Today we had five middle school students from colquitz come and teach our EDCI 336 class how to play Minecraft. Despite my lack of knowledge and taste for video games I was so impressed by how invested the grade eight students were in the game and how enthused they were to teach us. I personally get headaches from game graphics like minecraft but I fully see the potential of using it in the classroom. The amount of collaboration, teamwork and problem solving skills involved in creating different worlds and surviving is amazing and surprisingly logical.
My character died multiple times from realistic scenarios and I often had to seek help from my cohort or the visiting middle school students. Despite it being a virtual world, I felt a sense of connection from following other people around in the world and anxiety when having lost them. It’s cool that a game can make people feel this way and become fully immersive just through a computer screen despite all the other people and distractions in the room.
I think incorporating games like this in the classroom would be very beneficial not just for students but for me to learn more as well and have them teach me about them.