December, 2021, a certain game made the world record. On YouTube, the game got 1 trillion views. The game is Minecraft. These days, it is said that this game may be useful for education. This is because, in Minecraft, player can do programming and acquire logical thinking ability. This article explains Minecraft and education.
Index
1 What is Minecraft?
2 Minecraft for education
3 try to program
4 advanced programming
1 What is Minecraft?
Minecraft is the best selling game in the world. Amount of sales is over 200million.
Minecraft’s feature is that you can do anything freely. In the game, there is very wide world. You can explore it and go to dungeon and collect item.
Besides that, you can build structure with timber or stone and do programming with powder called red-stone powder.
As above, in this game, you can do anything. How to play the game is various. So this game demands imagination of player. There are various playing way, but in this article, I want to show you programming.
2 Minecraft for education
Japan lags behind the world in IT education. According to a data of ministry of education, Japanese students study with IT devise in less time than OECD member countries’ students.
For example, in math class, the rate that Japanese students use IT devise is only 7.8%, whereas, that of OECD countries’ students is 37.8%. This shows japan is behind other developed countries in IT area.
Thus, these days, Public are paying attention to Minecraft. The reason is that with Minecraft, player can study base of IT and acquire logical thinking ability more easily than with textbook. Actually, There is a case where Ritsumeikan elementary school used Minecraft as educational material.
In the school’s class, students built historic landmarks such as Byodoin ho-oh-doh and programed character called agent to guide them. The school wanted its students to learn programming and imagination and so used Minecraft, because the game will grow these ability.
As above, Minecraft is useful for education of programming. A few years ago, Mojang, a company which made Minecraft, released education edition of Minecraft. Near future, Minecraft may be used as educational material by many schools.
3 try to program
In Minecraft, player can do programming with powder called red-stone powder. This powder conducts electricity well. It is like copper wire. If player switch button, electricity run thorough the powder. The powder with electricity can turn on instrument, such as lump.
With the powder, you can make various system. See a picture below. I made a simple syestem. This system is target. If player shoot an arrow and it hits the target, a lump is turned on.
How does this system work? First, an arrow hits the target. Second, electricity run from the target to the powder. The target can output electricity when an arrow hits it. Third, lump is turned on when electricity arrive to it.
As above, In Minecraft, player can do programming easily. If you study how to use red-stone powder, you will be able to make more complex system and acquire logical thinking ability. So Minecraft is useful in the education area.
4 Advanced programming
With the red-stone powder, I tried to make conplex system. I designed this system, because I wanted to capture certain monster. In Minecraft, there is a monster called zombie and zombie has two types of age: adult or baby. Baby zombie rarely ride a chicken. This system can capture a baby zombie who ride a chicken.
This system has two mechanisms.
First, this system separate baby zombie from adult zombie. The devise has little hole and only baby zombie can path thorough it. Adult zombie can’t do, because they are tall. Thus, this system can make only baby zombie.
Second, the system separate baby zombie who can ride a chicken from baby zombie who can’t. In this system, baby zombie are focused to see a chicken and if the zombie like and ride it, the zombie will be captured.
summary
I tried to do programming in Minecraft and I felt is was very difficult. But in future, digitalization will proceed rapidly and IT ability may be important all over the world. Thus, as education material, Minecraft may be useful.
Reference
PISA2018, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology ・National Institute for Educational Policy Research, https://www.nier.go.jp/kokusai/pisa/pdf/2018/01_point.pdf ,view day 2022/1/10
Project-based-learning without asking for an answer. Ritsumeikan Elementary school used Minecraft in this class. , CNRT Japan, https://japan.cnet.com/article/35114562/ ,view day 2022/1/10
