If you do not know what Minecraft is, it is you have been living under a rock or you do not have any children. Minecraft was publicly released for the PC back in 2009 as an alpha version of the game. It took more than two years, and many upgrades, to get the full version of the game released in 2011. The game is quite popular among all ages. Whether you are playing on the PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, or your mobile device.
Some of the game’s popularity could be attributed to the fact that the mobile app has been gaining a large user base very quickly. Minecraft has received five awards, including an innovation award, best downloadable game award, best debut game award and the Golden joystick award in 2012. As of 2014 mine craft has sold over 60 million copies, including 12 million for the Xbox 360 and 18 million for the Windows-based PC.
The game has become so popular that in one area of the world, it will be of made available for free as part of a technology project. That area of the world happens to be Northern Ireland, according to reports. The game will be made available to every post primary school in Northern Ireland as part of that technology project. The announcement was made at the annual cultureTECH Festival, just this week. The project, which is funded by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, means that more than 50,000 children in Northern Ireland will have access to the Minecraft game.
The Minecraft version the students will have access to might not be the one that they used to playing at home, however. MinecraftEDU is a special version of the game designed specifically for students, schools and made more appropriate for the classroom. If you think this program sounds new, it is not. In fact, more than 5000 teachers from more than 40 countries around the world have been using this new version of Minecraft to teach subjects like history, art and computer coding.
According to reports, the typical players of the game exhibit persistence, attention to detail, problem solving skills, and risk-taking. Most of these skills are ideal for students and educators in the classroom environment. This project was started by a team in Finland called TeacherGaming, where the project first launched. Shortly after launch, the program gained nationwide and worldwide attention and popularity among schools everywhere. The program is growing quickly and might even end up in a school near you.