Read this blog today if you want to see the possibilities of games in schools in a way that respects gaming.
I am honoured to be acquainted with this fine fellow behind the wonderful blog post - along with another educator, the three of us have been playing Minecraft together and planning to start Minecraft Clubs at our schools. My students are gung-ho about the idea. The day after I tweeted a reference to the club, no less than five kids approached me in the halls to ask if the rumor of a school Minecraft Club was true or not. Our school club hasn't even started yet and the thinking has already begun. All I've done so far is collect a list of names of interested students and updated my school's video drivers. Two students made a Minecraft test to help "weed out" "less dedicated" players. Their theory was that we shouldn't "waste our time" on players that aren't "serious" or will quit. I confessed to them that I would fail their Minecraft test.
"Maybe we should make an easier test?" they suggested.
I told them that I didn't want to penalize anyone who hadn't played the game before. I reassured them that I'd consider a fair way of choosing 6 members of my club out of the list of 31 potentials. Maybe I'd pick names randomly out of a hat. Maybe I'd offer it to students who aren't already members of a dozen clubs or teams. I'm not sure how I'll decide, but I'll figure it out. (I should mention that the two boys who created this test, wrote it and printed it out, are "reluctant writers".) I promise I won't turn this blog into my school blog (you can read that, including my Minecraft reflections, here) but the two may intersect.
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