The sandbox game, made in a recognizable cubic design, is loved by everyone who has played it at least once - from young to old. And people older than 6 and younger than 12 cannot be pulled by the ears from the pixel worlds created by their own hands. It is quite natural that treacherous teachers would want to use such an attractive force for their own base educational purposes. Some enthusiasts have been sharing their experiences on personal blogs for a long time, but Santeri Koivisto decided to go further and make the Minecraft environment useful for teachers, provide methodological support to schools, and also distribute a Minecraft license at a discount for educational institutions.

About how it happened, how gamification differs from the use of the full game, and how to play the lesson correctly, we were told by Santeri Koivisto, CEO of TeacherGaming LLC - the same company that created the educational version of Minecraft.

- First of all, curious: why Minecraft?

Santeri Koivisto

The story began with the fact that five years ago I received a pedagogical education. I am now a certified teacher in Finland. I was a student at the time and often played Minecraft for myself - online with friends. And then I accepted the offer to become a substitute teacher, and I thought - why not use this game in the lesson?

I turned to my classmates for help in preparing a project for my lesson. And the guys helped. The lesson went well, the children liked it, but most importantly, the teachers liked it. They would come into the classroom and ask if I had any tips so they could do something similar in their lessons. And it was a revelation for me. It was to be expected that the children would be delighted, but for the teachers... There had to be some potential here.

About 2-3 months later, in the spring-autumn of 2011, we were going to do a science project for the festival. I contacted Mojang and Minecraft creator Markus Notch Persson to support my science project for teachers, and they immediately agreed to send a parcel via DHL with the necessary Minecraft software. I also told the creators about my intentions to make Minecraft an educational product for Finnish teachers; I thought that the company I work for could become a representative of Minecraft for schools in Finland. The founder of Minecraft then said: "I have no idea what this means, but let's try."

At the same time, an American teacher, Joel Levin, started his Tumblr blog, where he described the use of Minecraft in his lessons. This blog has become very popular on the web - among the teacher community, at least. I contacted him to propose cooperation. We phoned on Skype and decided that this would be a joint affair. Within 8 months after the call, we prepared a package of documents for the founding of the company, signed a contract with Mojang, and finally met in New York. We had no money, except for a few social grants from the Finnish government, so we developed the company almost from scratch.

That's pretty much how it all started.

This is how you got a startup - when you have nothing at the start, except for a good idea. Let's get back to your idea. You mentioned that the teachers liked Minecraft, but they didn't know anything about it. How were you going to train teachers to teach with Minecraft?

There are 12 of us in the company now. Of course, we do not have the opportunity to travel around the world's schools and show Minecraft to teachers. The Logical Exit is an online teacher training program.

The beauty of Minecraft is that teachers don't need to know the technology or even be an expert in the game, because the kids know it all without them. What you need to help teachers with is to form a special game thinking in them. We wanted teachers to know what goals they can achieve with Minecraft, what exactly they need to do in order to engage students in the study of the subject or in dialogue - without having to run your own game server and become an ardent fan of the game.

Minecraft launches completely new mechanics of interaction between the teacher and the class in the classroom.

Teachers in many countries - and this, in my opinion, is a problem - remain a translator of information; The teacher speaks, the students listen. It should not be. Pupils must learn to drive information into their own heads.

How to change it? Look, as a rule, teachers are experts in the technologies they use in school. They are the lords of textbooks, and it is they who issue instructions on which page to open it and what to read. They do everything for the students.

When Minecraft comes into the classroom, teachers don't know anything about it because they usually don't play it. Thus, students become experts, and this is a huge plus of the platform. At least in this one aspect of educational work, the students become the masters of the situation.

Teachers often think: “Well, great, I launched Minecraft in class, gave an assignment, and what, I'm no longer needed?”. Can you imagine that 25 third-graders would be able to independently develop a common strategy for solving a game problem? Without a teacher, his help and tips in finding solutions is indispensable. This is precisely the most important role of the teacher. Minecraft is not a class distraction, like you kids play while I check my email. On the contrary, it requires even greater involvement of the teacher in classroom work.

How do you see Minecraft? Can it be included in the state educational program, or is it more of an addition to it?

Yes, Minecraft can definitely become part of the official curriculum, and more than half of our clients do so - including it in history, biology, geography, math, physics, even physical education.

But I think the easiest and most painless way to start using Minecraft in your curriculum is through extracurricular activities. In an informal setting, in a circle after school, see how children play, how they behave, what they can do. And only then, when the teacher feels confident, can you transfer the Minecraft experience to the lesson.

- What is the most memorable example of using Minecraft in school that you could name?

There are many great examples of how Minecraft has been used in individual disciplines, but I personally find it much more interesting to see those that deal with interdisciplinary tasks - for example, to develop digital citizenship skills. This is a painful topic. For example, you need to talk about copyright on the Internet. For an eleven-year-old, the issue of intellectual property in this formulation does not seem important. But if in Minecraft someone burns down a building that he has been working on for two weeks, this will find a strong emotional response in his soul. For him, it's digital property, and this example is a great way to explain things like that.

Such situations that are not included in the curriculum - universal problems, issues of society and management - are just the best and are studied during game interaction.

Are there any examples of interdisciplinary use? We are entering a new era of education, when the division into subjects will become rather arbitrary, and mathematics will be closely intertwined, say, with physics. How can Minecraft help with this?

Before that, I spoke about soft skills - that is, about issues of education, not training.

Let's imagine that sixth graders have started to study history. They can read about the main events in the tutorial, and then go to the Minecraft world, create and explore some of the spaces associated with this era. You can also simulate archaeological excavations, change the landscape depending on climatic conditions, and so on, thus combining history and geography. In addition, you can recreate any buildings on a scale, applying your knowledge in mathematics and geometry. And in general, in the process of creating a world in Minecraft, a sense of aesthetics develops. Well, critical thinking, teamwork and problem solving skills. You can go even further and let another class explore the worlds created by other guys, and then ask them to write an essay - this is already literature and native speech. And if in English - then a foreign language. How many possible items have I already listed?

Either way, Minecraft is all about art, design, modeling, and 21st century skills at the very least.

An old video from 2012, starring Joel Levine, the first popular minecraft teacher.

What do you think about gamification in education in general? I assume you appreciate this approach...

Why do you think so? I wouldn't say so. Gamification is an extremely broad topic with many uses, and unfortunately not only useful ones. For example, an honor roll is the last thing I would use at school. The board of honor and ratings are always competition, and the class is a team and teamwork. I would not like to create a competitive atmosphere within the class. If it's a competition between classes or between schools, it makes sense; but competition between individuals only hurts.

I also don't like the idea of ​​giving out points and achievements as motivation. If we look at the strategy of playing Minecraft at all within the framework of game theory, we will see that this game has no purpose. There is no goal that someone set for the player. But each player sets his own.

Minecraft for school is valuable not at all for game elements in the usual sense. It is valuable for the possibility of combining the digital and real world. This is an interesting environment for children where they can interact and let their imaginations run wild. This is not gamification, this is the use of the game for educational purposes.

Now most countries use the class-lesson system of education; including in Finland. It becomes clear that this is not the best system for organizing the educational process, which needs to be changed. Do you think that such a game formation is capable of changing the existing system, or will it remain only an element of it?

I think we can learn a lot from the process of creating games - from the internal mechanics of the game, from the game motivation, from the game story and plot. A game for a child is always something interesting, challenging and rewarding. Games provide a unique exploratory experience.

Games change the paradigm of cognition. Many parents worry that their children play too much - and this is a normal concern. Personally, I would not want my children at school to do nothing but play. But I am sure that games create a bridge between recreation/entertainment at home and learning at school. Moreover, this is a two-way process: with the help of games, learning becomes more fun; and also with the help of playing at school, the child hones his player skills, learns to behave online, communicate with other people.

What other games that are useful for educational purposes can you name? As a child, I was a fan of Civilization, and I still remember the capitals of all countries thanks to it. Do you have such examples besides Minecraft?

You know, by and large, games can't cope with the flow of information that exists in the modern world. In order to teach details, games are completely ineffective. The same Civilization teaches a lot, and at the same time very little. If you spend 500 hours in Civilization, you won't know more historical facts and personalities than there are. Yes, it will "pump" strategic and critical thinking, but in the context of obtaining new information, such a game is ineffective.

Wait, what do we need from school? We have the Internet - knowledge and information is always at hand. Is it really the task of the school to saturate with information?

In an ideal world, no. But the educational programs that exist in our real world require the study of huge amounts of information. Fortunately for us, there are finally emerging requirements for the development of skills and competencies. So in a perfect world, we could spend a lot of time developing these skills by playing games and doing our own projects; in reality, the teacher's textbook remains the most effective method of providing the necessary information quickly and easily. It is still the responsibility of the teacher to convey the knowledge required by the program. If a teacher is given 500 hours to teach 500 pieces of information, he cannot afford to spend 50 hours playing to learn just 5 pieces.

several teaching materials for teachers . These materials teach how to properly use their teaching energy. There are designed introductory activities - literally an hour to look with the children at the basics of the gameplay, click on the menu, try the basic actions, and most importantly - to remind you that all this is just a game that allows us to do very specific things. . It is very important to think about how you can connect the familiar educational environment - books, textbooks and the Internet - with the Minecraft environment. If you create a model of the circulatory system with your children in Minecraft, be sure that neither you nor they will ever forget its structure again. At the same time, it is important to draw a parallel with the textbook - here, this is the same circulatory system that we worked on. And what we talked about earlier is interdisciplinary projects. Each such activity in the game should turn into a project, presentation, teamwork. It shouldn't stay in the game.

But in general, everything is simple. How to get started with Minecraft? You need to ask your students what they think about all this, and then get to work. There are no correct ways to do this. There is a wrong one: when you create a play space instead of children, and then just launch them there. It shouldn't be like this, it's their world.

In the last part of the Minecraft walkthrough, we told you about the basic survival skills in the game. Now it's time to talk a little about the possibilities of the game.

Mob tactics

One of the most exciting parts of the game is fighting mobs. They are conditionally divided into three categories: peaceful (friendly), neutral and hostile. Peaceful mobs do not attack you under any circumstances, neutral mobs - after aggression on your part, hostile - at the first opportunity. It is the fight against the latter that will be discussed later in this Minecraft tutorial. Let's start with the fact that hostile mobs appear only in the absence of light. In other words, you can meet them on the surface at night or in dark caves. To avoid the appearance of mobs in the house, you need to light it with torches. On the surface, zombies, spiders, skeletons and creepers are most common.

Creeper is an inveterate enemy of all players in Minecraft. This creature, sorry, you can’t pick another word, quietly sneaks up to the character and explodes with a hiss, causing considerable damage to the main character. It is almost silent, but still it can be seen by the characteristic steps coming from the darkness. Before the explosion, you will hear a hissing sound. Of course, it is best to fight such a mob at a distance with a bow. But at the beginning of the game you will not have it, so you have to wield a sword. Everything is simple here: when the enemy is at a distance of 1 cell from you, strike with a sword and step back. Repeat the operation until the enemy is completely destroyed. Get some gunpowder as a reward.

Zombie. This character in our Minecraft tutorial is quite common, but not too dangerous. In view of his lack of brains, the zombie notifies you of his approach with a characteristic wheeze. Dealing with him is not difficult: naturally, it is better to shoot him from a distance with a bow, but you can also quickly kill him with a sword. If there is only one zombie, then you can not strain at all: each blow of the sword will throw the enemy back. If there is a whole group of zombies, then you can attack from a hill, or wind circles around them, killing one creature at a time. There are cases when especially "talented" individuals are armed with a sword, part or full set of armor. However, this does not change the outcome of the battle for them.

Spiders. These creatures come in two main types: normal and cave. The first type can be found on the very first night of your stay in the world of Minecraft. Unlike the previous two opponents, dealing with spiders is much more difficult. They can not only move fairly quickly, but also make 2-3 block jumps and climb walls. Most Minecraft tutorials recommend attacking spiders with a sword at the exact moment of the jump, and then retreat. In addition, spiders can be killed with a bow, but you need to constantly move and keep your distance. Another important point - spiders cannot jump in the water. For killing a normal spider, you will receive a thread and a spider eye. The thread can and should be used to create bows and wool. The cave spider, as the name suggests, is found exclusively in caves. Due to the fact that it is faster, more agile and poisonous, this species is much more dangerous. At the same time, the tactics of its destruction remain the same.

Skeleton. This hero of our Minecraft training is very, very dangerous, as he is armed with a bow and attacks from a long distance. Especially dangerous when attacking along with other mobs. When you try to finish off the enemies in close combat, he will attack you from a distance. Ideally, you need to become so that the rest of the opponents are between you and the skeleton. Then he will deal damage to "his". Keep in mind that you can easily dodge enemy arrows if you maneuver fast enough. When you try to approach the skeleton at close range, it will go to the left, you need to cut its path and carefully pour it with a sword. Of course, you can kill the skeleton from a long distance, but you need to constantly maneuver so as not to get an arrow in the sirloin. After death, the skeleton can leave behind an arrow, bone, bow.

One of the scariest and toughest opponents on the surface is a skeleton riding a spider. This duo moves very fast, can crawl along walls and make considerable jumps, attack both at close range (spider) and at long range (skeleton). In general, sheer joy. However, this tandem can and should be killed. If you are a bow lover, then it will be easier to deal with: just attack a couple from a decent distance, dodging arrows and keeping your distance. If you want to kill the creature in close combat, then you must use the usual tactics of dealing with the spider, avoiding the shots of the skeleton.

Wolf. This type of mob is neutral and attacks only after you. And if one wolf is not particularly dangerous even for an inexperienced player, then a pack of wolves can easily kill you. Naturally, it seems that the best way to deal with them is to shoot with a bow, but due to their high speed, it can be difficult to deal with even one individual, so the best way is to attack with a sword, preventing opponents from coming from behind.

On this training in combat in Minecraft can be considered finished. We have introduced you to the main opponents that are waiting for you on the surface. In the caves, in the hell, the edge, you can also encounter the gast, ifrit, lava cube, slug, pigman, iron golem, ender wanderer, silverfish. But we will provide you with a method of dealing with them for independent study. In the meantime, we will go into the depths of the Minecraft caves.

Search and exploration of caves

Why explore caves? How about a lot of ore deposits, treasures and just adventures. Let's start with a list of things that you will definitely need to explore the caves: torches (preferably more than 50 units), a pickaxe, a shovel (it is advisable to take a few pieces, or make them on the spot), a bucket of water. In addition, as in any campaign, you need to take weapons, armor and food.

Now a little tutorial on finding caves in Minecraft. Naturally, the easiest way to find a cave is on the surface. Most often, they are quite small. Another way is to discover the cave during excavations. If you're lucky, you'll be able to hear strange sounds coming from the ground - that means there are hostile mobs in the caves. In addition, there are a couple of not entirely honest, but still interesting methods of reconnaissance - a cartographer and mob codes. Cartographer is a special third-party program that displays the location of a cave on a map. The method associated with mob codes works in several versions of the game and when you press the F3 key, it displays their digital code above the mobs, even if they are underground. Thus, by the abundance of codes underground, you can judge the location of the cave and its size (the more mobs, the larger the cave).

Before proceeding with the direct exploration of caves, a small tutorial on what not to do in caves in Minecraft and what to watch out for:

1. Don't dig directly underneath you.

You can fall into lava, water or break through the roof of the cave and collapse to its bottom. In this case, a decrease in health is the smallest price to pay for carelessness. Also, do not dig above yourself: you risk being flooded with water or being buried under a layer of sand and gravel. In this regard, it is recommended to always have a solid block in the cell on the girdle. If suddenly water appears right in front of you, you can quickly close the passage with a solid block.

2. Use torches.

Definitely need to light your way. Firstly, mobs cannot appear in the dark, so you will not hear bad sounds behind you. Secondly, by illuminating the space, you will be able to notice the failure right in front of you and not fall into the cave.

3. Make pointers.

Getting lost in a network of caves without third-party programs is easy. Therefore, experienced players always make marks on the walls or floor, special signs with torches, allowing them to accurately determine where to go. Individual players make separate redstone paths from the cave entrance. In addition, you can make special plates; and name each cave with its own unique name.

4. Be ready to attack opponents.

Caves, especially large ones, are just teeming with evil monsters who just want to kill you. Therefore, you should not go on research without weapons, armor and food. Also, do not try to fight them in the dark, it is better to strategically retreat to the illuminated part of the cave.

In this Minecraft tutorial, I would like to put in a special word for the treasury. Treasures are small, regular-shaped cobblestone rooms that have been randomly created, most often in the depths of caves. Inside you will find a spawner - a mob spawn point and possibly chests with very valuable contents. Naturally, to get to the chests, you will have to kill the mobs guarding them.

Creation and development of mines

By right, man-made mines can be considered an analogue of caves. It is recommended to make your first mine right from home, having dug well in the basement. It is best to dig a mine to the very bottom - the adminium layer. This layer is a natural limiter and cannot be destroyed. After that, it is necessary to expand the mines in breadth, extracting minerals along the way. ; Another type of shaft is less laborious: go 2-3 blocks of stone down and start expanding the shaft horizontally. ; In general, the rules of behavior in the mine are the same as in the cave. So don't dig under/above yourself, light up the space with torches and don't forget to eat well.

List all types of possible mines; this tutorial on Minecraft does not make sense: the world wide web is full of various recipes and training videos. But there is one feature that you simply must take into account - trolleys. With the help of them and the laid rails, you can quickly go down and up in the mines, transport cargo and valuable resources. There are several types of carts, including those with an engine and a chest. Ideally, the rails for the trolleys should be shorted so that they travel in circles.

But you should not rely only on yourself, since you can play the game with other players, mining can be done collectively. To extract a large amount of resources, open pits are often also used, which are dug by dozens of brothers with a pick. But if the mining craft is not to your liking, then you can always go in for fishing, hunting and agriculture. Read more about this.

Hunting

We already told you about how to fight mobs at the beginning of this Minecraft tutorial. It's time to talk about how to hunt mobs. Hunting is one of the most exciting activities in Minecraft, with which you can get your own food, as well as additional resources such as wool and leather. If you've read our previous Minecraft tutorial, you know that leather can be obtained from killing cows, and wool from sheep. The meat that you get after hunting must be roasted in the oven. Of course, you can slaughter a pig with a shovel, but it is better to use special tools such as a sword, bow and axe. Last, by the way, you can also easily cut down trees. But if hunting is too troublesome for you and you want a more peaceful way to get food, then fishing is the best choice.

To create a fishing rod, you will need three sticks set diagonally (bottom left to top right) and two strands set vertically under the rightmost stick. After creating, install the fishing rod in the cell on the belt and go to the reservoir. The fishing line is thrown by pressing the RMB, you can also drag the fishing line towards you with a right-click. While fishing, you need to watch the float: when it starts to sink under the water, you can safely hook it with the right mouse button. Fishing is best when it rains or while sailing on a boat. In addition to direct fishing use, a fishing rod can be used to pull things and opponents towards you. All in all, a very useful item.

Farming

The third and by far the most stable way to provide for oneself is agriculture. The numerous farming tutorials in Minecraft cover the smallest aspects of farming. We will tell you about the most important and interesting points. To begin with, in the game you can build both animal farms and classic farmlands. Let's start with mobo farms. Here you need to clearly distinguish between two types of them: farms of hostile and peaceful mobs. Farms of hostile mobs are used to get the player various useful items that remain after the death of opponents. With this, you can kill mobs manually or create automatic killing systems. Oh yeah! One of the best is a farm with a spawner. A spawner is a special cube from which hostile mobs appear. It is used to make it harder for the player to access treasures. Since this type of cube cannot be moved, the means of murder must be located nearby. One of the best ways to kill is a system that involves dropping mobs into water and then into lava. All that remains for you is to collect the remaining valuable items.

Another, no less entertaining process is the breeding of peaceful mobs. To do this, you need to build a large building or use a natural cave, lure animals inside with wheat and start breeding. To get a new mob, you need to click on two individuals of the same species while holding wheat in your hands. From most mobs, you can get valuable items (milk, wool, eggs) without killing the animal.

If you want to fully learn how to play Minecraft, then you should definitely get acquainted with agriculture. In the game, you can breed wheat, pumpkins, watermelons, sugar cane, cocoa beans, mushrooms. Wheat should be especially carefully looked after, as mobs love to trample it. In this regard, ideal farms are either illuminated caves with a collapsed ceiling, or special towers. Since the construction of the tower is a rather complicated process, let's start with collapsed caves.

So, to build a good farm you need to find or make an open top cave. To prevent mobs from getting inside, it is necessary to make a glass ceiling and provide additional illumination of the cave with the help of torches for the dark time of the day. Now that the room is ready, you need to prepare the ground. To do this, lay one layer of earth on the floor, between the rows; it is necessary to leave a row, one cube wide, intended for water. If there is no water near the ground, then you can forget about a rich harvest. After installing the blocks of water, they must be "covered" with semi-blocks of earth. After that, it is necessary to cultivate the land with a hoe and plant seeds. It will take several days to fully mature. Then you will need to harvest and replant the seeds

This concludes our short Minecraft tutorial. We have told you only a small fraction of what you can do in the game. I think no one knows all the possibilities of this huge sandbox yet. We sincerely hope that our tutorial helped you, and soon we will hear about a new minecrafter that has achieved brilliant results.

Navigating Minecraft

Walkthroughs Cheat Codes Tactics and Tips

What is Minecraft?

Minecraft can be attributed to the sandbox genre: such games give the user a lot of freedom of action and do not require the mandatory completion of certain tasks. The Minecraft world consists of cubes of various types - sand, stone, wood, earth, iron, etc. You can construct unusual buildings and mechanisms from them, which, by the way, glorified the game. There is no specific goal in the game, but there is a wide range of tools that allow you to show your imagination to the fullest: build ancient cities, plant cacti, and even program Minecraft inside Minecraft. The game costs 20 euros, you can buy it on the official website.

Minecraft in educational institutions

The Whole World: Educational Platform MinecraftEdu

is a dedicated version of Minecraft for teachers and an online community for teachers. The platform was created by Joel Levine, a computer science teacher from New York, and a Finnish teacher-programmer Santeri Koivisto. The Edu version differs from regular Minecraft by having a special account (with a 50% discount) for teachers, which allows you to control what is happening in the game: for example, get unlimited resources or protect constructed buildings from destruction. Now the MinecraftEdu community consists of teachers from 400 schools, mainly from the USA, Finland and Sweden. With their filing, Minecraft is used in the study of history and geography (models of cities of the past are created), physics (probability theory, electrical conductivity), chemistry (experiments are carried out with chemical elements) and biology (the structure of the human body is modeled). Due to its flexibility, Minecraft easily adapts to different disciplines.

Sweden: Essential Minecraft Lessons

For 13-year-old students of Viktor Rydberg's school (Stockholm), Minecraft has become a compulsory academic discipline. The year course uses play as a way to educate children about a wide variety of topics. Students train their creative thinking by building their own cities, learn about ecology through the example of deforestation and soil change in the game, and also learn the basics of network security. The school's management chose Minecraft because of its popularity, ease of learning, and the consistently high level of interest it generates. The experiment was successful, so the number of Minecraft lessons in the school schedule will grow.

Russia: Minecraft in biology class

Svetlana Sadakova, a biology teacher at the Bauman Lyceum (Yoshkar-Ola), suggested using Minecraft to do homework. Students can quickly build models and diagrams from blocks on the topics covered. Then the work is checked and finalized together with the teacher - as a result, visual cheat sheets for the lessons are obtained. The pioneer of Lyceum Minecraft was a fifth-grader Nikita Isaev, who, under the guidance of a teacher, developed a model of the movement of an erythrocyte along one of the branches of the systemic circulation. “Oddly enough, this was given to me as a homework assignment for the holidays,” the student says in a video review of his project on YouTube.

USA: Minecraft to explore history

Educators who have worked with Minecraft and MinecraftEdu have noted that it is sometimes useful to prepare story scenarios ahead of time. They can be made using special free editors: it will take only one evening to create a simple algorithm. Historical project Virtual Civilizations Project - in fact, a modified version of MinecraftEdu, which added different story scenarios. For example, a student can become the head of a tribe and see how the future of the people changes from his own decisions. The Virtual Civilizations Project allows students to see alternative story paths by offering visual answers to “what if?” questions. The project is already being used at Del Mar School (Tiburon, California) and has received positive feedback from teachers and principal.

Australia: Minecraft for Science Explore

The MinecraftEdu platform is being used in science classes in Australia. Game dice allow you to quickly create models of the studied objects, for example, RNA chains. Teachers show students different types of chains, explain their significance for living organisms, and then offer their students to build their own versions.

Minecraft outside of school

BuildCraft and IndustrialCraft develop logical thinking

You can also learn something new from amateur Minecraft modifications. BuildCraft and IndustrialCraft add additional devices and resources to the game, such as electricity. Having adjusted the power supply, the player can assemble various mechanisms (even a nuclear reactor!) and test them in action. Although modifications were not created specifically for education, they develop logic and teach work planning: to assemble any device, you need to work out a system for extracting and transporting resources, find tools and set the order of actions. Mistakes have consequences - the same nuclear reactor can explode, polluting the environment, and a malfunction on the assembly line will stop the entire production line.

Forestry introduces the basics of genetics

Forestry is another custom mod for Minecraft that works in conjunction with BuildCraft and IndustrialCraft. Forestry adds the ability to become a beekeeper to the game. At the same time, bee breeding implies not only the arrangement of hives and the collection of honey, but also the study of the basics of genetics. The modification works according to Mendel's law - all the processes of crossing bees occur taking into account the combination of genes. When combining two different bees, it is possible to get a new species that produces some unusual product or performs work faster. And although the species of bees in Forestry are invented by the developers, they reproduce according to the real laws of genetics, which means that the modification has scope for use in real education.

Block by Block helps transform public spaces

Mojang, the creator of Minecraft, is a partner in the UN's Human Settlements Reconstruction Program. For her, a special version of Minecraft was developed - Block by Block. The project is designed for young gamers who are not averse to improving their city or region. It is necessary to develop a change plan in the game, and then send it to the UN - if approved, the international commission will carry out reconstruction. Block by Block has already shown the first results: now the UN is building several playgrounds in India, Nepal, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Haiti. For children in developing countries, Block by Block provides an opportunity not only to transform the world around them, but also to get acquainted with the basics of public space design.

In Survival Mode, at first glance, everything is the same. In fact, no: you find yourself in the middle of a hostile world in which terrible monsters crawl out of all the cracks at night, and you can only build them from those blocks that you picked up or made yourself during the game. The emphasis shifts radically: in Survival, you build not because you want to, but because without creating shelters and various items you cannot survive. Although you will also sculpt for pleasure - but only after you secure the rear, get comfortable and get comfortable in the game world.

Second, you don't need them. Whichever poultices you use is a game made for your imagination. No beautiful effects will replace your hard work of the brain. originally designed in such a way that you can disassemble into small pieces and reassemble its endless worlds - this is why the game engine and building mechanics are built around cubes; the concept and geometry of the cubes is clear even to a child (remember? - this is LEGO), and the logic of research and construction of the world, thanks to these same cubes, is completely transparent. Once you realize this and accept this forced assumption, you will immediately begin to see forests, mountains, rivers and ominous caves behind a set of strange ladders - and as soon as this happens, a brave new world opens up to you.

5. Start the game, do not get lost

Each game starts in a randomly generated world. This means that no one in the world, not even Markus Persson himself - even though he is in second place on the Time list - has no idea where your journey starts. Meanwhile, tactics and your first actions in the game depend heavily on which biome you find yourself in.

You may be lucky and find yourself in a sunny clearing next to the forest and mountains. The forest is a source of wood, which you can extract to build houses, interior items and even weapons. There are often caves in the mountains that hide vital coal and rare fossils (and monsters, of course); in addition, the mountains themselves are a lot of stone, indispensable in any construction.

Or maybe not lucky, and you will start the game in the middle of a hot desert, in which there will be no wood, no stone, no coal - nothing at all but useless cacti and endless sand. Or you start on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, from which you can only swim to the mainland - and it is still unknown which way to row.

All this can be discouraging. However, wherever you start the game, do not get lost and do not panic. Remember that you can die in this game mainly for two reasons: meeting a monster or not eating in time.

Monsters live and breed in the dark: so do not try to meddle in caves and gloomy forests without armed to the teeth. Remember: it will soon begin to get dark, the night will come - and at night being outside the walls of the dwelling is completely destructive. Therefore, starting the game, immediately think about where you will spend the night. If there is a forest nearby, collect several blocks of wood with your bare hands, then make an ax, chop more wood and build a hut, albeit a very small one, where you can sit out the first night (instead of a door, you can close the passage to it with mud or sand - the main thing is not to leave street exit). If there is no forest, and it is already getting dark, do not panic - dig a hole right in the ground, hide there and wall yourself up for the night. Or climb a tall tree (a piece of stone, an earthen hill) and wait for the morning at the top. At worst, hide in some dead end - there is always a chance to survive the night (especially the first one).

6. Get food in advance

The problem of hunger for a novice player is probably more serious than finding a place to sleep. Over time and with every action you take in the game, you will want to eat more and more - and if you delay with a meal, you will begin to lose health. Unfortunately, cows, the killing of which is necessary for the extraction of meat (only kill animals not with your bare hands, but with a sword!), Are rare and not in all biomes. When you find meat, try not to eat it raw, unless you are on the verge of death - cooked on fire, it satisfies hunger much more effectively; it also reduces the risk of food poisoning.

Try to make a fishing rod as soon as possible: you can fish in almost every puddle, and this is a great way to refresh yourself periodically without wasting time hunting. Well, study the rules of organizing vegetable gardens and irrigation systems on the Internet: it's always nice to have home-grown bread in your backyard.

7. Learn to build

Your reference book when playing should be an iPad with an encyclopedia of “recipes” for creating certain items open in it. Study carefully the properties of things and create whatever you need. At first, you will not live without a desktop (workbench) and a furnace (furnace), but do not stop at them. It would be nice to cover the entrance to your new home with a door. Be sure to build a bed in the house: thanks to it, you will be able to sleep at night, reducing the waiting time for dawn, and in case of death, you will be reborn next to it, and not where the hell.

In no case do not forget about the torches. Monsters are known to be born in the dark; therefore, if you fence yourself off from the outside world with high walls, but forget to carefully illuminate all the corners of your home, sooner or later, at the moment of your relaxation, some kind of filth will attack you - we hope it will do without a heart attack. Very soon you will become bored and cramped in your hut, and you decide to expand it by adding new rooms and corridors, or even deepen it by starting to dig down. Hang torches on the walls at short intervals and collect all the coal you find in the mountains at the first opportunity: without it you will not get a fire.

Construction game; you can build certain objects, sculpt the most grandiose buildings in it ad infinitum. Just remember to replenish your supplies and ensure your own safety.

8. Explore!

The worlds generated by , are almost endless (at least in the PC version): you have to spend more than one year of real time to reach one of the ends of the local universe. Such a long journey is, of course, overkill, but feel free to expand your area of ​​\u200b\u200bownership and explore, explore, explore. Finding buried underground crystal vaults, or bizarre lava pools, or beautiful waterfalls in the forest, or strange abandoned buildings hiding gems is one of the key charms of the game. The further you move away from your first home, the more time you will have to trudge back; instead, build additional houses or staging posts. You can even build a railroad and start riding back and forth in a wheelbarrow!

A key element of world exploration is excavation. Arm yourself with a shovel and a pickaxe and start nibbling the ground or picking a stone - and sooner or later, going deeper into some mountain or making your way down, you will stumble upon something interesting: a gold mine or a cave with spiders, for example. Do not be afraid to dig, just always keep in mind the most important rule: you cannot dig directly above and below you; always work diagonally or sideways. Otherwise, you risk bringing down a ton of sand on your head or falling into a lava lake.

9. Fantasize!

As stated at the beginning of this article, this is a sandbox game where you need to entertain yourself. If you are used to such games and are ready to spend hours doing random missions in GTA, this will not bother you; if you like games to take you by the hand, then you can get bored.

Once you get comfortable in the world of the game, build a small house, learn how to fight monsters and get food, you will definitely ask yourself: what to do next? The answers may vary. For example, in there is a kind of "end game": you need to get into a parallel world and kill a dragon, as well as fight a three-headed skeletal monster. Of course, in order to achieve this goal, you will have to go through all the circles of hell, learn how to make the most powerful weapons and armor, collect a bunch of rare minerals (including visiting the local hell - the world of Nether, in which it is extremely difficult to survive) and defeat dozens of strong enemies .

However, you can do without it. The best incentive to keep playing and discovering new facets is to turn on your imagination. Set yourself an ambitious goal and start working. For example, build the entire building of your office - with all floors, rooms, doors and windows. Or explore every single cave you can find. Or lay several branches of the underground (ground? air?) subway. Or build glass underwater city Rapture or sky city Columbia. Or build huge calculator. Or build death star. Open, in general, YouTube and start drawing inspiration.

Unless, of course, you have a couple of years of completely free time.

10. Play with people

Sociopathy and endless loneliness is one of the beauties of exploring a hostile world, but be sure to try playing with other people. You can find a random server and join a world where people are already building their civilization - just walking around and seeing what other players have been able to achieve is very interesting. Settle right there, build your house next to your neighbors, plant a garden - and soon you will realize that showing off your architectural achievements to other living people is much more interesting than meditating on them in splendid isolation. And then you will gather in a gang and arrange a joint raid in the Nether in order to gain experience points and pick up rare sand.

And if some bastard comes to your house, ruins it or burns it to the ground - you can do the same. Go and blow up the neighbor's castle with dynamite. Fill his cellar with lava. Destroy his garden. Destroy his Rapture or devastate his Columbia. - a game about construction, but you can also destroy in it; there is no limit to human filth, except for server settings.

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A game that you can spend years playing. It's not obligatory; just a few days is enough. But you must try the classics, and no excuse will work. Unless, of course, you love video games at least a little and appreciate the emotions and impressions that they can give. Just start - then everything will work out by itself.

Minecraft is a game loved by children and adults around the world.

The construction game was created by the Swedish programmer Markus Persson, and it has become a real phenomenon in the gaming industry. Minecraft Kubomir quickly gained an army of fans and became one of the most profitable games in the world.

Microsoft bought the game in 2014. The corporation decided to expand the universe in all sorts of directions - including educational. One of these areas was Minecraft programming for children.

In Sweden, Minecraft was even included in the compulsory school curriculum as a tool for digital creativity and put on a par with learning to draw.

Minecraft courses for kids

The friendly Minecraft environment is a great place to start learning how to code. We recommend the course "Programming Minecraft for kids" to all codeds from 7 years old.

For many, Minecraft has long become not just a game, but a way of self-expression: small cubes allow you to model entire worlds and control the actions of heroes. While learning how to code Minecraft for kids, children complete various tasks and play mini-games. The elements of the game are controlled using special software commands that look like small blocks. These blocks must be placed in a certain sequence in order for the program to put them into action. This is how the guys write the program code. And this is just the beginning!

Guys who have at least a little experience in Minecraft see things in the game that could be changed and improved. Looking for useful resources, getting wood and building can be quite boring. It would be great to automate these actions, right? Programming in Minecraft will help get rid of routine processes and make the game more exciting and individual.

Solving such problems, the child in a playful way learns the principles of writing program code and learns to think in algorithms. It turns out that programming is not difficult!

By the end of the Minecraft for Kids course, your child will:

• master the basics of programming in Minecraft;
• learn to apply the acquired knowledge in practice, creating game objects - from farms and dungeons to castles and labyrinths;
• develop planning skills, algorithmic and spatial thinking;
• learn to work in a team;
• turn your passion for the game into a useful learning process.

Give your child the opportunity to create amazing virtual worlds and write their own rules for them!

How do we know that a student has mastered the program?

During the training, we evaluate both the practical side of the issue (how to do it?) and the understanding of the topic (why and for what).

Students demonstrate their knowledge by solving problems in their own way, explaining algorithms in their own words, helping classmates correct mistakes, and creating presentations on their completed projects.