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Minecraft Education Edition

Hearing ‘Minecraft’ and ‘education’ in the same sentence may be irritating at first. Considering that the game was made for fun and doesn’t seem to offer much possibility for learning real life-related things, Minecraft Education Edition might be an exception to the normal gameplay. Still, it has been proven useful since it became an official part of Minecraft in 2016. We’ll tell you all you need to know about Minecraft Education and how a cubic video game world can actually contribute to education.

Overview Minecraft Education Edition:

  • official Minecraft Edition since 2016
  • offers many possibilities for the classroom
  • constantly developed further by educators
  • limited functions in Bedrock

MinecraftEdu – Just another Minecraft Mod?

Today, Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the world. This is a result of its growing popularity during the last decade and its attempts to widen its audience group.  Not to forget, it already made big waves when it was released in 2009. In 2011, the great interest of students and the extensive customizability of the game inspired teacher Joel Levin to use Minecraft for the classroom. This idea, in collaboration with other teachers, evolved into the MinecraftEdu mod. It expanded the game with a series of prepared lessons and additional features for teaching purposes.

It took some years for Minecraft developers to realize the MinecraftEdu mod’s potential. In 2016, it was bought and became officially a part of Minecraft. However, it wasn’t just an official mod. It became its very own game edition: Minecraft Education. Ever since, Minecraft found its way into the classroom. This is where the main advantage lies: the Minecraft Education Edition is constantly being developed further by teachers and educators. 

Minecraft in education

The uses of Minecraft for the classroom are more diverse than one might first think. Already with MinecraftEdu, a history teacher recreated Spartan military training, stage plays were performed and physics experiments were recreated. With the Minecraft Education Edition, the possibilities are constantly expanding into nearly all fields you can imagine.

Minecraft lessons

By now, a variety of pre-made lessons are available through education.minecraft.net. These cover numerous fields of knowledge including: 

  • math
  • history
  • languages
  • art & design
  • science
  • sustainability & inclusion

Among them are lessons on sustainable food production, building a Mars rover and social justice, for example. However, you are not tied to these lessons. You might as well plan your own lessons by exploring the possibilities the Minecraft Education Edition offers. Your students can become co-teachers or they could create their own worlds and projects in groups and then present them to the class. After all, Minecraft Education offers an underappreciated fun factor to otherwise boring lessons and can lead to all students wanting to engage in a lesson.

Other Uses of Minecraft for the Classroom

Additionally, the Minecraft Education Edition offers a wide range of design options for creating your own classroom content that goes far beyond writable whiteboards. For example, students can create complex economics in multiplayer to learn the basics of supply and demand. Villagers can be used to guide students by giving them simple instructions if you feel like there is too much text on boards already. Chemical compounds, for example, can be represented with blocks. To learn about these possibilities, a tutorial world is available for teachers to familiarize them with how Minecraft and specifically the Minecraft Education Edition work.

Minecraft Education Requirements

First of all, the technical requirements: Minecraft Education is based on the Windows 10 version and is available for: 

  • Windows 10
  • macOS
  • iPadOS

The Minecraft Education Edition is not available for private individuals, but only for educational institutions. They have to pay $5 per user per year after a free trial period. Additionally, players need a free Office 365 Education account to use it.

Another requirement is the Java Edition of Minecraft if you want to enjoy every function of Minecraft Education. Although there are some functions available in Bedrock by enabling cheats (such as commands), full content is only available in Java. The functions you are offered in Bedrock are based on chemistry and include using the following items:

  • lab table
  • element constructor
  • compound creator
  • material reducer

Aside from chemistry, all Minecraft Education Edition features are supported by the Java Edition of the game. Still, there are many opportunities for students to experiment in Bedrock, too.

Conclusion: Minecraft Education Edition 

We hope we were able to answer your questions about Minecraft Education Edition. As you can see, this is not just a simple mod but a whole world for students and teachers to explore. Maybe you should inform your school about the many advantages of Minecraft for the classroom. And if you haven’t had enough after a long day of Minecraft lessons, celebrate your end of the day with a relaxing round of SMP with your friends on a Minecraft server from G-Portal.

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