A Change of Pace

I originally started this Blog to provide information on my experimental use of Minecraft in my classroom.  I wanted to provide anyone with interest some ideas and a blueprint of activities, since I could not find much in my own research.  But, my focus has changed.

I want to provide ideas and activities for any integration of technology.  Rather than start a new blog, I am changing my topic.  This will truly live up to the name Epic Tech Quest, as I am constantly looking for new ways to integrate and new things to share with others.  There is so much more that we do in our class and so much more we can learn.  I want that to be available to anyone who wants to know.

For instance, today, we are using the Green Screen app DoInk to create trailer's for personal narratives.  Rather than reading our stories to each other, we are creating short and thrilling clips that are designed to 'hook' the reader.  This also forces the students to summarize their stories without giving away the ending.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Burn it Down!

I have not been able to post about Mindcraft in a while because of some major changes in my classroom.  In the past weeks, we have gained the glorious opportunity to be 1:1 with Chromebooks and received student Google Accounts.  As a result, we have been a little preoccupied with all of that and neglected Mindcraft!

This week, we got the opportunity to continue our experience.  The kids have been learning about Ecosystems.  They have each chosen one to "specialize" in and have written an informative report and a personal narrative involving their ecosystem of choice.  Our learning focus is shifting from knowing about the ecosystem to protecting it.  One major factor I wanted my kids to understand is that we must protect the environment now, not later, and not in the next generation.

The plan was to create a new world in Survival Mode and burn down the forest.  If you are not familiar, Survival Mode is where the player starts out with nothing and must use the resources around (and under) them to craft objects and survive.  For our purposes, we turned off the mobs of zombies since that is not really school appropriate.

The students had to chop down trees in order to gain a pickaxe, then mine until they came across flint and iron to create a tool called "flint and steel".  I'm sure you can imagine what that does.  The next step was to find a forest and burn it down to nothing.  They also were instructed to destroy all the grass and flowers in that area.  The final step was to rebuild it.

What the students saw was how long it took to regrow the forest to its original status.  Destroying it versus rebuilding it.  Now they are looking into ways that their ecosystem is under attack and writing persuasive letters to the EPA imploring them to help us protect that ecosystem.

Teaching from the bleachers

Recently, I found myself sharing my "Mindcraft" experience to 25 very interested educators.  As I was talking about my ups and downs, successes and failures I came to an observation I had made earlier in the week.  It occurred to me that I am teaching from the bleachers.  I was a mere observer of the students performing in the classroom.  This could easily be taken the wrong way.  If my administrators heard, they would be having walk-throughs a every day or even every hour.

When I say "teaching from the bleachers", you might have visions of students at their seats filling in meaningless worksheets while I vigorously grade a pile of equally meaningless worksheets.  This is not the case.

My ultimate goal for my students is to create independent learners.  Students who can be given a task and accomplish it.  They don't need someone to point them in the right direction.  They have the skills, tools, and resources to complete a task and do it with fidelity.

I have taught them how to use the technology to their advantage effectively and safely.  Using search engines designed for their age, tools allowing them to collaborate with other students, they are able to problem solve and conquer.

I get to view all of this from afar getting authentic assessments of their growth.  I am no longer the focus of their learning.  I am merely a facilitator.  I bring the problems, they bring the solutions.  I give them a task and sit back to watch the magic happen.  In reality, I am able to pull students for individual help and focus on missing or lagging skills.  This is a result of Mindcraft.  My kids' motivation is strong enough to challenge them to do it all themselves.  They don't need or want me to show them the way.  They are in charge of their learning.

Venturing into ELA

Our current ELA unit focuses on healthy foods and good nutrition.  How can I incorporate Minecraft with that?  I decided that we do some research into what food items in Minecraft restore the most health and then have the kids build a garden that will allow them to produce those food items.

I found some wikis that contained this information specifically for Minecraft PE, through together a Custom Search Engine and let the kids begin researching.  Their intention was to figure out the best way to use a garden that 12x12 (I don't know why everything ends up being 12x12), not forgetting to make space for water!  The first lovely issue we ran into was the content filter for our district.  These sites were considered a "discussion board", thus they are blocked.

One student had the thought that we could download a Minecraft Crafting App and still find the information we needed.  I had him find one on Google Play, made sure it was safe (and free), then we worked together to download the app.  Inadvertently, the kids learned how to navigate Google Play and download an app.  This brought up conversations about permissions that Apps are granted by the user.

Once they had the App, they were off and rolling.  Using a graphic organizer to collect information and compare the various food types, then planning the locations of each block in their garden using a Google Sheet.  All of this would be simply an excuse to play Minecraft, except that they had an important writing piece to go with it.  They have to first discuss what "Good nutrition" is and then compare and contrast some of the food items that are available to them.  Finally, they must relate this to the real world and discuss how eating healthy is important for your overall health.

For this activity, we were able to incorporate many different skills.  The kids had to do research, cite their information, plan and organize the solution to a problem, and collaborate with others to accomplish a common goal.  Due to the always inevitable technology issues, we also had a chance to learn about digital privacy and how app stores work.

We are still in the process of completing this project, but pictures and descriptions will be in the next post!  I also recently received a document camera, so I hope to be able to post a video tour of one of these projects soon!

How many blocks for a cube home?

I have not been able to post any updates in awhile do to the hustle and bustle of the school year, sickness, and an injury that affected my typing skills...

The kids were (as usual) given objectives and a set of skills that they would need.  On this day, they had to figure out how many blocks were needed to create the basic structure of their house (just the outer layer of the cube).  We discussed what it meant to develop their own strategies and some of the students already claimed to know how many blocks were needed.  I prompted them to be sure and explain to their partner HOW they came to that conclusion.

This particular problem is not a grade level skill.  It requires multiple steps and reasoning that I would consider to be advanced.  After thoroughly discussing the task and what skills were needed, I set them free.

Within about 10 minutes, I had my first group that claimed to have solved the mystery.  "144 blocks".  First I asked them to explain how they came to that conclusion.  "We multiplied."  "What did you multiply?"  "The numbers, duh."  I was a bit surprised because our regular math curriculum requires daily written explanations of how the student solved a problem.  We had discussions on a regular basis where we examined good examples and poor examples.  Clearly, we needed more work on this skill.  Group after group came with numbers that were un-reasonable.  After about half the groups had tried more than once, I decided that this was not going quite the way I planned.  I stopped everyone and we came back together.  Using our projector, I showed the class what the cube-house looked like, then showed them what just the corners looked like.

 When asked how many blocks were used to build just this portion, the kids were able to make some quick calculations and come up with much more reasonable numbers: 100, 130, 150.  Once they realized that the corners could mistakenly be counted twice, the light bulbs went off.  I had them complete the rest of the original problem.  The kids were able to see what was missing on each side of the cube-home, 6 10 by 10 walls.

 After this revelation, the kids were getting much closer to solving the problem at hand.

What did I learn from this?  That even though the motivation was there, they still struggled with a multiple step problem.  This is something that we have noticed across the curriculum with all of our students.  Once they were given some scaffolding and a starting point, they were able to make their way through.  I am a bit defeated, but we will carry on!

Problem Solving

This week, the kids created their "homes", a 12 by 12 by 12 block structure.  They had to decide how many floors they could put in their house and then build them.

Objectives:
Create a house that is 12 blocks tall, 12 blocks wide, and 12 blocks deep.
Use a list to figure out what the maximum number of levels you can have in your home.
Use problem solving skills (compromise) to resolve any issues or disagreements

I observed each group from across the room, so as to not disturb their conversations as they were happening nor have any proximity related influence on their discussions.  The first thing I heard was, "How do we get in?" or "How do we get out?"  Many of the kids either didn't know about doors, or didn't think to put one in.  Easily solved by clearing out two blocks and placing the door in the gap.

Next up, "I can't see anything?".  Most kids threw up some torches and moved on, but others brought about more clever ways.  Some installed windows, some ripped off their roof and replaced it with glass blocks, other with goldstone.  The kids worked together and had to first decide their options, then make the best decision that they could.  These are students that are not paired up with students that they would normally work with and typically don't have lengthy discussions that stay on topic, they are after all, 8 year olds.  What is interesting about these discussions is that the students really do debate which option to work with.  There is a method to their persuasion and the best part is that their partner's rebuttals are just as well constructed.

These students are collaborating on a project and I am amazed at how well they are doing it.  I have heard no arguments, no fits of sadness or frustration, just good clean focused fun.  They are working together and actually enjoying it.  I have not noticed anyone sitting on the sidelines doing nothing.  There have not been any bossy players telling others what to do.  These are events that are typical in group work, but non-existent in Mindcraft (my name for this time in our class).  My students are truly cooperating with each other and accomplishing tasks in peace.  To me, this is a major benefit of using Minecraft.  My students are being creative, planning, and collaborating on a project together.  The way that I have infused our math curriculum into this may not be the best, but it will come with time and practice on my end.  In the meantime, my kids are learning to work seamlessly together and I can focus on working with them, not putting out fires.

This is one of the more complex examples that a student created.    With the size of the houses, the students had to realize that they could only create 3 floors and have 2 extra block heights to work with.He chose to make the top floor and the first floor taller than the middle floor.  You can see how he divided the levels on the first picture.

It continues

This week, the kids have started a new activity that has a little more freedom and a little more realism to it.  I instructed them to build a house with their partner that is 12 x 12 x 12.  They can use any block type that they'd like and once the basic structure is made, they can fill it and decorate how they wish.  This morning, when they walked in I posted the question "How many block are needed to create your house?" on the board and just left it up.  As I was greeting the kids coming in, I could hear students discussing it.  Several of them were trying to figure it out in there head.  My hope is that they start to develop a strategy for solving this on their own.  Some might add 12 for each column, some might try to multiply.  I just want them to explore the problem in their head so that when we do discuss it, they have some ideas.

These are third graders who are currently learning about adding 2-digit numbers.  They do not know how to multiply and they have no experience with volume, perimeter, or area (I am aware of some issues that will be present when discussing the corners and how they relate to overall area and perimeter, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there).  However, using Minecraft, they are beginning to develop these ideas and will later be able to connect their own strategies with standard formulas.

Project Mindcraft, Engage!

Today, we started.  It was a little bit scary for me, however the room was buzzing with excitement.

I had the students complete 2 tasks, both were review skills from our first Topic in math.  Their first task was to create a number line that showed the days in the month of their birth as well as their birthday.  This was a review of using a number line to show a number.  It was a pretty simple concept and doubled as a way for them to get used to Minecraft's interface.

The second task was more complicated.    They were shown 5 different blocks and told to find the number of 2 block combinations that they could make using only 1 of each type.  Earlier in the week, we took a formative assessment where the students needed to find the combinations of outfits if a person had 2 shirts and 2 pairs of pants.  Most students simply said, that makes 2 outfits.  I estimate that probably only 5% had gotten it right at that time, so we needed to try again.

To start we had to discuss the expectations and cover objectives for the day.  My objectives were:

We will...

• Represent numbers on a number line
• Make a list to solve a complex problem
• Solve a problem collaboratively
• Reflect on our activity to improve our future interactions

At the end of the time block, we stopped and the kids took a short survey in Google Forms.  

I was hoping to keep this activity to under 40 minutes, but most of the kids were not done.  Some problems arose as a result of technology and it slowed our completion.  

The results of the survey are found below:

How much motivation do you have to complete the tasks in class using Minecraft?

How much motivation do you have to complete the Practice homework sheets?

How well did you and your partner work together?

How successful were you in completing the tasks?

Average rating:

4.157894737

3.526315789

4.263157895

3.631578947

Additionally students were asked what ways they attempted to solve problems.  However, they did not realize that they could choose more than one answer and the data was not accurate, we will fix it for the next activity.

Examples of the Number Lines created:

These students created the number lines out of blocks.  The first struggle that they had was figuring out how many days were in their month.  To do this, one of them remembered that we have a calendar app on the tablet and he used that.  Once they figured out the number of days, they had to space the "tick" marks out equally across the top.  Most students put a sign in front of their number line to show where their birthday would fall.

Examples of the Combinations task:

This student created a row of 4 blocks that he stacked the different blocks on top of, thus "listing" out the possibilities.  You'll notice that there is one row that has a gap in it.  After creating this, he realized that if he used the same type of block on top of itself it was not correct because you only have 1 of each block type.

Two more examples of the combinations task.  These two students worked with the same method as the first.  You'll notice some minor mistakes in the second one, but they were not able to finish it due to time.

My thoughts:

This was fun for the students and they were more focused than usual.  In a typical 40 minute block with this group, I end up redirecting individual students at least 10 times.  Today, I only had to give 2-3 redirections. Why?  The kids were working on their own and utilizing each other to solve problems.  This kept them talking and working.  Only about 4 of the 11 groups completed both tasks, however, this was teh first time that we used Minecraft.  I think that there was a bit of a learning curve and the students were figuring out each other's strengths in order to make their groups more efficient.  Later today, the kids will write about their experiences and I will be able to get a better picture of this at that time.

Things to do differently:

As of right now, I think the only thing we will do differently is increase the number of worlds that students use.  Pairing 4 tablets (1 tablet is 2 students) together on one world is creating issues with getting disconnected, slow gameplay, and overall confusion about who belongs where.  I'm thinking that unless they are doing a large group activity, we will put 2 tablets on 1 world.

Setup

I have begun to formulate how this will actually work in my classroom.  I did a lot of research into alternatives to Minecraft and due to the limitations of technology in our room, I a going with Minecraft PE on our Nexus tablets.  I would much rather use MincraftEDU, however the price is an issue and we don't have enough computers to accommodate the entire class.

I have been thinking about ways to get around the fact that only 5 people can be on a single world at a time and the fact that I cannot possibly observe each child's construction at the same time.  My solution is to group kids into a team of students that all work on one world at a time.  I have designated "World Builders" who are responsible for creating the world that their team will join.  These students are ones who I know are responsible and will help keep the world regulated (no mobs) for our purposes.

Next, I began listing expectations and protocols for my students all available to them on pour Google Drive account.  My students will be able to easily refer back to them each time that we use Minecraft and we won't have to waste a bunch of paper.  This document can be found here.   After discussing it with the kids, we decided to make revisions as needed in a morning meeting.

The biggest part that I am stressing to my students is that this is all about collaboration and cooperation.  They must take turns, share equally, and participate for this to work.  My example was that one child does the building, then afterwards, the other does the blogging.  The next time, they switch roles.  That was just my suggestion, I am going to leave it up to them and see what develops.

We will start today, so wish me luck...

and so it starts...

Hello.  If you are reading this, I assume that you are interested in integrating technology in your classroom.  If not, you must be bored...

I have been a teacher in my school for 6 years now.  I am starting my 7th year teaching and 2nd year teaching 3rd grade.  Since my start, my fascination with technology has been ingrained in my classroom since the start.  First, just having kids with poor handwriting type their work into Word, to now, using tools like Google Docs and Drive to create and store student portfolios that house every single writing piece that my students create throughout the entire year.   The students in my class are given opportunities to learn, create, and present in the ways that we do out here in the "real world".  There is a technology component in our class every day.

We are fortunate in our room to have access to devices.  Most buildings and teachers have limited access that causes their integration to be stifled and sometimes non-existent.  Currently in my room there are 4 desktop computers that were updated last year (I'm sure that they are considered old by today's standards, but it is a public school and we get what we can).  Additionally, our building received 50 Nexus tablets (2012 model) that were dispersed to each grade level with 15 tablets ear-marked for each intermediate grade.  I house these in my room / hoard them.  Some might say that these tablets are largely "useless" since they are an old model and often have connectivity issues.  I don't see it myself.  I think that they are wonderful.  The keyboard is small, but the kids have small fingers.  They are able to use all the Google apps that make Google such an awesome tool for the classroom.  Sure, they don't have Flash, but who cares, I hear that it is becoming more useless anyway.

First, some things about me that might be important in later posts.  I do not follow the norm.  I smile before Thanksgiving, I am not particular about the color of notebooks that your child brings, and I couldn't care less about their handwriting as long as I can actually decipher it.  While some teachers might toil for days before school decorating, I choose to slap up some butcher paper and fill the rest in with either student work or anchor charts.  I do not crank the AC down below 70 and I leave my window open most of the time.  Our room is all about comfort.  With that being said, I am a teacher that is willing to try anything to get my kids motivated.

I first heard of using "games" in education when referencing things like math games.  Simple websites that put players against others in a race to complete more math facts correctly in a given amount of time.   I used these and other tools on a regular basis.  I couldn't help but wonder if there was a better way to apply games to education.

Some time later, I had a conversation with another "techie" and discussed the use of Minecraft as an educational tool.  I had some interaction with Minecraft, though my wife would consider it an obsession, as a gamer playing and enjoying the openness of the game.  Unlike the vast majority of video games that are available, it didn't have objectives, it didn't have some sort of mission and this strongly appealed to me.  The game allowed me to do whatever I wanted.  As I played and built monuments to my own greatness, I realized the creativity that it allowed me to express.  It reminded me of playing with Lego's as a child, except that there were no limitations of space or lack of blocks.  No cats running across and destroying hours of labor.  No plans to follow or direction to be imposed.  It is just simply a way to build and (if you want to turn on Survival Mode) survive in a world that is as expansive as our own.  My thoughts immediately went to "how can I use this with my students?"  I know that my kids were extremely motivated when it came to this game.  I have seen kids search Youtube and create things that were shown to them, build intricate rail systems that served a purpose, and create houses that rivaled the homes of celebrities.  As a teacher, I battled kids that wanted nothing more than to spend their evenings playing video games that were far above their maturity when they should have been reading or completing their homework.  It dawned on me that I should not battle this, but use it to my advantage as their teacher.  Thus, my motivation to build and start what I like to call "Mindcraft" in my classroom.  This is my motivation to blog.

I want to have a place for to reflect as I embark on this technology related exploration into gaming in education.  There will be problems and celebrations along the way, but it will be exciting nonetheless.  Perhaps it might inspire others to try it themselves, or at least spark some new ideas.  I hope that this experience will help others, or at least provide some entertainment.