Students Programing Inside of a Video Game!
Community Review for Minecraft
My Take
My overall opinion on using this resource as a teaching tool is that it is nearly perfect. It can keep the students engaged in a never-ending sandbox where they can create whatever they desire. All the teacher needs to do is to be the bridge that allows them to connect the two. Even long after the camp was over, the kids I know who were programming within Minecraft were still looking up different lines of code to write in order to make different and more complicated things within the video game. What's interesting is that some people even use this opportunity to make money and create different actions for other players to enjoy. There is an applicable sense to the idea of creating new programs in Minecraft. It's great that students want to go out of their way to work on this project, to the point where homework doesn't even feel like homework anymore. And as a teacher, when the students are actively engaged and want to learn more about the topic, that's all you can ask for as a teacher.
How I Use It
This is a great resource to use with students. I know some kids that went to just a week-long camp that got them interested in the idea of coding within one of their favorite video games. It's great for teaching kids how to code, by combining something they already play with the knowledge that they want to learn to make the game even better. It can be used creatively, allowing students the freedom to change the game how they would like to. Or, by giving the students an assignment to perform some type of action specifically. It's a great way for students to become familiar with a certain language or specific actions that a teacher would want them to learn.