Gamification of learning is something I find very intriguing. What can be better than combining traditional, repetitive learning with the amusement of gaming? Not only will it be more enjoyable, but for some students it will help them learn much quicker.

This is why I chose Minecraft Education Edition, released in 2016: https://education.minecraft.net/class-resources/lessons/

In short, this is an adaptation of the original Minecraft, using all its basic mechanics, in order to be used in the classroom for ages 3-14+

A short video about Minecraft Education Edition is the following:

How is Minecraft Education Edition educational though?

The main idea is that teachers create Minecraft worlds that serve as lessons for the students, such as lessons about the environmental impacts:

To lessons about Math:

In fact, there is a whole suite of subjects that can be taught using Minecraft:

 On the official website, you can choose the subject of the lesson, select the ages of the children and a number of lessons pop up, with very detailed lesson plans on how the lesson can be delivered.

The collaboration aspect is also very interesting. Students can log on in the same server and learn in a virtual classroom where the teacher can virtually look at the progress of the children, and guide them effectively. Moreover, teachers can create worlds and lesson plans and publish them for other teachers to use with their students.

Apart from the subjects above, many people undermine the importance of teaching kids creativity. Needless to say, there is no better game out there than Minecraft to explore this.

One final feature I, as a Computer Scientist found interesting, is that Minecraft Education Edition has a 'Learn to Code' section, which uses concepts similar to Scrath (https://scratch.mit.edu/) to program 'agents' which you can see moving in game, following the code the student built. This means that students can learn the concepts of coding such as loops and conditional statements: