Minecraft ubiquitous learning

Today we read chapter 10 & 11 of 'City of Ember' and my students continued to build the city. We hit a road bump last Friday when we realized our cave wasn't high or wide enough. One of my Minecraft experts took it upon himself to utilise his lunchtime today and Friday to rebuild/configure the cave location so that the students had enough space to build their assigned buildings.

 We had finished the two chapters with 30 minutes to spare so I allowed the students to go for it and just let them have free run to finish their buildings. I then heard an excited yelp of glee when one boy shouted "Miss Downard, I have built a clock and it is attached to a light, did you know you can set the time and we can have the light go on and off whenever we want". My response to this was pure excitement, before I could even put the idea for how we could do this on a larger scale another of my students said "Miss, we can set clocks up with lights all around Ember and then we can make them go off at 9pm just like in the book" another student then jumped in and said "That is going to be really hard because we have to work it out over a 24 hour period". This is when I jumped in and began and impromptu math lesson on time. The students were so engaged because it meant something to them right then and there, and they could then use that knowledge to begin putting it to use.

I knew Minecraft offered learning opportunities but I didn't think it would begin presenting itself with so many awesome real and meaningful opportunities so early on. Here are some awesome screenshots of the 'City of Ember' that the students have built so far. I am already noticing the progression of their skills and creativity within this and I am thinking of other learning areas I can start integrating this into.