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Many middle schools/high schools in my area teach computer science (programming mostly) with Minecraft. Its a good starting place for showing kids in a familiar

by a2tech 11y ago

Many middle schools/high schools in my area teach computer science (programming mostly) with Minecraft. Its a good starting place for showing kids in a familiar environment what they can do with programming.

fluxquanta 11y ago
>Its a good starting place for showing kids in a familiar environment what they can do with programming. Is it, though? Admittedly it's been a while but I feel like once you get beyond the absolute basics of circuitry Minecraft gets ridiculously complicated in terms of building the structures necessary to establish the circuitry (just search YouTube for the monstrosities that are necessary to build simple adders in Minecraft). At that point you're not really learning anything except how to play Minecraft. When a student's at middle or high school level I feel like LEGO Mindstorms or even Arduinos would be a better option.
- rzzzt 11y ago
  Looking at it from a very high level, building these layered structures in Minecraft might serve as a light introduction to the problems that come up in PCB layout, perhaps. You can't cross copper traces on a real-life circuit board either.
- mbel 11y ago
  There is a command block [0], which seems to provide a crude scripting environment. It perhaps might signalize what programming can do, but I think it's hardly an effective learning environment. [0] http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Command_Block http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Command_Block
  - fluxquanta 11y ago
    That's definitely something new since I last looked at the game.
- jerf 11y ago
  It would depend on what this initiative does. I'm hoping this looks more like an official path to modding-like tools that may not offer the whole complexity of the world, but would allow things like programmatic world generation and possibly interactive entity AI, etc. I would tend to agree that redstone, for all its possibilities, is not really a very good educational mechanic beyond the basics on its own. In Brooks' terminology, redstone has way too much accidental complexity for what little essential complexity it could expose... it's the opposite of what I'd want in my education. What little time I've spent fiddling with it has involved way too much very, very, very low-level physical routing (and a lot of time wishing I could stick redstone on the side of a block).
- fluidcruft 11y ago
  Well, I disagree. I loved Rocky's Boots back in 1st grade on ye olde ][e, which is sort of similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky%27s_Boots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky%27s_Boots
  - fluxquanta 11y ago
    What do you disagree with? I'm not saying computer games have no place in education, or that educational games shouldn't be fun to play. I just don't understand why Minecraft, a game that's basically just a better LEGO simulator than LEGO could ever come up with, is being re-purposed for education. It's much like the arguments that often come up here on HN where the flavor-of-the-week framework or language is being inefficiently twisted to fit a purpose it wasn't designed for.
    - petercooper 11y ago
      Because people learn best when they're engaged with the problem to solve and have intrinsic motivation. For example, a programming bootcamp where people have a goal of getting a job, or producing a certain app. Similarly, children are already playing with Minecraft and are interested in doing "cool stuff" with it. If you can tap into that existing goal and use it as a way for them to learn something else, it's less of an uphill struggle since they'll be intrinsically motivated to learn.
- Bjartr 11y ago
  Your comment is spot on for vanilla Minecraft, however this is MinecraftEdu which includes ComputerCraftEdu which has both a tile-based and text-based programming environment (based on Lua). It seems fairly well designed[1]. [1] http://services.minecraftedu.com/wiki/Teaching_with_ComputerCraftEdu http://services.minecraftedu.com/wiki/Teaching_with_Computer...
  - fluxquanta 11y ago
    Okay, this makes much more sense. I still have my doubts, but thanks for the link.
- a2tech 11y ago
  They're not actually building things out of red stone (although they may if they're learning some basics about circuitry). The schools around here are using Minecraft to teach Java-by doing things like creating custom blocks in Minecraft that when activated call Java code you've written that turn all the blocks in an X radius into wool, or samples an image you feed it and recreates the pictures in Minecraft using colored blocks of wool as pixels.
- jaegerpicker 11y ago
  I think a number of people use minecraft forge and Java to create mods, albeit very simple ones. That can be very valuable as an introduction to programming.
- VLM 11y ago
  The tragedy of this announcement is all the "good stuff" in minecraft is in the mods. For your specific redstone logic problems, try the "project red" mod. Its in plenty of FTB packs. http://ftbwiki.org/Project_Red http://ftbwiki.org/Project_Red You could make some points about chemistry using minechem. Maybe not much deep knowledge but something basic might seep in. Across many mods there tends to be an inherent bias toward industrialization / capitalist investment. Produce things slowly by hand or quickly with an assembly line and even faster with speed upgrades. I suppose there are kids who are extremely fuzzy on the basic concepts of steam based electrical power generation and railcraft and big reactors would clarify some of that. There are probably ecological lessons in terrafirmacraft and the numerous food mods. Not all of minecraft is "apples come from oak trees" or whatever. I suspect it works very well for shallow gaining interest, very well for signalling, not so well for serious learning. Kinda like ipads in schools. Or computers in school, in general.
- Outdoorsman 11y ago
  >At that point you're not really learning anything except how to play Minecraft.< True...many students do stop there...but others may be inclined to follow up based on interest, or curiosity...children's minds veer off in unpredictable ways, just as adult's minds do...exposure to new concepts is ultimately what education is all about... I think your question is valid...I'd love to see what would happen if a class of 8th graders were given a Raspberry Pi at the beginning of a semester and asked,"What can we do with this? Then give them the whole semester to answer...
- technomancy 11y ago
  Educating with Minecraft is using mods; otherwise it's just like you said; not learning about anything but how to play Minecraft. The fact that they're not supporting mods for this shows how completely out of touch they are.

by a2tech 11y ago

fluxquanta 11y ago

>Its a good starting place for showing kids in a familiar environment what they can do with programming. Is it, though? Admittedly it's been a while but I feel like once you get beyond the absolute basics of circuitry Minecraft gets ridiculously complicated in terms of building the structures necessary to establish the circuitry (just search YouTube for the monstrosities that are necessary to build simple adders in Minecraft). At that point you're not really learning anything except how to play Minecraft. When a student's at middle or high school level I feel like LEGO Mindstorms or even Arduinos would be a better option.

rzzzt 11y ago
Looking at it from a very high level, building these layered structures in Minecraft might serve as a light introduction to the problems that come up in PCB layout, perhaps. You can't cross copper traces on a real-life circuit board either.
mbel 11y ago
There is a command block [0], which seems to provide a crude scripting environment. It perhaps might signalize what programming can do, but I think it's hardly an effective learning environment. [0] http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Command_Block http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Command_Block
- fluxquanta 11y ago
  That's definitely something new since I last looked at the game.
jerf 11y ago
It would depend on what this initiative does. I'm hoping this looks more like an official path to modding-like tools that may not offer the whole complexity of the world, but would allow things like programmatic world generation and possibly interactive entity AI, etc. I would tend to agree that redstone, for all its possibilities, is not really a very good educational mechanic beyond the basics on its own. In Brooks' terminology, redstone has way too much accidental complexity for what little essential complexity it could expose... it's the opposite of what I'd want in my education. What little time I've spent fiddling with it has involved way too much very, very, very low-level physical routing (and a lot of time wishing I could stick redstone on the side of a block).
fluidcruft 11y ago
Well, I disagree. I loved Rocky's Boots back in 1st grade on ye olde ][e, which is sort of similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky%27s_Boots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky%27s_Boots
- fluxquanta 11y ago
  What do you disagree with? I'm not saying computer games have no place in education, or that educational games shouldn't be fun to play. I just don't understand why Minecraft, a game that's basically just a better LEGO simulator than LEGO could ever come up with, is being re-purposed for education. It's much like the arguments that often come up here on HN where the flavor-of-the-week framework or language is being inefficiently twisted to fit a purpose it wasn't designed for.
  - petercooper 11y ago
    Because people learn best when they're engaged with the problem to solve and have intrinsic motivation. For example, a programming bootcamp where people have a goal of getting a job, or producing a certain app. Similarly, children are already playing with Minecraft and are interested in doing "cool stuff" with it. If you can tap into that existing goal and use it as a way for them to learn something else, it's less of an uphill struggle since they'll be intrinsically motivated to learn.
Bjartr 11y ago
Your comment is spot on for vanilla Minecraft, however this is MinecraftEdu which includes ComputerCraftEdu which has both a tile-based and text-based programming environment (based on Lua). It seems fairly well designed[1]. [1] http://services.minecraftedu.com/wiki/Teaching_with_ComputerCraftEdu http://services.minecraftedu.com/wiki/Teaching_with_Computer...
- fluxquanta 11y ago
  Okay, this makes much more sense. I still have my doubts, but thanks for the link.
a2tech 11y ago
They're not actually building things out of red stone (although they may if they're learning some basics about circuitry). The schools around here are using Minecraft to teach Java-by doing things like creating custom blocks in Minecraft that when activated call Java code you've written that turn all the blocks in an X radius into wool, or samples an image you feed it and recreates the pictures in Minecraft using colored blocks of wool as pixels.
jaegerpicker 11y ago
I think a number of people use minecraft forge and Java to create mods, albeit very simple ones. That can be very valuable as an introduction to programming.
VLM 11y ago
The tragedy of this announcement is all the "good stuff" in minecraft is in the mods. For your specific redstone logic problems, try the "project red" mod. Its in plenty of FTB packs. http://ftbwiki.org/Project_Red http://ftbwiki.org/Project_Red You could make some points about chemistry using minechem. Maybe not much deep knowledge but something basic might seep in. Across many mods there tends to be an inherent bias toward industrialization / capitalist investment. Produce things slowly by hand or quickly with an assembly line and even faster with speed upgrades. I suppose there are kids who are extremely fuzzy on the basic concepts of steam based electrical power generation and railcraft and big reactors would clarify some of that. There are probably ecological lessons in terrafirmacraft and the numerous food mods. Not all of minecraft is "apples come from oak trees" or whatever. I suspect it works very well for shallow gaining interest, very well for signalling, not so well for serious learning. Kinda like ipads in schools. Or computers in school, in general.
Outdoorsman 11y ago
>At that point you're not really learning anything except how to play Minecraft.< True...many students do stop there...but others may be inclined to follow up based on interest, or curiosity...children's minds veer off in unpredictable ways, just as adult's minds do...exposure to new concepts is ultimately what education is all about... I think your question is valid...I'd love to see what would happen if a class of 8th graders were given a Raspberry Pi at the beginning of a semester and asked,"What can we do with this? Then give them the whole semester to answer...
technomancy 11y ago
Educating with Minecraft is using mods; otherwise it's just like you said; not learning about anything but how to play Minecraft. The fact that they're not supporting mods for this shows how completely out of touch they are.