Part 1
An effective minecraft lesson should include the following criteria:
> Student led – Minecraft gives children the freedom and opportunity to be creative and to take ownership of their work. Teachers can guide and aid learning but will help the children take ownership of their work
> 21st Century skills – Children should become familiar with ICT skills which will ultimately open a lot of doors for them in the future. Development of research skills, perseverance, planning, oral and written communication, critical thinking, leadership, teamwork, collaboration, ICT literacy, computer programming, plotting, using controls, coding, creativity, etc are all becoming more and more important in today’s work places. Minecraft Education serves to enhance the children’s skills in these areas
> Cross curricular – Minecraft allows integration across all subjects, in particular through project work
> Imagination – Minecraft Ed promotes the development of the imagination and allows children to see different ideas and different perspectives from their peers
> Differentiation – Minecraft Ed allows for children of all abilities to contribute at their own level. Equally the lesson can be pitched to all levels
Part 2
Every teacher has their own individual laptop and each mainstream classroom has an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) with the Active Inspire programme installed.
There are also two laptops that remain at the back of each room.
There is one laptop cabby shared around the school which has sixteen laptops in it.
Children have access to Clicker 7, Teaching Time, Teaching Money, Spellodrome, Reading Eggs, Matific, Lexia (10 User License). Copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking.
Each learning support/resource room has one computer in it for children to work on when needed. This is not ideal as often withdrawal groups can consist of up to five or six students.
Similar to the mainstream classes, both special classes have IWBs in the classroom.
Both classes have a touchscreen Lenovo IdeaCentre C560 computer.
Recently we have acquired two new IPads.
ICT is used throughout the school daily. Children use it for homework, projects, through the IWB etc. Teachers use ICT to engage the children.
After completing this course i wish to set up a Minecraft ED afterschool club in my school with my coworker.
I also hope to use it on a one to one basis with the children in my ASD class. I am hoping that i can build their confidence in using the programme, eventually progressing to collaborative work with their peers.