Tech Chat! ADA Compliance Document
July 13, 2017

Welcome everyone to this July edition of Tech Chat! We are delighted that you have all joined us. 

Just to let you all know, this webinar is being recorded. If at any time you are having difficulty with hearing the audio through your computer, feel free to join us by phone using the instructions on the bottom left side of your screen.

My name is April Drennan, and I am the Instructional Technologist for the Bureau of Standards and Instructional Support here at FDOE. 

Others present:
Katrina Figgett: Director of Science, Mathematics & Instructional Technology

Today’s topic is Minecraft. Our presenters are Bradley Smrstick from Hillsborough County Schools and Meenoo Rami, Manager of Minecraft for Education at Microsoft.
Before we begin with the presentations, let’s review our schedule for today along with a few instructions for participating in today’s webinar.
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Today’s Agenda:
2:00-2:05 – Opening Remarks and Poll Questions 
2:05-2:35 – Presentation and Q & A with Bradley Smrstick
2:35-2:50 – Presentation and Q & A with Meenoo Rami
2:50-3:00 – Closing Announcements

Remember to type your questions and comments in the question/chat box at any time during the presentations.	

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Presentation #1: Bradley Smrstick
Our first presenter is Bradley Smrstick from Hillsborough County Schools. He is going to give us an overview of Minecraft for Education.

Slide 1: Title Slide
Get to Know Minecraft
Bradley Smrstick
Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) 
MIE Expert, MIE Expert Trainer, Surface Expert
Senior Analyst – Instructional Technology
Hillsborough County Public Schools
Tampa Fl.
Bradley.Smrstick@sdhc.k12.fl.us

Slide 2: Game Based Learning
We’re not trying to turn your students into gamers, we’re trying to turn your gamers into students.
Jodi Asbell-Clarke

•	Have you ever watched children at play? If you play close attention you’ll find that they’re shaping their skills of interpersonal communication, emotional control, resilency, and persistence and even engineering. 
•	It’s well known that people learn naturally through a combination of observation, trial-and-error, and play-based practice.
•	And Play is a natural human instinct, we just tend to suppress this instinct as we get older.
•	There is an inherent understanding that play is beneficial for young children, but at some point in our school systems, learning becomes work.
•	The game-based learning movement is trying to bring back more of the play aspects of learning across the K-12 grade levels – not just for young students.
•	There have been a few interesting research studies and books published about the importance of Play, notably:
•	In his book, “Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul” Dr. Stuart Brown explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem solve and more.
•	Researchers Dorothy Singer, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek advocate for more play-based learning in their book, “Play = Learning: How Play Motivates and Enhances Children's Cognitive and Social-Emotional Growth” 

Slide 3: What is Minecraft?
Minecraft is…
•	A game about breaking and placing blocks, where players work together to create wonderful, imaginative things
•	One of the most popular video games in history that transcends all platforms (PC, console, mobile) and appeals to all players regardless of age, demographics, or geography
•	Can be played alone, with friends in the same room, or with other creators around the globe on community run servers
•	Minecraft n immersive environment where the only limit is your imagination. You can build with your friends or fight creepers with them. 

Slide 4: How to Play
•	When you launch into a Minecraft world, everything around you is a block. Together, solid & liquid blocks make up a Minecraft world, and have a variety of characteristics that make each one unique. Sandstone is opaque, glass is transparent, glowstone emits light, and many blocks even ignore gravity. 
•	Nearly all blocks in Minecraft are 1 meter cubed, except for non-standard ones such as slabs and stairs. 
•	Most blocks have static textures on each face, but some such as lava and water have animated textures. A few special blocks in Education Edition are only available through commands, more on this later. 
•	What’s most important to know is that in a Minecraft world, blocks can be placed, and blocks can be destroyed. Don’t like where a mountain is located? Move it. Want to build a massive skyscraper or an underground village? Go for it. Care to create a flowing water system from mountain to ocean? Have at it. 
•	The only limit in a Minecraft world is the player’s imagination.

Slide 5: Survival and Creative Modes
•	Survival mode is one of two main game modes in Minecraft. In it, a player must collect resources in order to craft other more complex items, eat to keep from getting hungry, and prevent damage from the environment and hostile mobs in order to survive.
•	 The player also has health and hunger bars with 20 points. When at full hunger, health can regenerate, but if hunger drops too far a player can starve and lose health. 
•	Additionally, without using commands players cannot fly in Survival mode.

Slide 6: Benefits of Minecraft
•	Another very common question educators and administrators ask is, ‘what are the main benefits to using Minecraft in the classroom’?
•	After observing schools all over the world who use Minecraft, and speaking with educators who use it in their classes, we’ve found that the 4 most common benefits fall into these areas:
		1. Increased Student Engagement,
		2. Facilitate Classroom Collaboration,
		3. An Open World for Creative Exploration, and
		4. Connect Learning to tangible Outcomes
		In the next slides, we’ll talk about each of these areas in more depth.

Slide 7: Student Engagement
•	By using Minecraft as a platform for learning, educators can motivate and inspire every student to achieve more, and ignite a passion for learning.
•	“If we want to change education and learning to make it more relevant, more effective and more enjoyable for all involved, teachers need to be the entrepreneurial designers and redesigners of the “systems” of schools and of the schools themselves.” - Design Thinking for Educators IDEO
•	Attention is the most precious commodity in the classroom and the world. 
•	Bringing deep thinking, problem solving, and connections to the curriculum in the world that students are already familiar with and are excited to use is a huge win for us. 
•	And when students are engaged, nothing can stop them. They are ready to take on any challenge you want them to tackle and By using Minecraft as a platform for learning, educators can motivate and inspire every student to achieve more, and ignite a passion for learning. 
•	Educators today are increasingly challenged to capture and maintain the attention and engagement of every student in their class.  
•	Minecraft: Education Edition is a way for these educators to bring the classroom and curriculum to the students, in an environment they are already comfortable and familiar with.  Minecraft: 
•	Education Edition is the same Minecraft experience many students enjoy and play already, but with some additional capabilities to enable student collaboration in the classroom, and support educators to deliver lessons and learning activities within the game.  
•	By using Minecraft as a platform for learning, educators can motivate and inspire every student to achieve more, and ignite a passion for learning.

Slide 8: Collaboration
•	Minecraft: Education Edition is designed for students to play together – whether that’s working in teams to solve a problem, or collaborating as an entire class complete learning activities.
•	“To function effectively in increasingly complex business structures and organizations, employees must become more comfortable with ambiguity, take initiative, and be able to work in a team-based environment.” – Skills Requirements for Tomorrow’s Jobs IDC
•	In the workplace, teams are global, and the workplace is virtual – organizations will slowly diffuse across time zones and space.  Collaboration skills will be the glue to keep people working together effectively.  
•	Having students engage in collaborative work teams and learning environments that foster cooperation in the classroom will help prepare them for their futures.  
•	Minecraft: Education Edition is designed for students to play together – whether that’s working in teams to solve a problem, or collaborating as an entire class to go through learning activities and master challenges in the game.  
•	And if you’ve ever had a privilege to be in the classroom at the same time students are using Minecraft, yes it can get loud in there but if you can listen through the noise, you’ll hear students negotiating, disagreeing respectfully to other people’s ideas, and advocating for their own. 

Slide 9: Creative Exploration
•	There are no step-by-step instructions in Minecraft – students must try, fail, and try again to achieve the result they want.  This open canvas encourages independence and self-direction, where students are able to express themselves and their ideas in unique ways.  
•	“Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. Creativity is as important now in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.” – Ken Robinson
•	As an educator deeply invested in language arts, I want my students to find their voice when they’re writing. I want to try many ideas, struggle, and grapple with figuring out what they want to say to the world in their own voice. 
•	As educators, we want our students to overcome their fear of failure, and learn through observation, trial-and-error, and play-based practice. There is no instructional manual for Minecraft, through this open learning environment, it encourages independence and self-direction in students. Student must try, fail, and try again to achieve the result that they want. 
•	And because Minecraft is essentially an open canvas, students are able to express themselves and their ideas in unique ways.  
•	Differentiated learning experiences like Minecraft can help educators create an inclusive classroom where every student is empowered to explore a world of learning.
•	People learn naturally through a combination of observation, trial-and-error, and play-based practice.  
•	An open learning environment like Minecraft encourages independence and self-direction, allowing students the freedom to experiment and challenge themselves and each other.  
•	Much like real-life, there are no step-by-step instructions – students must try, fail, and try again to achieve the result they want.

Slide 10: Tangible Learning Outcomes
•	Learning-by-doing in Minecraft teaches students independence and perseverance, giving them great satisfaction and sense of accomplishment when they can demonstrate their knowledge
•	“Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment. Education should no longer be mostly imparting knowledge, but must take a new path – to seek the release of human potential” – Maria Montessori
•	To create a fully inclusive classroom, educators are challenged to create lesson plans and learning activities that cater to all types of learners: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic/tactile.  Core curriculum content is often skewed towards visual and auditory learners through lecture, reading and writing.  
•	Physical manipulatives and labs are beneficial for kinesthetic/tactile learners, but are often limited to specific subject areas and require space and time to set up.  
•	Minecraft: Education Edition is a virtual maker space that is easy to access and can be applied across a range of subjects to engage kinesthetic learners.  
•	And because Minecraft: Education Edition is a flexible platform for learning, educators are able to map their projects and activities in Minecraft directly to specific learning outcomes and curriculum standards.

Slide 11: Built for Learning
•	Supports flexible implementation
•	Easy setup and management
•	Seamless curriculum integration
•	Empowers formative assessment

Slide 12: Minecraft Subtitle Slide
•	education.minecraft.net

Slide 13: Community and Resources
•	Submit and share lesson plans
•	Connect with other educators
•	Participate in discussions
•	Save your favorite content
•	Comment on lessons and worlds
•	Get recognized for your contributions
•	In the workplace, teams are global, and the workplace is virtual – organizations will slowly diffuse across time zones and space.  Collaboration skills will be the glue to keep people working together effectively. 
•	Having students engage in collaborative work teams and learning environments that foster cooperation in the classroom will help prepare them for their futures.  
•	Minecraft: Education Edition is designed for students to play together – whether that’s working in teams to solve a problem, or collaborating as an entire class to go through learning activities and master challenges in the game.  
•	And if you’ve ever had a privilege to be in the classroom at the same time students are using Minecraft, yes it can get loud in there but if you can listen through the noise, you’ll hear students negotiating, disagreeing respectfully to other people’s ideas, and advocating for their own. 

Slide 14: Curriculum Examples
•	Heredity & Secondary Colors
•	Early Numeracy
•	Creative Writing
•	Computational Thinking & Logic
•	World History
•	Architecture & Culture

Slide 15: Pixel Art Examples
•	Pictures of flags from different countries

Slide 16: Next Steps
•	To begin your free trial of Minecraft: Education Edition, head to education.minecraft.net/getstarted. 
•	Sign up for Office 365 Education at www.office.com.
•	Play the Minecraft Hours of Code at www.code.org/minecraft.
•	Follow the conversation on Twitter at @playcraftlearn and #MinecraftEduLet’s play Minecraft Education Edition.

Slide 17: Minecraft Controls
•	Diagram of the various buttons and commands on the keyboard

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Due to technical difficulties, Meenoo Rami was unable to present. 
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Announcements:

Tech Tools for Teachers
•	We need exemplars from districts!!!
•	We need your announcements!
Upcoming Tech Chats! 
•	No Tech Chat! for August
•	Send in ideas for September
Archived Editions of Tech Chat!
•	http://www.fldoe.org/academics/standards/subject-areas/instructional-technology
•	Today’s Google Doc: bit.ly/techchatminecraft

Thank you for joining us today!