Top 10 (Plus 1) @MinecraftEDU Educators To Follow in 2018 | @playcraftlearn
Last year, we had the opportunity to create several great podcasts featuring Minecraft Education Edition. This year, we had a teacher email us asking for additional resources to learn how to bring Minecraft into their classroom.
What is Minecraft?
Minecraft: Education Edition is an open-world game that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive environment where the only limit is your imagination.
11 Amazing Educators to Learn about Minecraft.
Lucas Gillispie: Director of Academic and Digital Learning, Surry County Schools
Lucas Gillispie is an educator from North Carolina who’s been using Minecraft with students and teachers since 2011. He works closely with teachers in his district, across the state, and around the country to support the use of Minecraft for learning. Lucas is the server administrator for the Edurealms Minecraft Server, a 24/7 community of educators and students who build and learn together. A passionate advocate for games and learning, Lucas share his resources on his blog.
Glen Irvin: Wabasha, MN -Spanish Teacher/Technology Integrationist
Glen creates weekly Minecraft videos for second language teachers to inspire them to use this amazing tool with their students. The videos include lesson plans and links to the worlds that my students and he has created. His students are currently working in “El Mundo de Leyendas” which is a vast Minecraft world where the student's role play the part of a member of a new civilization where everyone speaks Spanish. Twitter @irvspanish
Jo Kay: Virtual Worlds Designer and Facilitator, Educational Technologist, Artist
Jo is the owner and facilitator of a number of virtual worlds and gaming spaces with a focus on learning, including Massively@jokaydia – a Minecraft server for kids and parents. Massively@jokaydia has been running for more than 5 years and is a Guild based learning community for kids aged 4-16 years who are interested in developing digital media skills, exploring their creativity and developing online social skills by playing games. More than 1800 kids from Australia, the US, the UK, New Zealand and beyond are members of the guild and play together on a whitelisted Minecraft server which comprises 7 main maps and thousands of amazing creations. As well as collaborating and communicating with Minecraft, guild members engage with via a website which provides forums, journal spaces and a project-based learning oriented awards system. Twitter: @jokay http://massively.jokaydia.com/
Marco Vigelini, CoderDojo
Marco works as DBA in a social cooperative for the employment of disadvantaged people and is one of the first promoters of CoderDojo initiative in Italy, a global network of free computer programming clubs for young people. In 2015 Marco introduced Minecraft as a game-based learning tool in the school where he lives with the strong support and will of his daughter's teacher. Twitter: @MarcoVigelini
Dr. Bron Stuckey, Minecraftexperience.net
Bron Stuckey is an educator dedicated to student engagement in schools and high-quality professional learning for teachers. Her expertise includes the use of game design, games-based learning and game-inspired learning (gamification). Bron cut her teeth in games for learning long before Minecraft exploded into the world through her 10 years with the highly successful Quest Atlantis program. She now explores, curates and supports teachers using Minecraft in their classrooms and the community to be built for that all important next wave of teachers raring to make a difference with gameful practices. She works both in school with kids and teachers and online in a number of contexts. The Minecraft Experience is a curation of diverse and rich experiences in global classrooms. Her newly launched blog The Get Game Hub is a place to share case stories of teachers taking their first adventurous steps into gameful learning practices including classroom integration of Minecraft.
Garrett Zimmer, Minegage.com
Garrett Zimmer, Founder of MineGageEdu and Co-Founder of #MineCraftEd Twitter EdChat, started in Minecraft as a child-friendly game based YouTube creator and quickly saw the opportunity to leverage his influence with children to empower fun educational experiences. He now focuses his time helping educators maximize the power of Minecraft in Education in a true Game Based way, and developing educational games and adventures directly aligned to curriculum. For collaborative discussion on Minecraft in education, you'll find him in the #minecrafted Twitter EdChat Tuesdays at 8 PM EST / 5 PM PST.
Minecraft Resources: FUN Minecraft Curriculum – The How-to Infographic | Gamification or Game Based Learning? | Beyond Gamification with Minecraft |
Did you see that @MineGageEdu was featured as a @TeacherCast Top 10 @MinecraftEdu Educator? Click To TweetTrish Cloud, K-5 Technology Teacher
Trish Cloud – teaches Technology to K-5 students at Grand Oak Elementary in North Carolina. She was an early adopter of the game in the Charlotte Mecklenburg School system and has seen the game spread across the district with their support. She’s been using Minecraft Edu in her both her current school and previous school for the past 6 years as an afterschool club and in specialized projects across grade levels. Teachers at her school have adopted using PE Minecraft for student projects in their personalized learning playlists and pathways. For the past two years, her students’ created Minecraft videos have won first place at the ISTE MachinimaFest in their age category. You can visit her website at http://www.techyowls.com/
Here is our student build Colonial Williamsburg Project, students built the site and classes go into Colonial Williamsburg to do the assignments in the different locations: https://youtu.be/l76gKKLOYow
Did you see that @TrishCloud was featured as a @TeacherCast Top 10 @MinecraftEdu Educator? Click To TweetJohn Miller @JohnMillerEDU
7th-grade world history, Google Certified Innovator, #cuerockstar staff, #MinecraftEdu evangelist, SLOCUE board, roleplay, & promising zen master.
Did you see that @JohnMillerEDU was featured as a @TeacherCast Top 10 @MinecraftEdu Educator? Click To Tweet
Diane Main @Dowbiggin
Diane Main serves as Director of Learning, Innovation and Design (9-12) at The Harker School in San Jose, California. She is also adjunct faculty for San Diego State University's Learning Design and Technology department and MERIT/KCI faculty at Krause Center for Innovation and Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California. She is the former Program Director of the MERIT program at KCI, and is a Google for Education Certified Innovator. dianemain.com
Rafranz Davis @RafranzDavis
Rafranz Davis is the Executive Director of Professional and Digital Learning for Lufkin ISD. Her passion for creativity and student-centered learning has driven her work in supporting Lufkin’s transition to taking more innovative approaches to teaching and learning through integrated computational thinking, makerspaces, and community-driven personalized professional learning. When Rafranz is not disrupting the status quo in East Texas, she can be found connecting with the global education community as an advocate for STEM education, teacher voice, digital equity and diversity in edtech.
Steve Isaacs, @Mr_Isaacs
I teach Video Game Design and Development at William Annin Middle School in Basking Ridge, NJ. In addition, I developed and teach an online version of the Video Game Design and Development course for the VHS Collaborative.
I am a strong proponent of student choice and student voice. It is my mission to provide students with opportunities to pursue and nurture their passion.
Community building and connecting with other educators is one of my passions. I am proud to be the co-founder of #EdTechBridge, a Twitter chat and community working to build collaborative relationships with EdTech stakeholders to create better EdTech for our students. Join us on Wednesday nights at 7 pm EST for the weekly #EdTechBridge chat.
I am also one of the founding members of the #games4ed initiative and a moderator of the weekly #games4ed chat held on Thursday nights at 8pm ET.
- https://twitter.com/Mr_Isaacs
- gamesandlearning1.blogspot.com
- https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/microsoft_in_education/2016/04/18/minecraft-zen-and-the-art-of-letting-go/
Where can I learn more about Minecraft?
There are several great resources already listed above with these fantastic educators. I hope you have the opportunity to reach out and connect with them for more info. In addition, here are some official links and resources from the Minecraft team.
- Official Website: https://education.minecraft.net/
- Twitter: @PlayCraftLearn
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/minecraft
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TeamMojang
- Minecraft Blog: https://education.minecraft.net/blog/
- Minecraft Support Network
- Minecraft Training Resources
- Hour of Code: Minecraft Edition
- Code Builder for Minecraft Education Edition
Share your Minecraft Resources With TeacherCast
Are you a Minecraft using educator? Please share your resources and links below in our comments section.
About the author, Jeffrey Bradbury
Jeff Bradbury, creator of TeacherCast, and father of the famous @EduTriplets Thanks for checking out TeacherCast today. Please take a moment to find me on all of my Social Media channels!