Today’s lesson was revisiting games based learning, this week focusing on Minecraft. “Minecraft has become a global sensation, prized by teenagers, adults and, in particular, seven- to 12-year-olds” (The Guardian, 2014). I was particularly excited for today’s lesson as I had played Minecraft a few times in the past, but never for long. I was also really looking forward to getting to meet the pupils and see their take on it.
In class today we had a visit from a group of primary 6 children and their class teacher. They visited to tell and then show us how the used the game Minecraft to enhance their learning. The children came with iPads from the school that had Minecraft installed. For the first part of our session with the children, they showed us how to play the game, and what they had been creating in class. As a whole class they had been creating a Harry Potter world. They had been working in small groups and then linking it all together using the internet – this is one part I am still a little unsure on, but it was amazing to see! For the second part of the session the iPads were handed over to us and the children became the teacher. Some adults in my group had clearly never played it before and were quite slow- much slower than the children. It was funny to see how frustrated they got with them as for the children it must be very simple. Lucky for me I have played Minecraft a few times before and know the basic controls. The two boys in my group were impressed with how I played it- I think they were glad one adult knew what they were doing! It is important that we as teachers do have a good grasp ourselves before teaching it to pupils and this is confirmed by Beauchamp (2012) who states, “Achieving particular educational objectives through the use of the game was more dependent upon a teacher’s knowledge of the curriculum with which they were working than it was on their ability with the game.”
While the pupils were having their break, we had an opportunity to talk to the class teacher about why she chose to use Minecraft to teach and in what ways it could be used. An example would be to use it as a stimulus in topic work. The teacher said that she herself had used it to teach topics such as the Titanic and Ancient Egypt. Children can use Minecraft to build a world based on this time, either individually or working as a group. After this, the children could then have a literacy lesson or art lesson based on what they had created. Writing a story about it or trying to replicate what they had built through painting.
The CfE Experiences and Outcomes I chose for this lesson are:
I enjoy creating texts of my choice and I regularly select subject, purpose, format and resources to suit the needs of my audience. LIT 1-20a/LIT2-20a
When listening and talking with others for different purposes, I can exchange information, experiences, explanations, ideas and opinions, and clarify points by asking questions or by asking
others to say more. LIT 1-09a
I can create, capture and manipulate sounds, text and images to communicate experiences, ideas and information in creative and engaging ways. TCH 1-04b/TCH 2-04b
There are many reasons and ways we as student teachers can optimise using games based learning in a classroom to help enhance teaching and learning. By doing this correctly and by having the relevant knowledge ourselves we can really help to engage children, particularly those who previously would have been unwilling to participate in normal lessons. I will definitely use this approach, and mine craft in particular in future lessons I may plan.
References
Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary Classroom: From Pedagogy top Practice. Pearson.
The Guardian (2014) Minecraft: here’s one I made earlier [Online] Available: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/14/minecraft-computer-game-success [Accessed: 9th April].
Pixabay.com. (2018). Free Images – Pixabay. [Online] Available at: https://pixabay.com [Accessed: 9th April].
Scottish Government (2008) The Curriculum for Excellence [Online] Available: http://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/all-experiences-and-outcomes.pdf [Accessed: 9th April].
The children of today are bombarded with multimodal texts more than any generation before them due to the rise of technology. “The increased use of multimodal texts, digital communication, social networking and the other forms of electronic communication encountered by children and young people in their daily lives,” is reflected in the Curriculum for Excellence (Scottish Government, n.d., p.4) with the active inclusion of these multimodal texts.
Once the children have worked out the word, or if they are really stuck, there is a picture of the animal beside the word which can be revealed; this reminded me of ‘lift the flap’ books and struck me as very likely to keep children engaged. And of course, with an Interactive White Board, children would likely enjoy being invited up to drag and drop the letters or reveal the animal themselves, creating a “hands-on experience,” (Prandstatter, 2014). If I were to do this task again and able to invest more time in creating, I would include animal noises to increase the multimodality of the text.
In this weeks Digital Technologies input we were introduced to programmable toys, and how to use these in the classroom to enhance learning in many subjects – not just Technology. We were set the task of designing and planning a Bee-Bot activity with the potential to fulfil one Technology outcome and at least one Numeracy outcome.
Armed with a shopping list and a ‘purse’ of coins, their job was to guide Bee-Bot to the items on their list (TCH 0-15a, MTH 0-17a) and use coins to help them keep track of the cost of individual items along the way (MNU 0-09a), and at the end of their ‘shopping trip’ to calculate the total cost of their shopping.