To call Minecraft anything less than a phenomenon would be an understatement. Since releasing in 2009, it has sold more than a hundred million copies across almost every gaming platform and continues to sell another 50,000 more each day. Among children anywhere from toddlers to young adults, Minecraft is especially popular, so it’s no surprise that it has seeped its way into more than a few classrooms through teachers looking to build a sturdier bridge to their students.
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced an official investment in bringing Minecraft to the classroom in the form of Minecraft: Education Edition, a reimagining of Minecraftwith additional tools aimed at educators. And on June 9, Education Edition was launched as a free early access version aimed at giving teachers time to prepare to use Minecraft in the classroom this fall. But Minecraft: Education Edition is more than a reskin of the popular game with a few extra tools, it is one part of a powerful change in the way we are thinking about learning and growing in the classroom.
“We’ve seen a decade and a half of research and interest in game-based learning,” said Deirdre Quarnstrom, director of Minecraft Education at Microsoft. “Educators are looking for new ways to reach and engage their students and to bring new technology [into the classroom]. Game-based learning fits in very well with meeting students where they are. They’re playing games at home, using digital devices, and navigating virtual worlds, so they’re already very familiar with this.”
Minecraft: Education Edition is, what Microsoft hopes, the tool that educators need to reach a modern generation of students. Developed in 2009 by Swedish programmer Markus “Notch” Persson and published by Mojang, Minecraft started out as a relatively simple “sandbox” style game that would randomly generate vast worlds composed of blocks. Players could then break these blocks to harvest resources, fashion tools, and then reform them to shape the world however they pleased. As the game began to explode in popularity in early 2011, new features were regularly added to increase all the ways players could interact—giving Minecraft an absurd amount of depth. Players can do everything from erect one-to-one models of fictional cities to building a working guitar.
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