understand why, but quotes like
>Since the introduction of Minecraft to the classroom, educators around the world have been using Minecraft to effectively teach students everything from STEM subjects to art and poetry.
make me wonder what exactly is the benefit of using Minecraft in the classroom from an educational perspective? Are lessons actually being planned around Minecraft, or is it like the video games I played in "computer lab" which were just a convenient way to get a group of 30 second graders to be quiet for 45 minutes? What's the benefit of using Minecraft over traditional teaching tools, other than shoehorning lessons into something kids are already familiar with?
I realize that this comment may sound like it's coming from a place of bitter skepticism, but I'm genuinely curious.
As I've researched what the whole Minecraft in the classroom thing is about, I've found a few ways it is being used, but they all boil down to making the learning experience more engaging to more students. Make it fun and the students will tear off and learn more better faster.
Some activities very directly support the curriculum, for example teachers who have made activities where concepts from quantum mechanics, newtonian physics, and life sciences have made working models in the Minecraft world where students can experiment and more directly experience the details behind these concepts.
Some are just virtual worlds where you can be a virtual tourist and learn about a place or time in history. There is one where you explore Boston during the time of the Boston Tea Party for example, and you have to talk to all of the NPC characters to learn facts you will be tested on later.
Some are very computer-science focused where students make their own mods or just use scripting languages to automate structure creation on a larger scale.
All of these could be taught using more traditional methods. For some learners, just telling them to read a book will be the highest throughput/most effective learning method. Those kids are going to do fine regardless. These new gamified virtual world methods of introducing the material may slow things down for the learners we historically see as highly capable learners, but they promise to engage and light a fire inside some of the other students who otherwise might get left behind.
How much you should or can tailor the experience for each audience is a challenge I face all the time. It isn't easy as every decision seems to involve improving the experience for one segment of the class, usually at the expense of another.
Well said...there is a segment of the population which will likely never be exposed to STEM, or the methodology associated with critical thinking skills, any other way...I applaud your grasp of that concept...that's one of the primary differences between "teachers" and "educators"...
Is it, though? Admittedly it's been a while but I feel like once you get beyond the absolute basics of circuitry Minecraft gets ridiculously complicated in terms of building the structures necessary to establish the circuitry (just search YouTube for the monstrosities that are necessary to build simple adders in Minecraft). At that point you're not really learning anything except how to play Minecraft.
When a student's at middle or high school level I feel like LEGO Mindstorms or even Arduinos would be a better option.
[1] http://services.minecraftedu.com/wiki/Teaching_with_Computer...
For your specific redstone logic problems, try the "project red" mod. Its in plenty of FTB packs.
http://ftbwiki.org/Project_Red
You could make some points about chemistry using minechem. Maybe not much deep knowledge but something basic might seep in.
Across many mods there tends to be an inherent bias toward industrialization / capitalist investment. Produce things slowly by hand or quickly with an assembly line and even faster with speed upgrades.
I suppose there are kids who are extremely fuzzy on the basic concepts of steam based electrical power generation and railcraft and big reactors would clarify some of that.
There are probably ecological lessons in terrafirmacraft and the numerous food mods. Not all of minecraft is "apples come from oak trees" or whatever.
I suspect it works very well for shallow gaining interest, very well for signalling, not so well for serious learning. Kinda like ipads in schools. Or computers in school, in general.
True...many students do stop there...but others may be inclined to follow up based on interest, or curiosity...children's minds veer off in unpredictable ways, just as adult's minds do...exposure to new concepts is ultimately what education is all about...
I think your question is valid...I'd love to see what would happen if a class of 8th graders were given a Raspberry Pi at the beginning of a semester and asked,"What can we do with this? Then give them the whole semester to answer...
It's much like the arguments that often come up here on HN where the flavor-of-the-week framework or language is being inefficiently twisted to fit a purpose it wasn't designed for.
Similarly, children are already playing with Minecraft and are interested in doing "cool stuff" with it. If you can tap into that existing goal and use it as a way for them to learn something else, it's less of an uphill struggle since they'll be intrinsically motivated to learn.
Minecraft could obviously be used for creative and social play, like playing with LEGO. (I wouldn't say it's better or worse than that but it is a bit different.) However, Minecraft is also programmable so could be used in similar ways to basic electronics.
That's the one part I can definitely see as being educational with the redstone wiring and logic gates and whatnot. Having said that, however, I feel like learning actual circuitry (y'know, with real wires) is a better exercise because it's tangible.
Maybe I'm just jaded and dislike the idea of using computers for everything in education. I guess Minecraft probably helps the kids stay engaged more than physical circuitry would.
That really sounds like trying to shove a sphere in a cube shaped hole.
First of all, kids love Minecraft. And I mean LOVE it. Its ubiquitous amongst them. I tried to come up with an analogy to my own youth, but I can't. Its not a flash-in-the-pan fad like pogs were and its not Pokemon or Magic. I have met a handful of kids who did not have experience with Minecraft, but they almost always know what the game is at least.
I helped put together a few little Minecraft camps and workshops armed only with my own personal knowledge of the game (I too was an early adopter of the game) and a handful of mods. The first couple of camps I tried were pretty poor execution on my part. The kids usually found ways to mass-spawn monsters or create The End portals and generally stayed unfocused. They were way more interested in dinking around the game than doing anything productive.
But then we put more structure around it and locked some of the features down with mods. They kids were tasked with creating a city, so I plotted out a flat grid of land and gave each of them access to a city block (sometimes 2 or 3 of them would get to share a block). It took a few sessions, but they made a pretty cool looking city. And for the most part locking down the areas kept them on task.
Recently I helped out with a camp that let the kids choose between building structures, creating mini-games, or programming. The programming part was mostly using the ComputerCraft mod[1], which was pretty much like turtle. You could program a robot block to mine or build for you. The potential here is pretty huge for kids to get into programming from a very early age who normally wouldn't since its very accessible (think Scratch, but in a game they already love).
What I keep reminding myself though is that Minecraft is yet another great, accessible, family-friendly game that can help introduce kids to computers very early. There will be a certain percentage who take it to the next level and learn how to create simple java mods for the game. There is potential for some to craft huge sculptures and cities and generally expand their artistic skills. I think there is a very real connection between many people who love programming today who also loved playing games in school like Oregon Trail and SimCity, that's the potential for Minecraft imo. So even when they aren't totally being focused and are just playing around in the world, its giving them a friendly impression of what computers can ultimately do.
Therefore we may surmise that Minecraft: Education Edition will be a subscription-based licensing model. Kind of a bummer but I get it, teachers are pretty resource-intensive to support, and the value comes from building up the community and resource/lesson/world sharing, which is an ongoing cost.
The school where I teach had literally just last week decided to take the plunge and purchase some MinecraftEDU licenses. I'm just glad we will still have them in perpetuity (whatever that is good for in the constantly changing world of software!) along with the full retail copies that come along with it.
Really I hope this will deliver on the promise of Minecraft in the schools. MinecraftEDU was a fine first step but it is clear that it will benefit from having the full resources of Microsoft behind it. Currently it is still a bit of a "throw the software at the community and hope something good comes of it" approach, which is very hit or miss. Teachers are making a lot of great lessons and activities using Minecraft, but many of them are very localized to exactly what that specific teacher is trying to accomplish and are difficult to generalize to "all 4th grade teachers can use this". I would liken it to what Scratch offered for coding in the classroom ("here's the toolset, have fun!"), as opposed to what Code.org brought to the table with more of a complete packaged lesson plan and hand-held guided experience through a coding activity using Scratch.
That's making some assumptions about how they will restrict the license usage.
I doubt many schools will see the benefit of having to buy a license for each individual student. The reality is that very few teachers are equipped with the skills to deliver a lesson using Minecraft, so mostly you will see a handful of teachers (at best, more likely zero or one) in a school embrace this.
Another important question: will you still be entitled to a separate full retail Minecraft license for every education license purchased? That is a significant component of the current MinecraftEDU licensing. It enables school events and lessons using any mod or plugin, with self-hosted servers.
I don't see this as all negative. I am hopeful that with the increased $$ flow will come better curriculum that is more generally applicable, as well as new features that might enable teachers who are novices with Minecraft to successfully use it in the classroom. Currently I would say only 1 out of 20 teachers has the skills required to pull this off today.
Or one Starbucks bullshitaccino...
Microsoft bought MinecraftEdu, but not TeacherGaming, which will continue to work on KerbalEdu
You can see the DMCA notice there: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-09-05-CraftB...
Mojang ABs customers aren't magically going to become liable for their violations by using their software.