Minecraft is an insanely addictive video game and one I stopped playing some time back since whenever I played it I wouldn’t be get any work done. A local school teacher on the other hand has been using Minecraft as an educational tool in his classrooms. Intel recently conducted an interview with Eric Walker, a teacher at the American International School of Kuwait on how he uses Minecraft to teach his students. You can check out the article on the Intel Free Press website [Here]
10 replies on “Minecraft as part of class”
Of course now AIS will want to take credit for this, after giving him such a hard time about it in the past.
Eric presented at PEAK conference, and he said before that AIS was very very supportive and helpful of this actually,, especially his principal.
Wasn’t talking about the principal.
I’m excited that video games are finally being used for educational purposes. I personally learned a lot from video games since I was a child, it even helped me with school.
Props to Eric for doing this. I hope more teachers do this instead of just reading books and write on the board without interactions.
We used to play Oregon Trail in class in the mid 90s, it’s definitely not a “finally” thing!
‘Just reading books and writing on the board’ so that’s what you think teachers do? Good thing I don’t make sweeping generalisations about your job!! I bet you’d be quite annoyed.
I use Kerbal Space Program to teach orbital mechanics. So what? What’s the big deal?
Make kids play Dark Souls. Teach them live isn’t fair
life*
AIS is such a garbage school. also human brains dont comprehend as well when staring at a screen compared to reading writing, and best learning tool of all, experience. the problem with learning through reading and writing is it fails to spark interest, or teachers themselves arguably are the ones who fail to spark interest in the students, especially americans teaching in kuwait, as they are either great influential teachers (a minuscule %), or they assume that because they are american they are better and thus let that ideology effect the way they teach. Some teacher using minecraft in class is a result of trying to spark interest in students the easy way (video games) and wasting their time at the end of the day by not learning anything outside of general problem solving capabilities that humans should develop at an age at or before middleschool.
I’m assuming you are actually an educational expert who understands and is qualified to speak about that and someone who has a good education in child psychology.
Your sweeping statement about American teachers is insulting to all US teachers here and your analysis of how people learn doesn’t appear to be a rigorous methodology I have ever heard of.
I wonder why Americans and other nationalities are actually here. Might it be because there is a demand for that type of education? As AIS is full, your statement about it being garbage doesn’t seem to ring true either (at least not for the customers).
I wouldn’t be discarding the learning of problem solving skills at ALL ages quite so flippantly. But being an expert, I’m sure you are just kidding and realize the value of teaching students how to problem solve by a variety of methods including the use of video games.