Category Archives: Professional Development

Minecraft in Survival Mode

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EVO Minecraft MOOC Week 4: Survival #evomc16

First of all, I have to say, I LOVE survival mode. I’ve learned more about Minecraft (and about myself) in survival, both in singleplayer and multiplayer worlds, than I ever have in creative mode.

I am an explorer, not a builder. I know how to build basic things, but it doesn’t really interest me. I tend to only build in one style (medieval/cabin) when I build something formal, and most of the time what I build are shelters where I’m exploring. When I find a good place, I’ll hole in somewhere and explore the area or mine until I get tired of it. In our EVO world, I hadn’t built anything myself until I got to an island in the middle of the sea, where I built a shelter in a cave.

Most of the time, if night falls while I’m exploring, I build a tower of gravel to stand on. I use gravel because I can get some flint from it when I break it down to get back to the ground. If I’m the only one on the server at the time, I’ll make a dirt platform above the ground like this one, so I can make a bed and sleep. I try to always keep a good supply of wood and wool with me, as well as sand, dirt, cobble, and gravel.

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I was really frustrated in the early days of this server because it kept lagging really badly and causing me to crash. I tried making maps, but had a lot of difficulty with losing them. The one time I was killed was from lag, and I lost everything underground somewhere. Eventually I went back, accumulated more resources, made more maps, and started exploring again. These are the maps mounted in the Admin Building near spawn.

2016-02-28_22.38.28 from Aaron

I take screenshots with inworld maps and F3 coordinates to mark waypoints and interesting places. On my computer, I move the screenshots to a different folder and sort them into subfolders depending on which server or realm they’re from. The screenshot below shows an ocean monument in the center, with nearby coordinates and the location (white arrow) on the map. The green arrow on the map shows where it is framed, so I can identify a home point when I’m away.

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I really enjoy playing with the other people on this (and every other) server. I’m amazed at the incredible things that people build, and the resources they offer to others. I hope others will make copies of my maps and use them to explore. Apparently the recent update to Minecraft 1.9 added new map features–I can’t wait to use them!

Inworld Maps in Minecraft

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EVO Minecraft MOOC – Week 2 Reflection #evomc16

I’ve had fun hanging out on the server this week. I built a library to house my map wall, and made a couple of maps.

Ghostraven Library on superflat EVO Minecraft MOOC server

Ghostraven Library on superflat EVO Minecraft MOOC server

At the 4/4 scale there isn’t much point to doing maps in a superflat world like this, but it was good practice. It seems like a lot of people don’t know about making inworld maps in Minecraft. (It’s confusing because “map” in Minecraft also means a created world that can be replicated.)

Two maps mounted on a wall in the Ghostraven Library

Two maps mounted on a wall in the Ghostraven Library

The maps below show the originals that are mounted on the wall above. Inworld maps in Minecraft only show places that the person has explored.

The northern map in the EVO Minecraft MOOC superflat server

The northern map in the EVO Minecraft MOOC superflat server

The southern map in the EVO Minecraft MOOC superflat server

The southern map in the EVO Minecraft MOOC superflat server

When someone has a copy of a map in their hotbar, all of the copies of that map, including the one on the wall, are updated. This can be really useful for a group exploring a new world. As you travel through the world you can see your position on the map. If you are still in the area where the map is mounted, that place is marked in green.

This Minecraft map wall (from a different server) shows maps of the same location in gradually increasing scale, from close-up (1/4) to zoomed out (4/4).

Minecraft map wall showing scale

Minecraft map wall showing scale

This is a composite map wall of the same area, with all of the maps completely zoomed out (4/4 scale)

This is a composite map wall of the same area, with all of the maps completely zoomed out (4/4 scale).

This is a composite map wall of the same area, with all of the maps completely zoomed out (4/4 scale).

This Minecraft Wiki article explains maps more thoroughly: http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Map_(Item). I have a terrible sense of direction, inworld and out, and having a map with me helps me stay on track.

Games and Play in Professional Development

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EVO Minecraft MOOC – Week 1 Reflection #evomc16

I’m reading one of the suggested articles: Kuhn, Jeff. (2015). Meaningful Play – Making Professional Development Fun. TESL-EJ 18, 4:1-8. Available: http://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej72/int.pdf and http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume18/ej72/ej72int/. I’ve also been thinking that gaming literacy is something many of our teachers have been neglecting. Inhabiting a virtual world such as Second Life or Minecraft helps with this, too. Learning to move and interact with people and objects in a 3D virtual environment is becoming a life skill.

Kuhn writes, “Good games and good learning are hard to tell apart.” Unfortunately, many, many games used for educational purposes are didactic, for the sole purpose of teaching some learning objective(s). This is analogous to didactic children’s books, most of which do not deserve the label “literature.” Students have learned to mistrust “educational” games as ways to manipulate them into learning something inherently boring.

This quote from Vance Stevens resonates with me, too: “the nature of the game changed for me once we got a community into the mix.” When I started playing Minecraft, I started out in singleplayer creative mode, then moved to the VSTE Minecraft server in creative mode; then singleplayer survival mode, followed by a survival mode server with some friends from Second Life. Being able to interact with other people and their creations inworld makes all the difference in my engagement with the world.

As the librarian in my school, one of the best ways for me to influence the curriculum is through offering professional development for our teachers. In my experience, teachers have a lot of difficulty giving themselves time to play. I led a Minecraft 101 concurrent session at our most recent VSTE conference (Virginia Society for Technology in Education), and as soon as the initial talking and setup part of the session was over, most of the people left rather than play. In the US, there seems to be a prevailing attitude that play is a waste of time. It’s hard to know how to overcome this, but I think it’s a crucial part of promoting games in professional development.