A beautifully pixellated sunset.

On Tuesday, we played Minecraft in class.

I’ve heard my brother babbling enthusiastically about this game for years, so I know a lot of the terminology, but I’ve never actually played it. (I have, however, seen a lot of cringeworthy content such as this viral music video).

The projects that the teacher had her kids do sounded super cool. I didn’t know there was such a thing as Minecraft for Education in a separate platform that can be controlled by the teacher, so that was news to me. I think something like this can really activate student curiosity and creativity. Also, if they are already playing videos games in their free time, they might as well learn something from it! I especially liked the idea of teaching them how to survive and eventually build their own civilization. It helps students to put themselves into the shoes of someone who lived thousands of years ago.

As for the actual gameplay, I’m going to sound like such a boring person here but I really don’t like video games. I hate learning new controls and having to follow instructions in order to complete an objective. Everyone always sucks at a game the first time they try it, and I’m no exception, but I give up pretty quickly. I just made my guy wander around to check out what the scenery looked like – I thought the sunset on all the islands and the ocean was beautiful. After that, it became night and turned into survival mode. I didn’t feel like battling it out with all the creepers so my guy just hung out on top of an island all by himself. He didn’t get hungry or tired or injured. I guess what I’m saying is that my strategy in video games is basically to do nothing.

Kudos to all the teachers using this – I think the majority of kids will enjoy it and learn a lot from it.