Communication – Mack’s Blog

This class was so much fun! Who would have thought you could do so much with a game like Minecraft. This is what our society looks like now a days in terms of technological advances and using technology in classrooms and Minecraft is a perfect way to learn while using technology! On my Wednesday visits i quickly realized that a strong interest the class shared was in Minecraft. I also realized that gaming on youtube is a huge interest of this kids. Here is one of the most popular Minecraft youtubers:https://www.youtube.com/user/TheDiamondMinecart

Here is one of his most viewed videos:

This video of his has 2.4 MILLION views on meaning 2.4 million people have watched it. This is a crazy number to think about and i can bet that most of those 2.4 million were young kids.

I havent seen much of Minecraft being incorporated into education but what these young students were talking about it sounds like SD61 has successfully done just that. I thought this was the coolest part about the whole class: One of the students we had with us today said that they used Minecraft to create an ancient world for social class. They were in survival mode so they had to sleep, eat, and fend off predators which i thought was so cool. Thats just one of the ways this game could incorporated into schools and classes but i think its a pretty good example of how far you could take this.

This is the resource they use, it is called Minecraft EDU:https://education.minecraft.net/

Here is a youtube video outlining how Mincraft EDU works:

I found todays guest speaker, Jesse Miller, very interesting. Technology is obviously a growing thing in our lives which is exactly what this class is all about and it was cool to get a professionals view on whats going on. Jesse had a lot of cool facts like how Captcha’s help self driving cars develop or how privacy rights are not as private as everyone might think, especially in terms of social media apps.

Jesse spoke about all the growing issues related to consent, privacy, and security and at the end of the day, most resolution comes from being mature. Using common sense to navigate through the internet and social media is what his suggestion was but that seems to be getting harder and harder for people. For me i would say that i have been pretty smart in terms of posting safe content online but of course there are some acceptions. Not to call anyone out but i know of people who post pictures of their students on instagram and who knows, maybe they didnt get consent and even though its a harmless, cute picture, that students identity has just been compromised.

Learning through using the internet and technology is ever evolving and while it is interesting to see, it is something as teachers that we always have to be aware of. We will see the evolution first hand whether its technology the students are using on their own or its technology we can use to aid our teaching. I really hope to incorporate technology into my teaching because i truly think that it can be beneficial to learning but at the same time i will have to be very adamant on keeping up with safety and privacy guidelines.

I hope to learn more on this topic throughout this class and i know that i will.

Category: Communication (page 1 of 1)

Minecraft!

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