Virtual World Teacher: Reflection

For my very first virtual world lesson, I used Minecraft to simulate a mountain man and beaver trapping experience.  Mountain men and beaver trapping were huge parts of Wyoming history, as it was during this time period that so many explorers traveled into Wyoming.

For the lesson, I created a short introductory video briefly explaining mountain men and beaver trapping.

Video on Mountain Men & Beaver Trapping

After viewing the video, students would enter into a Minecraft world that has been previously created that includes a fort area that is meant for a rendezvous.

Video on Mountain Men & Beaver Trapping Minecraft World.

The students’ first job is to go find “beaver” and trap them.  Since Minecraft doesn’t have beavers, the students will be instructed that they can kill any animal (cow, sheep, etc.) available at this time.  After collecting some “pelts,” they should head back to the rendezvous sight and begin trading for other goods that they might need.

There are a LOT of changes and advancements I would like to make to this Minecraft world in the future.  First of all, this is definitely something that I would use with my fourth graders, so it’s something I want to continue to improve. Here are some of the changes that I want to make sooner rather then later:

1. I would like to actually make some beavers in Minecraft and place them in this world.
2. I would like to have an actual mountain with rivers close to the rendezvous site.
3. I would like to place other mountain men and some Native American Indians in the rendezvous site that the students can interact with and actually trade with.
4. I would like to have it set up so the students cannot take any of the other goods until they have given some beaver pelts.

I love the idea of having students help me expand this world.  I can explain to them that this is basically a rough draft, that I welcome any and all ideas on how to improve it, and then I would enlist their help to actually make these improvements.

Minecraft: Multicultural

For my next quest in EDTECH 531, I built the Acropolis in Minecraft!

 

The more I build in Minecraft, the more I find I’m getting better and quicker at it, and that I’m really enjoying it! The purpose of this quest was to mainly practice building a historical structure, but an entire lesson on the Acropolis would also include some deep research into the structure. I think that as a teacher, I would want to do something similar to this lesson, mainly practicing the building, before diving deeper into the lesson.  Why?  Because of the same reason I needed to do this practicing…to get better at it.  My structure was obviously not to scale and as you can see from the bottom left picture, it was very tight and cramped inside my structure.  This was a learning opportunity for me to take more time and think through how big my structures need to be before beginning.  Although we were not required to complete the Acropolis to scale, putting more thought into about how big it should be would have helped my structure to have a little more walking room on the inside.

After giving my students a little time to practice building actual structures, I would then dive in to research on those structures.  Furthermore, once they get a lot better with building in Minecraft it would be fun and challenging to begin adding more ornamentation to structures to actually replicate it as closely as possible.

It may have taken me an entire semester, but I have finally jumped on the Minecraft in the classroom train! =)  I am starting to really see and understand exactly how it can be used to enhance the learning process using higher level thinking skills.