Well, I found out about an interesting project that’s going on, out there in the world. This project consists of students, a teacher, and the game Minecraft; oh and a lot of computers. A computer lab teacher – who teaches students ranging from second grade to high-school grade – decided to try out something new, which was to have his students play a game during school! How awesome is this guy! So, when the students enter the lab, they are allowed to open up Minecraft, join the server that the teacher set-up; and away they go, to build, collaborate, and the best part, having fun!

The teacher wasn’t sure at first if he should do this, considering it’s marketed as a game; but he convinced the higher-ups that this was a good idea. Now, I do believe Minecraft has much educational potential, mainly due to the fact that Minecraft is essentially a sandbox, allowing the player to create almost anything they can think of; also since they are all connected to a multi-player server, they can work together and learn how to build something large and complex together. They can choose who builds what part of the building – or whatever else it is they are creating – and discuss how they should go about this task.

So basically it’s a game full of creative potential. Kids plus creativity is a combo that can never be torn apart. I’m sure when Notch was first designing this game, he never thought that it might be used by some teacher to help teach life lessons to younger kids; let alone, to be endorsed as a school assignment, instead of just someone playing it in their off time. But here we are, witnessing this awesome stuff go down.

Minecraft really is a game for any and all audiences. Now, I just can’t wait to see all the new additions that the Mojang crew is going to be adding to this game; bring on the content! Oh and wolfs are one of the new things that have been confirmed to be added, check them out here: [ efplace.com ]

This teacher has started a blog, with all the juicy details, so go check it out and see what these students and crazy (in a good way) teacher are doing. [ minecraftteacher.tumblr.com ]

Another teacher has joined the bandwagon and you can read about his team’s endeavors at this link: [ chatsworth.posterous.com ]

How many more could be out there doing the same thing? All I know, is it must be awesome for the kids to do sometime so fun while doing school “work.”