Can Minecraft be used as an Educational Tool?

    LONDON, ENGLAND, May 07, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Is Minecraft a good Education tool as well as a traditional game?

Firstly it is worth noting that most people strongly believe that Minecraft offers millions of people the opportunity to learn new skills within the game. In addition there are thousands of competitions themed around education, such as the examples below.

NASEF Digital Rube Goldberg Machine Minecraft competition

North America Scholastic Esports Federation has arranged a Minecraft competition. The competition is based on building a digital Rube Goldberg Machine in the creative environment of Minecraft Education Edition. NASEF will also host a preseason competition for the participants in which they will have to create 6 mini challenges at the end of this year.

This preseason competition will help participants to improve their Minecraft skills. NASEF also provides a weekly tutorial for the students about creating simple machines using Minecraft.
The idea of building a digital version of the Rube Goldberg Machine competition will help students to learn skills such as problem-solving, teamwork and creativity.

If you want to learn more about Minecraft Building, take a look at one of the leading Minecraft Developers - Team Visionary - https://teamvisionary.net

It will also motivate students to learn advanced gaming skills of the game. Rube Goldberg Machine is basically a group of small and simple machines which work together to create a chain reaction process. NASEF is a nonprofit organization that encourages esports for education purposes. It not only offers free registration for eligible students, but also offers free access to Minecraft Education Edition for PC.

How does it work?

It is a STEM competition where students from grade 3 to 12 can participate. Students will have to use their imagination and creativity to build a digital Rube Goldberg Machine in Minecraft Education Edition. The teams that will be registered in the competition, will receive free Minecraft Education Edition. The aim of the program is to provide students a fun and competitive environment to learn teamwork and out of the box problem solving skills through Minecraft video games.

There are three categories in the competition, Junior Division, Senior Division and Home Division. Junior category is for students between 8 to 13 years, Senior Division is for students between 13 to 18 years and Home division doesn't have any age restriction, adults and children both can apply for this category. Students will have to register as a team, and each team must have at least two members. The registration should be completed by an adult sponsor such as, parent, teacher or guardian.

After the registration process of the competition, NASEF will also provide a free coaching for all the registered teams that will be helpful for those teams that are new to the game. All teams will have to go through a preseason competition in which teams will have to complete the mini-challenges. Winners of the preseason competition will be selected by Raffle. These winners of each division will receive a variety of different prizes. NASEF is also hosting live streaming on Twitch.tv for students and educators to learn more about mini-challenges.

INTERFACE Minecraft competitions 2020: Teachers

The INTERFACE magazine has teamed up with Microsoft and MOTAT to organize a Minecraft Education Edition competition for both Teachers and Students. You can participate in the competition if you are a teacher, a student, or a group of class. The competition basically has two categories, one is for Teachers and the second one is for Students. Players have to use the Minecraft Education edition to participate in the competition.

How does it work?

In the Teacher's category of the competition, participants have to create a unique lesson plan using Minecraft Education edition. The participants need to choose the category of the competition, record a video of their creation using Minecraft Education edition, and submit the video with an entry form given on the website. The project you built will be judged on the basis of the creativity of the design, use of appropriate materials, the accuracy of the construction and complexity of the design.

In the Student's category of the competition, students have to build a project on a given theme. Students will have to use their skills, knowledge and imaginations to create an amazing structure in Minecraft Education Edition. After creating a structure, students will have to record a five minute video of the creation and submit through the website. The INTERFACE motivates ideas which help to save and protect our environment. There has been a lot of research in this area such as the TEDX Bath game research data.

You can participate in the competition as an individual or as a group or a class. All the entries are judged for different factors including effectiveness, implementation, and innovation of the project. It is not necessary that you build a big and fancy project to win the competition, sometimes a simple creation can be attractive enough to win the competition. You can choose unique ideas to build your project such as tackling climate issues, reducing global warming, or minimizing the environmental pollution.

The winner of each category will receive a great prize. The winner of the teacher's category will get a brand new HP Probook X360 and the runner up of the competition will get a camera. The winner student's category will get an Acer Notebook. There are also attractive prizes for each category of the competition.

# # #