Minecraft was released a long back ago but Mojang keeps making it exciting after every new update. Minecraft was released in 2009, and this game is one of the most popular games even being the oldest game.
And for your information, Minecraft ranks in 1st position several times in the list of most played games, and in the past 10 years, Minecraft rarely loses its reigns from the top 5 games. So there is something that makes this game too much popular even being the oldest game (not the oldest)
Is Minecraft Educational For Young Minds?
Depends. Because there are a lot of things that can be done in Minecraft, be it killing poultry, trade person, etc as well as building things with blocks. So the fact is that Minecraft is educational if it is used legally, ie. Playing so to be beneficial for a young mind. It is an action RPG (role-playing) game which means it has fictional gameplay. Remember that Minecraft is just a sandbox game where you can build almost anything with blocks so there's no science, maths, or SS if you see the word 'educational' by this way.
Moreover, it is educational in some ways, let say if a teacher gave the students a task on the economic subject and you'll have to build a town with shops, management buildings, houses, and other things. This can be done in 'creative' mode which is present in Minecraft. It can be done even with a team of students in the same world and in this way, students can develop many skills such as:
- Creativity in young minds
- Leadership quality
- Thinking capacity
- Organization skill
- Social skill (when worked with a team)
So by using it in such a way, Minecraft can be educational for students but there are even common considerations that should be taken in mind such as:
- Minecraft is educational but does not give any theoretical knowledge and or concrete knowledge.
- Excessive playing of Minecraft can cause stress in the eye.
- Games can sometimes view as a negative thing by parents.
So basically Minecraft develops STEM knowledge in students if played for educational purposes.
What is STEM?
It is a type of knowledge which when acquired can be used to relate the physical world with the help of maths, science. A true STEM knowledge helps the students to understand how physical things works.
On the other hand, Minecraft has too little violent presence in the game, and nowadays young people play a lot of damn 18+ violent games so there is no denying fact that Minecraft is good to go for them.
Minecraft itself is educational, as it teaches stuff like groundwork and time management even in the limited amount of daylight before the monsters come out during the night, and also the amount of blocks needed for a building or creation needs to be calculated, other things such as teamwork builds social skill.
How To Make Minecraft As For Educational Purposes:
As it is written above that the game can be educational if it is played in that way.
School teachers can make a private server for their students with a code and students can join their server using that code. Imagine, you are playing with 30 students for the sake of studying.
For example, a mathematics teacher could teach students how to measure the length, width, height, and volume of a shape.
Though it has x, y, and z-axis too which can give the young mind a rough idea of how physics works.
A geology teacher could show the different minerals (wood, diamond, metal, etc.) and materials that could be found in the game.
Morals and ethics could be drawn from the game, asking the player: “yeah, so killing this sheep just for fun really isn't the right thing to do, right? ” lol
Minecraft Educational Edition:
There is an educational edition of Minecraft where things are more balanced and limited than in the normal edition of Minecraft, making it more user-friendly as well as least violent in terms of other versions of Minecraft. Minecraft Educational Edition is just the Bedrock Edition with slight adjustments done by Mojang.
There is no multiplayer (world server) to prevent students from getting toxic servers. Minecraft Educational Edition allows the students to join the server using the school code.
What's exciting in Minecraft Educational Edtion?
Minecraft Educational Edition is proven to be educational by school teachers as it let them build things with blocks so that students can see it for a better physical idea.
Conclusion
So yeah, Minecraft is or could be played for educational purposes and it's not any tough thing to do, just some basic rough idea is required to play the game.
Moreover, the game itself is fun to play and one can learn better when don't take it as a burden. Many schools actually do the same because students prefer learning while playing and it's not any bad thing. Though this is not an easy deal for Asian schools and parents as they might be too strict to let you do this.
One more difference between the normal edition of Minecraft and 'Minecraft Educational Edtion' is that the normal version is more updated than the educational edition.