#MinecraftMondayMusings: Logo Design Challenge
Getting started with Minecraft: Education Edition can seem like a daunting task, regardless of your own familiarity with the instructional tool. Many educators worry about the tool becoming more important than the activity itself, or that students will become too focused on the gaming component to complete the actual challenge presented to them in class. More worry that they do not have a solid enough understanding of how Minecraft works to actually use it in the classroom with students, worry they will not be able to help a student achieve something or be able to answer their questions. In reality, the best way to bring something as powerful as Minecraft: Education Edition is something a college professor taught me back in teacher prep classes for introducing manipulatives in math class: “Let them play first, before using them for content.”
This makes total sense, as what is the first thing students do when they are handed out something in class? They put it in their hands and play with it: toss, rub, stretch, etc. They investigate the resource and see what it can do, regardless of the age. (I’ve seen high school students do this with giant rubber counting items when used as a manipulative or talking piece!) A good place to start rolling out Minecraft: Education Edition in your classroom is not with some elaborate, ornate project or discovery lesson. Rather, we should let them play.
A great low-floor activity for introducing Minecraft: Education Edition with students is to arrange for a “Logo Design Challenge”. I learned of this activity from fellow i2e trainer Mike Call (@mikecallangelo), when he shared it during one of our Minecraft trainings in the early fall of last year. Students can be permitted 15 minutes to research and find an image of a logo that they would like to recreate or holds special value to themselves. Once the research part has completed, the students can then log in to Minecraft: Education Edition, open up a blank build world from Starter Worlds, Build Plates, Blocks of Grass and then proceed to build their logo design using the inventory in-game.
My Dunkin’ Donuts Logo Challenge creation…this seems like an eternity ago in my Minecraft: Education Edition learning journey, hence the flat build!
Completed designs could be shared to the teacher by exporting the world as a .mcworld file or use the in-game camera to snap pictures and use the book & quill to take notes and add images documenting their build journey, which can also be shared via export as a .pdf file. Either way, this low-floor activity provides an easy gateway for students to begin using the Minecraft: Education Edition resources and to learn and hone their building skills without much pressure. Students can learn and assist one another, sharing their knowledge and expertise with those around them and become leaders in the classroom. A great starting point for utilizing Minecraft: Education Edition in the classroom!
If you are interested, give this Logo Design Challenge a try! Share your builds on Twitter and share for us all to see!