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Great idea for teaching in schools. I wonder if this works with Minecraft's Education edition? [0] Its nice the readme goes into detail on some lesson plan ide

by npunt 8y ago

Great idea for teaching in schools. I wonder if this works with Minecraft's Education edition? [0] Its nice the readme goes into detail on some lesson plan ideas. Global warming is such an abstract problem and if you can tie it to individual's behaviors inside a (small) simulated world, it can be a very powerful teaching tool. [0] https://education.minecraft.net https://education.minecraft.net

nsporillo 8y ago
Unfortunately it does not support Education Edition, but you make a good point in that this could be a great teaching tool. I have a good bit of Climate Change related content that I can try to integrate more into the game play itself. I'll add education edition support to my roadmap. Thanks!
- npunt 8y ago
  Great to hear! Another suggestion is to provide some kind of setup guide or easy way to spin up a remote server. Just created an issue for that. I've spent the last hour trying to get up to speed with this and haven't yet got it set up. As you bring this project to maturity, if you're interested in the education context, you'll want to optimize for setup time. Educators and techs that help them are hugely time constrained in a school setting so the quicker they can get a lesson running the better. If setup takes considerable time (5-10min?) or domain expertise, it's a nonstarter.
- brylie 8y ago
  Really cool idea! Would you consider making a Minetest version?
  - nsporillo 8y ago
    Wow I havent checked up on Minetest in years! I'll consider making a Minetest version, but I'd have to review their Lua modding api to see if it'd be feasible. Thanks
sandov 8y ago
Is education edition open source at least?. Because I don't think teaching proprietary software to kids is a good idea.
- npunt 8y ago
  Thats an interesting ideological argument, whose practical effects would be negative. Vast majority of the high quality education software out there isn't open source.
  - drb91 8y ago
    Err, what is the point of the educational edition if not to hack on it?
    - npunt 8y ago
      Hacking IN it :)
- TheDong 8y ago
  By that argument, children shouldn't be writing their documents in Word, nor their presentations in powerpoint, nor using computers that contain proprietary intel micro-code in any classes. The reality is two-fold: Proprietary software is used universally, so learning some of it will make you more marketable later on and help you in life. Knowing excel / word is valuable because many companies run on those pieces of software to some large degree. Secondly, it's pragmatic; there's no real viable option to using proprietary intel or amd hardware while using any computer, so we must use them.
  - 477353468463695 8y ago
    Micro-code, I don't care about. As you say you'd have to ban the use of computers entirely, but having to write your documents in Word etc., I do not think is good. As a student, you should be able to install the software that you use in class on your PC at home, without having to jump through infinite hoops or asking your parents to buy it for you. Sure, Microsoft Office, you can sort of expect to need and need again in the future. But with other software, you can hardly guess how often you're going to be using it. So, you're not going to buy it just to play around with it at home. You might even skip doing homework, if it's too much hassle to install. A required internet connection can also be particularly inpairing, depending on your situation. I was for example provided an educational version of Matlab in university, but ended up mostly learning in GNU Octave (which was thankfully fantastic), because I traveled to university by train and so did most of my learning in the train, where I had no internet connection. Another example is me having to pirate an outdated version of Delphi in middle school, because we were writing a program with that in school, that I wanted to continue at home. The teacher did not intend for anyone to continue working at home, so we weren't provided an educational version or similar. The version of Delphi we used was also so old that you actually couldn't buy it anymore. Lastly, if you can't transfer your LibreOffice knowledge to Microsoft Office, I don't think you should claim any particular computer skills on your CV. We're not talking about rocket science being done in Excel. You generally only need the most basic of features, which function almost identically even in Gnumeric.
anon_lastname 8y ago
Imagine public schools buying minecraft licenses just so kids can observe that "when you use the furnace too much, the world becomes more like hell." I think kids play minecraft too much already. I would much prefer it if we gave students shovels and let them dig up an empty plot of land in _real life_.
anonlastname 8y ago
Imagine public schools buying minecraft licenses just so kids can observe that "when you use the furnace too much, the world becomes more like hell." I think kids play minecraft too much already. I would much prefer it if we gave students shovels and let them dig up an empty plot of land in _real life_.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Hey, that's a good idea. You give the students actual wood stoves, and they'll cause global warming, and then they'll die when they're adults. That'll help illustrate the concept in a way that a simulated world can't.
  - anonlastname 8y ago
    Their lifespans would actually be prolonged by the obesity they don't have. The atmosphere will even out because of the computer power they're not using.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Their lifespans would probably be shorter because breathing in that much smoke causes cancer at significantly high rates.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Wood stoves are carbon neutral.
    - KineticLensman 8y ago
      > Wood stoves are carbon neutral Not compared with not burning the wood, but using it in something like construction, where the carbon dioxide remains locked up [0] [0] https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/wood-not-carbon-neutral-energy-source https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/wood-not-carbon-...
      - 8y ago
aaron695 8y ago
Or you could just tell them, how we've learned stuff for the past 2000 years. This is such a bad idea on so many levels. It's more or less the, add a computer (At great cost and time), kids become smarter myth. Literally why not tell them CO2 increases the heat, energy creates CO2, and show a picture of if you really really have to.

by npunt 8y ago

nsporillo 8y ago

Unfortunately it does not support Education Edition, but you make a good point in that this could be a great teaching tool. I have a good bit of Climate Change related content that I can try to integrate more into the game play itself. I'll add education edition support to my roadmap. Thanks!

npunt 8y ago
Great to hear! Another suggestion is to provide some kind of setup guide or easy way to spin up a remote server. Just created an issue for that. I've spent the last hour trying to get up to speed with this and haven't yet got it set up. As you bring this project to maturity, if you're interested in the education context, you'll want to optimize for setup time. Educators and techs that help them are hugely time constrained in a school setting so the quicker they can get a lesson running the better. If setup takes considerable time (5-10min?) or domain expertise, it's a nonstarter.
brylie 8y ago
Really cool idea! Would you consider making a Minetest version?
- nsporillo 8y ago
  Wow I havent checked up on Minetest in years! I'll consider making a Minetest version, but I'd have to review their Lua modding api to see if it'd be feasible. Thanks

sandov 8y ago

Is education edition open source at least?. Because I don't think teaching proprietary software to kids is a good idea.

npunt 8y ago
Thats an interesting ideological argument, whose practical effects would be negative. Vast majority of the high quality education software out there isn't open source.
- drb91 8y ago
  Err, what is the point of the educational edition if not to hack on it?
  - npunt 8y ago
    Hacking IN it :)
TheDong 8y ago
By that argument, children shouldn't be writing their documents in Word, nor their presentations in powerpoint, nor using computers that contain proprietary intel micro-code in any classes. The reality is two-fold: Proprietary software is used universally, so learning some of it will make you more marketable later on and help you in life. Knowing excel / word is valuable because many companies run on those pieces of software to some large degree. Secondly, it's pragmatic; there's no real viable option to using proprietary intel or amd hardware while using any computer, so we must use them.
- 477353468463695 8y ago
  Micro-code, I don't care about. As you say you'd have to ban the use of computers entirely, but having to write your documents in Word etc., I do not think is good. As a student, you should be able to install the software that you use in class on your PC at home, without having to jump through infinite hoops or asking your parents to buy it for you. Sure, Microsoft Office, you can sort of expect to need and need again in the future. But with other software, you can hardly guess how often you're going to be using it. So, you're not going to buy it just to play around with it at home. You might even skip doing homework, if it's too much hassle to install. A required internet connection can also be particularly inpairing, depending on your situation. I was for example provided an educational version of Matlab in university, but ended up mostly learning in GNU Octave (which was thankfully fantastic), because I traveled to university by train and so did most of my learning in the train, where I had no internet connection. Another example is me having to pirate an outdated version of Delphi in middle school, because we were writing a program with that in school, that I wanted to continue at home. The teacher did not intend for anyone to continue working at home, so we weren't provided an educational version or similar. The version of Delphi we used was also so old that you actually couldn't buy it anymore. Lastly, if you can't transfer your LibreOffice knowledge to Microsoft Office, I don't think you should claim any particular computer skills on your CV. We're not talking about rocket science being done in Excel. You generally only need the most basic of features, which function almost identically even in Gnumeric.

anon_lastname 8y ago

Imagine public schools buying minecraft licenses just so kids can observe that "when you use the furnace too much, the world becomes more like hell." I think kids play minecraft too much already. I would much prefer it if we gave students shovels and let them dig up an empty plot of land in _real life_.

anonlastname 8y ago

scarejunba 8y ago
Hey, that's a good idea. You give the students actual wood stoves, and they'll cause global warming, and then they'll die when they're adults. That'll help illustrate the concept in a way that a simulated world can't.
- anonlastname 8y ago
  Their lifespans would actually be prolonged by the obesity they don't have. The atmosphere will even out because of the computer power they're not using.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Their lifespans would probably be shorter because breathing in that much smoke causes cancer at significantly high rates.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Wood stoves are carbon neutral.
  - KineticLensman 8y ago
    > Wood stoves are carbon neutral Not compared with not burning the wood, but using it in something like construction, where the carbon dioxide remains locked up [0] [0] https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/wood-not-carbon-neutral-energy-source https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/wood-not-carbon-...
    - 8y ago

aaron695 8y ago

Or you could just tell them, how we've learned stuff for the past 2000 years. This is such a bad idea on so many levels. It's more or less the, add a computer (At great cost and time), kids become smarter myth. Literally why not tell them CO2 increases the heat, energy creates CO2, and show a picture of if you really really have to.