
Announcing Minecraft: Education Edition - ingve
http://education.minecraft.net/announce011916/
======
riskable
Make no mistake: This will not run on anything but Windows. The FAQ isn't
explicit about it but you can infer it from the requirements:

* 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit ( _x86_ ) or 64-bit ( _x64_ ) processor

* DirectX 9 graphics device with _WDDM 1.0 or higher driver_

So this means that Minecraft: Education Edition will most likely _not_ be
Java-based like regular Minecraft.

More evidence:

> "Mods are not currently supported in Minecraft: Education Edition."

So kids definitely _won 't_ be modding this version of Minecraft. In that
case, what are they going to be doing with it? I'm curious to know because
last summer my son went to a "Minecraft camp" of sorts and they taught Java
programming/modding to ages 9+. For that they were using Minecraft Forge.

This version of Minecraft is most likely based on the Pocket Edition which is
written in C++.

Also note that this is not the same thing as ComputerCraftEdu which is vanilla
Minecraft (Forge) + ComputerCraft (special EDU edition). ComputerCraft is a
mod that lets you program in-game computers and robots using Lua. The latest
Edu version also includes a visual programming interface which you can read
more about here:

[http://www.computercraft.info/2015/07/01/introducing-
compute...](http://www.computercraft.info/2015/07/01/introducing-
computercraftedu/)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Specifically, it's probably a modification of Minecraft Windows 10 Edition,
which itself is basically a Windows port of Pocket Edition.

A Mojang dev has said that they are still supporting the Java version, that
they ultimately hope to have feature parity across all platforms, that they
know modding is a critical part of Minecraft's popularity, and that they want
to add modding to Pocket Edition/Windows 10 Edition but probably not soon.
([http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-gamers-are-worried-
abou...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-gamers-are-worried-about-
minecraft-windows-10-edition)) So that's all kind of confusing, and who knows
what Microsoft will decree in a few years, but in theory they're trying to do
the right thing eventually.

Obviously a C++ version will never be _as_ moddable as the Java version, since
modders won't be able to get at the source code, and will require Mojang to
add formal mod support to work at all. On the other hand, if all this drives
them to actually do that it would be awesome; they've been promising it for
years now, and in the meantime all mod development has been shackled by the
requirement to reverse-engineer deliberately obfuscated code that breaks all
mods with every new version release.

~~~
herbst
Even worse. I bought Minecraft as Linux game, never played it on Windows, and
now i have to be afraid that the game suddenly moves on without me. Thats so
wrong.

------
fluxquanta
I'm very familiar with Minecraft -- I still have the PayPal receipt for when I
sent 10 Euro to Mojang to get in on the beta back in 2010 (which seems like
ages ago).

But, I ask innocently and without agenda, how is this used as a tool for
educators? I know kids love it, and I understand why, but quotes like

>Since the introduction of Minecraft to the classroom, educators around the
world have been using Minecraft to effectively teach students everything from
STEM subjects to art and poetry.

make me wonder what exactly is the benefit of using Minecraft in the classroom
from an educational perspective? Are lessons actually being planned around
Minecraft, or is it like the video games I played in "computer lab" which were
just a convenient way to get a group of 30 second graders to be quiet for 45
minutes? What's the benefit of using Minecraft over traditional teaching
tools, other than shoehorning lessons into something kids are already familiar
with?

I realize that this comment may sound like it's coming from a place of bitter
skepticism, but I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
patja
I teach programming at the middle school level and am planning a Minecraft
event and some pilot classroom activities around it.

As I've researched what the whole Minecraft in the classroom thing is about,
I've found a few ways it is being used, but they all boil down to making the
learning experience more engaging to more students. Make it fun and the
students will tear off and learn more better faster.

Some activities very directly support the curriculum, for example teachers who
have made activities where concepts from quantum mechanics, newtonian physics,
and life sciences have made working models in the Minecraft world where
students can experiment and more directly experience the details behind these
concepts.

Some are just virtual worlds where you can be a virtual tourist and learn
about a place or time in history. There is one where you explore Boston during
the time of the Boston Tea Party for example, and you have to talk to all of
the NPC characters to learn facts you will be tested on later.

Some are very computer-science focused where students make their own mods or
just use scripting languages to automate structure creation on a larger scale.

All of these could be taught using more traditional methods. For some
learners, just telling them to read a book will be the highest throughput/most
effective learning method. Those kids are going to do fine regardless. These
new gamified virtual world methods of introducing the material may slow things
down for the learners we historically see as highly capable learners, but they
promise to engage and light a fire inside some of the other students who
otherwise might get left behind.

How much you should or can tailor the experience for each audience is a
challenge I face all the time. It isn't easy as every decision seems to
involve improving the experience for one segment of the class, usually at the
expense of another.

~~~
Outdoorsman
<These new gamified virtual world methods of introducing the material may slow
things down for the learners we historically see as highly capable learners,
but they promise to engage and light a fire inside some of the other students
who otherwise might get left behind.>

Well said...there is a segment of the population which will likely never be
exposed to STEM, or the methodology associated with critical thinking skills,
any other way...I applaud your grasp of that concept...that's one of the
primary differences between "teachers" and "educators"...

------
patja
"Existing customers will be offered one year of Education Edition for free"
(where existing customers refers to those who bought MinecraftEDU licenses)

Therefore we may surmise that Minecraft: Education Edition will be a
subscription-based licensing model. Kind of a bummer but I get it, teachers
are pretty resource-intensive to support, and the value comes from building up
the community and resource/lesson/world sharing, which is an ongoing cost.

The school where I teach had literally just last week decided to take the
plunge and purchase some MinecraftEDU licenses. I'm just glad we will still
have them in perpetuity (whatever that is good for in the constantly changing
world of software!) along with the full retail copies that come along with it.

Really I hope this will deliver on the promise of Minecraft in the schools.
MinecraftEDU was a fine first step but it is clear that it will benefit from
having the full resources of Microsoft behind it. Currently it is still a bit
of a "throw the software at the community and hope something good comes of it"
approach, which is very hit or miss. Teachers are making a lot of great
lessons and activities using Minecraft, but many of them are very localized to
exactly what that specific teacher is trying to accomplish and are difficult
to generalize to "all 4th grade teachers can use this". I would liken it to
what Scratch offered for coding in the classroom ("here's the toolset, have
fun!"), as opposed to what Code.org brought to the table with more of a
complete packaged lesson plan and hand-held guided experience through a coding
activity using Scratch.

~~~
cdr
$5/student/year with volume discounts available, according to the NYT piece.

~~~
patja
a change to per user pricing is a huge change over how MinecraftEDU licensing
works. $5 per student per year as opposed to the $18/license MinecraftEDU is
priced at. With MinecraftEDU licenses if you are only going to have 30
licenses in use at one time (one classroom) you only need 30 licenses. 30
MinecraftEDU licenses runs a little over $450, one time cost. For a 500
student school under Minecraft: Education Edition you could be looking at
$2,500 per year.

That's making some assumptions about how they will restrict the license usage.

I doubt many schools will see the benefit of having to buy a license for each
individual student. The reality is that very few teachers are equipped with
the skills to deliver a lesson using Minecraft, so mostly you will see a
handful of teachers (at best, more likely zero or one) in a school embrace
this.

Another important question: will you still be entitled to a separate full
retail Minecraft license for every education license purchased? That is a
significant component of the current MinecraftEDU licensing. It enables school
events and lessons using any mod or plugin, with self-hosted servers.

I don't see this as all negative. I am hopeful that with the increased $$ flow
will come better curriculum that is more generally applicable, as well as new
features that might enable teachers who are novices with Minecraft to
successfully use it in the classroom. Currently I would say only 1 out of 20
teachers has the skills required to pull this off today.

------
homarp
[http://minecraftedu.tumblr.com/post/137614333771/minecrafted...](http://minecraftedu.tumblr.com/post/137614333771/minecraftedu-
minecraft-education-edition)

Microsoft bought MinecraftEdu, but not TeacherGaming, which will continue to
work on KerbalEdu

------
melted
Idiotic. What Minecraft needs if you'd like it to be educational is an
official server programmability API accessible from multiple languages. Right
now kids have to use hacks such as Craftbukkit and Spigot to write and deploy
plugins, and Mcrosoft took down Craftbukkit through a cease and desist. There
is such an enormous opportunity here to get tons of kids genuinely interested
in programming, yet Microsoft is continuing to sabotage it.

~~~
dwild
CraftBukkitwas never taken down by Microsoft, it was taken down by one of the
developer that used the GPL license to take it down.

You can see the DMCA notice there:
[https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-09-05-CraftB...](https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-09-05-CraftBukkit.md)

~~~
melted
Did not know. But the end result is the same: kids have to break the law to
learn programming with Minecraft. And they do, in droves.

~~~
ryanlol
How exactly do they break the law?

~~~
melted
By downloading unlicensed modifications of proprietary software whose
distribution is prohibited by DMCA as well. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure a
lawyer would find half a dozen ways to make the parents liable.

~~~
ryanlol
Huh? Who would the parents be liable to? What would they be liable for?

Mojang ABs customers aren't magically going to become liable for their
violations by using their software.

------
euske
I wish they could upgrade Minecraft Pi Edition, which hasn't been updated for
more than three years.

[http://pi.minecraft.net/](http://pi.minecraft.net/)

------
jasonjei
I think Minecraft will be a great digital lego for those right-brained
youngsters. I remember when I was a kid, I would spend those rainy days in the
computer lab with Kid Pix.

------
TrevorJ
No volume license? Not seeing the upside here.

