Collaboration

Minecraft Lunch Club!

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Minecraft Lunch Club!

This blog post is co-written with the lovely Heather Docherty – my main partner in crime (I mean, inspirational work colleague!) You can follow her on Twitter here: @hdocherty215  and while we’re at it, my Twitter handle here: @teacherbau

 

For the past few weeks, we have been volunteering our time to run a playtime Minecraft Club for 20 learners from Years 3, 4 and 5.  Learners were put into teams consisting of two Year 5s, one Year 4 and one Year 3.  

Over the course of the five weeks, the teams worked together to complete challenges in a world that was created based on the book Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  It’s a brilliant world, you can find it on the Minecraft Education Edition website here.

The challenges that learners participated in were: 

  • Compass Challenge 
  • Scavenger Hunt 
  • Treasure Map 

In Compass Challenge, learners had to navigate around the Island and discover beacons placed at the eight main compass directions. To prove that they worked as a team, they had to take a team photo at each location, and send the photos to the two of us.  This was challenging because learners were tempted to fly off in all directions, and then had to negotiate where to go first, how to gather as a group for the photo, and how to keep track of which beacons had not yet been located. 

During Scavenger Hunt, learners worked in their same teams to find all of the items listed in a Minecraft Notebook. They were able to split up for this challenge, as time was limited. This challenge required constant communication and co-ordination as learners had to determine which items had been found, and ensure that photos of each finding were taken to record the location of the objects as evidence.  There was a great deal of confusion and then laughter as learners tried to complete the item, ‘tame a parrot’. 

Finally, learners were presented with the most complicated challenge yet – Treasure Map.  The Island they were working in is based on the original drawing from the book Treasure Island, with treasure hidden at the three locations marked with an ‘X’ on the original map. Learners had to work together to interpret the map on the Smartboard and compare it to the map on their computers within Minecraft. This required learners to use their understanding of map reading, including rotating, zooming and closely observing details.  Working within a limited timeframe meant that learners had to collaborate, with some taking on the role of map reader, team coordinator, treasure digger and photographer. 

Logistics

To enable the Minecraft Club to be a success, we created excitement amongst the students by informing them during the day that the Club would be on offer.  We then held a ‘find out more’ session during a lunch time.  We showed them the world, and explained how the Club would work.  We then took down the names of learners that were interested (some decided it wasn’t for them – they had been hoping for free play).  Happy to say, we had far too many interested learners!  So, we drew names then and there out of a hat, and created the first cohort. We sent home permission letters, outlining that it was a commitment, and it would be taking place during a playtime.  We also explained that continued participation hinged on learners following the school’s established ICT agreement.  We had 100% take-up, and our learners eagerly attended every session.

Outcome

We have been very proud of the collaboration between learners, with more experienced players providing guidance and support for newer participants. Seeing learners from a mix of year levels engaged together in problem solving, negotiation and fun has been well worth giving up some break time!  We had a new contingent of learners begin the Club this week, and we’ll be hunting through the Minecraft for Education World Library for another suitable world for later next term.

Conclusion

Give it a go!  It was fantastic that we had each other – that meant we could still take it in turns to duck out and have a snack etc.  So, while you could run a club by yourself, everything is better with friends, so we recommend that you rope in a colleague. You don’t have to have a lot of personal knowledge of or ability in Minecraft, just read the notes attached to the world.  An open mind and adventurous spirit will get you through!

 

Collaboration is Key

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Collaboration is Key

The collaboration space in class OneNote is often under utilised because educators aren’t sure what to do with it, syncing problems when the internet is slow can result in confusion, and students fear their work will be copied. But, when used creatively, the ‘collaboration’ aspect of the Collaboration Space can be a very powerful tool.

Avoid competitive tasks in this space.

I prefer to use the Collaboration Space as a place where learners build resources together that they can all benefit from, where they share their ideas and support each other’s learning. Last year, we worked together and created a series of resources to support and extend each other in creative writing.

In ‘Instead of Said’ students were given five minutes to find as many different ways that they could to make the boring sentence, “The cat sat on the mat,” said Dad more interesting by using words other than ‘said’. They then copied and pasted their ideas into the Collaboration Space. We then had a bank of words to use instead of ‘said’ when including direct speech in narrative writing.

There are so many better words to use rather than, ‘said’!

Learners had so much fun with this activity, and found the said alternative list so useful that I expanded this idea to other aspects of narrative writing.

Emotional Inferencing

We were looking at inference, and ways of suggesting how a character is feeling without actually naming that emotion. So, students selected an emotion each to write about, and we then copied their work into an emotion bank to benefit all students in narrative writing. This was lots of fun, and useful to boot!

You can see down the left all of the different emotions that students selected – such a great resource for writing projects!

I’ve added the ‘Emotion Inferences’ blank page to my shared Bau Teacher Adventures OneNote.  Find the link here, and please feel free to adapt and use!

Spectacular Settings

This year, I’m also going to include a ‘settings selection’ section in the Collaboration Space.  I’m planning on having students gather a variety of pictures of different scenes, seasons etc, and brainstorm some interesting descriptive words to go with them.

Lots of lists

We also use the Collaboration Space as a central location for groups of students (or even the whole Village).  These lists have included;

  • Class brainstorm on what to pack for school camp
  • Sphero project ideas
  • Fitness/ Brain break bank
Ideas for Sphero projects – it was a long list, and there was a great deal of excitement!
This was from before I discovered Forms! Learners initialled their top preferences for lollies for movie night on school camp.

Peer Editing/ Support/ Assessment

Learners complete a rough draft of an essay or project in their personal Notebook section, and then copy and paste the page into the Collaboration Space, where another student provides constructive feedback/ assists with editing/ does a peer assessment.

The original learner then copies the page back into their personal Notebook, and applies any changes/ constructive criticism that they agree with.

Preventing Syncing Errors

Sync errors are the most frustrating aspect of the Collaboration Space, and can turn excitement to dismay in a matter of moments. I have several methods of avoiding this problem, depending on what type of task we are doing.

  • Inserting tables and assigning each student a separate line.
  • Assigning each group of students a separate page within a Section, so all students can easily find each group’s work, but only a few people are contributing to a page at a time.
Students worked on this in groups of 4. Because the table was colour coded, learners were encouraged to talk to each other about which section they were currently added to in order to avoid syncing errors.
  • Learners do the work in their individual Section, and then copy and paste the page to the Collaboration Space, ensuring that they have their original in a safe place.

So, collaborate, don’t compete, and then sit back and listen to your learners’ conversations as they interact, support and encourage each other!

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