Minecraft might look like an old-school video game, but it’s likely the most popular game right now. Players build virtual worlds out of elements that they’ve mined to collected. Addie Broyles/American-Statesman Staff
Today, CNN reports that the computer game Minecraft will be coming in an educational package that teachers can use in classrooms. It will have better maps and coordinates for classrooms to plot their way through the game to different worlds kids have created.
Both of my kids have taken computer classes that turned into Minecraft-making sessions. And we’ve had Minecraft on multiple platforms, bought toys, dressed as the characters, created our own amusement parks, farms, houses, libraries and more. It definitely teaches creativity, spacial relations, budgeting and how to play with others.
We’ve also fought over spending too much time on Minecraft and not in the real world of homework, sleeping and real friends. We’ve had to find channels where people weren’t using foul language, stealing from children and other not happy scenarios.
Our food editor Addie Broyles wrote about her own children’s love of Minecraft and her love/hate relationship with it. Read that story here:
Minecraft is everywhere. Even our Austin Public Library has a Minecraft club that meets next Monday at 3 p.m. at the Terrazas Branch and next Thursday at 4 p.m. at the Twin Oaks Branch.
So, should Minecraft be in the classrooms?
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