What an exciting day we had today in math! Students were introduced to MinecraftEDU on our school laptops. We had 10 laptops (and a couple of iPads) running Minecraft today. First we started with a community circle. Our question of the day was: How can I be a good partner when using technology (for example a laptop, iPad etc.)? Students came with terrific ideas, for example:
Next I demonstrated a couple of differences between the PC version of Minecraft and the iPad/Xbox/Playstation edition of Minecraft (for example, how to move and access your inventory with the keyboard). Minecraft projected on the whiteboard: Then students were out into pairs and entered a pre-created Minecraft world that I made. They were given a few "try this" goals:
Student exploring the Minecraft world on a laptop: Students quickly accomplished all of their "try this" goals and started making and sharing discoveries of their own. For example:
Finally, after about 35 minutes of discovery and exploring I gave students a few math tasks to try:
Students discovered through this task that different structures can have the same perimeter and different structures can have the same area. It was a great, fun way to explore the math concepts of area and perimeter. Area of 20 square units |