Viking Village

So I have this math course inside Minecraft with a student who learn in a different way. He also fears math so we need this safe environment where to learn. 

I don't have to succeed with all these qualifications but some, the student should be able to

1. can express relationships between variables with mathematical expressions
2. can form and make up equations, expressions, tables and drawings related to their fields
3. solve mathematical tasks required at work using equations, deductions or charts
4. to assess whether the results are correct and the right order of magnitude
5. can apply economic mathematics needed in everyday and working life, such as profitability, cost, tax and loan calculations
6. to collect and group information related to their own industry.

The challenge is when it says "related to their own industry", luckily it also says "needed in everyday and working life" and that's an easy one. We're aiming for number 3, 4 and 5 as you can do that inside Minecraft and also have lots of discussions outside game how it relates to the everyday and working life math.

As my student could choose we now build a viking village. First he had to draw sketches, make a game plan, then start with the palisade and townhall. As my daughter - little_aquavera - every now and then joins me the village suddenly got a third tribe member. 

My daughter 8yo joined with the words "you can't fool me! I will not do any math!" and that might be true, but she needs to practice writing, reading and spelling and that's exactly what she's doing! During the summer semester she learned English just by watching YouTube and now she starts to write it.

Back to the math!

So here we suddenly have a guy, that doing math all the time with a smile on his face and as the world is vanilla survival he (or we) have to collect all the resources that's needed. We also need food and animals.

Suddenly we reached a breaking point and it was my daughter who started it. As she ain't that brave what comes to mobs she had started to think about what she could contribute to this village and came up with a book shop. She's now the poet of the Viking village. She also started to put pricetags on her work.

It was time to gather the village councils.
At the first council, in game, we agreed on what currency we should create and how to use it. 

• 1 Emerald = 10 Lapis Lazuli
• 1 Lapis Lazuli = 10 gold ingots
• 1 Emerald = 100 gold ingots

At the second meeting, in the classroom, my student had to come up with an idea what everyone's work would be worth. Also, if some profession needed something extra as armor, weapons or tools. 

At the third council, now together with my daughter and in the classroom, he had to start think about taxes. And suddenly this was so fun so even the little poet was doing math, mental arithmetic and put notes.

They both agreed on planning and monitoring is vital and important. That includes also democracy (civics) and active citizenship (key competence for lifelong learning). Both also agreed it's in the realization phase they're learning.

For example; the soldier got paid with 20 lapis lazuli and 20 gold ingots. The tax is 1/5 (20%) and he have to give me (the Jarl of the village) that amount. Also, when he collects animals, he have to give me (the leader 1/5). 

With the evaluation, we're connecting today's lesson and connect it to the everyday and working life. And suddenly he understands.

I don't want to do homework!

What homework do you have?

NONE!

C'mon...

OK, reading and writing...

Have you done it?

I'm finished!

Show me!

Gah!

So how fooling her to practice writing and reading?

LEGO...

What are you doing?

Building.

Building what?

A play field.

What???

But I got her interest.

Our own Lego monopoly.

When she understood she started to invent rules.

One dot = one step.

Two dices so you have to walk at least 2 dots but maximum 12 dots. You can buy a plot in different size from where you get.

• 1 x 6 dots = 1€
• 2 x 6 dots = 2€
• 4 x 6 dots = 3€ (also what needed to build a party house)

The rent of a plot when an opposite player visit was half the dots of the dice you've rolled.

To build a house you need 1 door (2€), 1 wall (1€) and 1 roof (2€). To buy a plot and build a house cost 8€ and she counted first in the head and then tallied with notes (doing math as she didn't want in the beginning).

It started to be complicated.
Since she was the first to go around once, she was also the first to receive pay. As she was broke she needed some extra money and therefor come up with a new rule: if you're broke for an additional contribution and your salary is 8€ instead of 5€. 

Yeah right.
I'm serious dad!
Write that rule down too.

Rent

• One floor building, roll one dice and pay as many euro as dots.
• Two floor building, roll two dices and pay as many euro as dots.

Lucky for me she wanted more houses rather than skyscrapers!

Learning outcomes:

• Languages (as usual she combines Swedish, Finnish and English)
• Writing & Spelling Finnish
• Math (mental arithmetic)

You are doing it wrong dad!

Doing it wrong?

According to who?

I still don't now what she - AquaVera - meant by that. Or, is it possible that learning can't be fun??

As I want to encourage her to read more I'd set up some tasks, a school, in our Minecraft world. Her teacher want the kids to practice reading for 15 min a day. So I told her the great news: "I've set up some reading exercises for you!"

And she started to scream: 

"Noooo! It's Saturday!!! I don't want to do homework!"

"OK", I told her, "if you change your mind later we can start Minecraft"

1. "Minecraft!? wait! I'm coming!!"
2. "You have to join me! Come! With YOUR computer dad...

But she did also let me know, I'm doing it wrong! And wrong, I have another approach to the problem as the teacher has ...but as she didn't want to hurt my feelings she tried. 

(Kalle (dad) is building a school)

But how to tell dad, the words were too long...?

She wanted to show me, rather than just tell me, what the problem was. 

"You see dad, we started with 2-letter words, then we continued with 3-letter words and now we try to learn 4-letter words!"

So I had to read the sentence, she corrected me and we discussed it in three (3) languages as she tend to start talk English in Minecraft. (She rehearse to be able to join Wizard Keen in a WonderQuest episode).

Then she started to do the reading exercises. "Kaksi lehmää" (two cows) and she found the right (cow) eggs. We continued to the sauna, kitchen and bedroom. She was confused. Every single room was empty, only signs on the wall.

We went out again, outside the room. Spelled S-A-U-N-A and entered the room with new courage: she understood the signs described what to build inside the sauna.

Benches wasn't a problem but the heater, or more exactly, the way she built the heater. Lava and wooden floor ain't a good solution, so she had to fill the room with water... When she had to build the shower, she went out to a test area just to be sure nothing more unwelcome should happen. I think her shower is brilliant, it's working in her fantasy and she has also both warm and cold water. And even if you don't have water you still need the edges.

By practice reading there's a lot of unintentional learning that occurs: 

• lava = fire, you must be careful with fire
• water extinguishes fire
• experience changes the method
• languages
• math

So I started to wonder: 

What exactly is she learning?

Or even more interesting:

What does she feel she might be learning?

Is she aware of the learning process?

WHAT do you learn, WHEN do you do it and WHY do you learn? Big questions, but interesting ones.

AquaVera: 

I learn to read, when I practice, discuss and build. I learn because its fun and I can build it."

And I asked myself the same question: 

"I learn Finnish words, how they are pronounced and spelled. I learn when we are discussing and I learn because it is fun."

But again: How could this be wrong????

Is there really only one right way to learn???

Can't learning be fun???

The reading homework

AquaVera has started first grade and they have homework every single day. In addition to mathematics and spelling, they must also practice reading for at least 15 minutes.

But as the language they learn is Finnish (which I struggle with) my wife (AquaVera's mother) does that part. Yesterday I started to thought how I could help, relieve my wife and give my daughter another way to practice.

Minecraft.

How can we benefit from our gaming interest?

First I tried this and failed:

• Lots of text in one sign was too hard.
• One word at one sign didn't make sense, she didn't put together the words into sentences.

Instead, I started to make those animal pens. The keyword with both uppercase and lowercase letters and in her (second) mother tongue Finnish.

So what happened?

She began to spell out the word, pronounced each letter and put together words. The reward attracted, it was something as simple as put out the right block in the animal pen.

Suddenly she had cracked the code:

"L-A-M-M-A-S! Lammas! Det är ett får! It's a sheep dad!"

With traditional methods she was learning one (1) language, with game based learning she connected three (3) languages! The Power of Minecraft...

Learning with WonderQuest

The other day AquaVera got an old decommissioned iPad from her uncle, the tool can not be upgraded from iOS 5 so it was useless for him. But since Vera belongs to the YouTube generation, it doesn't matter as long as a browser works. When I look in my YouTube history (where she use to watch from) there's a lot of crap that I even don't know how she finds (as she can't write), but still look at.

So with this "new" iPad I could make a shortcut to the YouTube in the browser (safari) so she always starts from Stampys new show "WonderQuest". Adam Clarke told me the exciting news he would be a part of it half a year ago, at a time when I was stupid enough to not understand his excitement! I had missed the Stampy phenomenon! Stupid, but at least I had repaired it now :)

Anyway, AquaVera as many of her friends, has already two languages to learn as we live in Finland: the majority language is Finnish and Swedish is the minority language. As her mum is Finnish and I'm Swedish, she already speaks two languages. But keep in mind: that's nothing unusual in Finland, even if the Finnish themselves don't always count it as a qualification.

Thanks to the TV-channel NickJr and Dora The Explorer she has already learned some English. When we moved to this new neighborhood there was a family where the father is from Scotland, the children are also two speakers: but Finnish and English instead.

Combine those facts: 

Dora the Explorer, WonderQuest and English speaken friends and you will only have one answer - she now talks three languages... She has learned a lot during this summer (not only swim, bike and so on).

This morning we talked about learning as she has been watching WonderQuest over and over. She had loads of questions, both of gaming and learning. Why a quest line? Why do you need a mission? Why challenges and puzzles?

Learning.

Different ways of learning.

And we agreed, learning is - or can be - fun. 

And when it's fun it's most often multplayer.

Two weeks ago AquaVera played Disney Universe, a co-op pvp action video game, with her second cousin W. 

They practiced collaboration and later took this new skill try to steer and navigate our boat (they took turns), not bad for two 7 year old children.

Again, all you (as a parent or teacher) have to do is show interest (you don't have to master the subject) and tie all together, enlighten the learning, get them to reflect (talk, discuss, write, chatt).

Learning is not any longer one subject at a time (the analog way, teachers and school), it's multi-learning (the digital way, our children and pupils).

WonderQuest is a shining example of multi-Learning, even without having English as native language! Why? The enviroment is safe, they have been (and can go) there themselves and afterwards you can download the map and experience the last episode (press buttons, solve puzzles) and learn more. 

The show also follow the USA common core of grade 2 in the curriculum and according to Wizard Keen they aim to create an engaging story driven content multi-Learning enviroment (science, math, literature etc). 

And the makers reach a bonus learning that are so obvious that they don't think about it: language. 

English for non-English speakers. 

And just as important: courage. 

"Dad, call Wizard Keen and see if he wants to play Minecraft with me, English won't be a problem!" 

(AquaVera 7yo)

Suggestion to the makers: 

Make exercise books inside Minecraft that you could get access to after downloading the map, could be keywords (vocabulary) from the current episode.

This way of teaching is definitely on the fourth stage of the SAMR model. Tech has made the impossible possible, you can walk inside the exercise book and experience the learning in a 3D way.

Best of all: 

As a remedial teacher (vocational institution) I can use the small "I WONDER" episodes myself when I try to explain the basic stuff for my weaker students. Most often they rather learn from YouTube instead of a book. One of the frequent missing knowledge is measurements, metre, decimetre and centimetre. I believe I will have good use of this episode the upcoming fall

To learn coding without a computer

Just because we've been out of computers, Internet and Minecraft it doesn't mean we - AquaVera and I - have stopped thinking or been trying to learn new stuff. In fact, we've doing some exercises to learn computer coding as many thinking and coding approaches can be learned in off-screen activities.

iGameMom (games for learning) wrote a blog post about it some weeks ago (right in time!) and we started to break series of actions into small steps that someone who doesn’t have any background knowledge (like a computer) can understand and execute.

So, when building a Minecraft house, what do we do?

Well, according to AquaVera, soon 7 years old, it was easy: we build walls, roof, windows and doors. 

This was our series of action that we needed to put into smaller steps as she, with a second thought, understood neither her uncle or grandfather would understand the concept without smaller pieces of instructions.

As we discussed the building phase in Minecraft (press E for inventory), choose block, place block (right click) she got tired of my stupid questions and streamlined the work: some tasks, which you do often, you can gather under one command.

She understood we have to get really small steps to make it working, but of course she also got tired quickly so we couldn't talk for hours, but some small talks here and there. Repetition and variation, when she started to think differently I also explained the larger context. It is possible to combine business with pleasure, that it doesn't need to be boring to learn something new, difficult and perhaps abstract.

Then, on a rainy day we started to play with LEGO. We had the instructions ready, now we had to test them - and first up: how big (tall) is the LEGO figure? It's easy in Minecraft as Steve is 2 blocks and the bed (as the door) is also two blocks. But what would it be in LEGO? Well, she understood it couldn't be 2 block but she estimated it to four blocks.

Five blocks!? now we had a problem as you can't cut a LEGO block into 1/2 (but in 1/3). OK, so now we also had to consider scale and sizes (math), and some nice discussions as we was playing as well. 

Learning is fun and learning is multiplayer!

First thing you have to do: find a nice spot! 

And, as we now knew the guys are 5 blocks high we had to start think how long would the bed be? First she said we could use either 4x6 or 4x8 plates but when I gave her 3 red+1 white block (2x4) she decided all beds has to be 4x8 and when the red blocks ends we just use another color.

She gave me small instructions how to build the house and we had to build the bottom layer first so we could see how big the house would be. This was new: she usually builds wall by wall in Minecraft and no houses at all with LEGO.

Of course or builders got hungry so we also had to put up a farm just outside...

No roof is needed as we have to be able to move our figures in and out. As you can see of the last picture she also realized when we built the ground we had to make the house bigger so we could fit working bench and stove.

Another thing about the code learning. As she's learning to ride a bike we play Instructed Map Route where I'm the smartphone and she's the gameapp: She gets short instructions where to go. 

Follow this road, take left, in the next crossing take right. 

When she gets excited over handle shorter instructions and want to have longer ones she starts to mess up where to go and drives wrong. Luckily it's a small town and no cars on the roads :D

The latest thing we have started to do is to use a "secret language" which with the hama beads. In fact, the secret code is binary counting and the ASCII code table. Each letter has it's own 8-bits pattern with two colors (0 and 1). And as she got her uncles old iPad yesterday she needs to do something special in return I believe a hama beads cration with a binary message would fit like a glove!

It's okay to fail!

It's a busy time right now as we have Open House, trying to recruit new students to next autumn. Today there will come like 600 students from high school to have a look at our school and our educations. Yesterday when we was promoting our Business Information Technican education (datanom/datanomi) one colleague surprised me talking very warm of Minecraft and ComputerCraft (I'm still not welcome at his lessons btw) as a good introduction to what this profession really is about as you have to be a troubleshooter, either you're IT support or a programmer.

As I thought it's better to actually show what we're doing, or more precisely how I use MinecraftEDU during my courses, I made a videoclip. Of course that was something doomed to fail according to my dear colleagues. Really? A clip? No, you should use a PowerPoint...

Have in mind, this is my "PowerPoint", my words, thoughts and opinions about the education when I try to talk about it and promote it, not my school.

Yesterday there was some groups only with girls and they were a bit afraid of the computers so I told them a story, when I started with my course with ComputerCraftEDU, programming basics, and there was this guy telling me it was too hard. At that lesson also my daughter AquaVera 6 yo attended, and she showed the guys how to use MinecraftEDU and ComputerCraftEDU. And I saw the girls smiled as they understood, it's all about the mindset. She, my daughter, was working as a good example to get the high school girls interested in the education.

My daughter also happen to unfortunately be a perfectionist, failure is not an option! Therefor she surprised me this morning when I told her about this, using Minecraft to learn and she told me:

"Dad, it's okay to fail but you have to try!"

Strange don't you think? It's okay to fail when it comes to games... so why do we not use games in education more???

My on going ComputerCraftEDU course has been very funny. Half the group has been running home as fast as possible and the other half I have had to kick out... Even if the server have had lots of lag, they still sit there. The day before yesterday, Wednesday evening, we couldn't even move around on the server, did it mind this young men? Not at all. It was some delay on the code but he refused to give up.

"The course ends 19:00, it's now 18:49, I still have 11 minutes to go!" And 19:10 I have to drag him out...

LEGO Friends in Minecraft

As I started the other day what will happen if you start play computer games together with your children you could learn of each other I will continue on that track. For an example, last year my daughter AquaVera (by then 5 yo) participated in the first project I ran with Minecraft in School. As most of the building was in the evenings and from home she could, and later also demanded to, join.

As I thought Minecraft would be a hard game to play (I was so wrong!) I told my students they had to build their school and as a creative part, build an own house. It took less than 36 hours to build a minor city and I had to have a second thought about it. During those 36 hours Aquavera also entered the game with an own account and also start build on her own house.

But as it's very fun to build together I asked her what she would like to do and she picked Olivia's house (3315) from Lego Friends.

She had just gotten the Lego kit and we had just built it, therefor she also wanted to have it inside Minecraft. I told her I'm not going to build it alone, she has to help me. We sat together and had the instruction book between us and followed the steps together.

After the house, we also built the Heartlake City Pool (41008) with the water slide, complete with the heart in the bottom of the pool. We also had some discussions about the water and the flow, that you actually can create a slide and play with it inside game.

During these building projects we had done lots of learning, from math and physics (the water slide) to technical drawing (interpret a drawing in 2D to 3D). Both had been troubleshooting where many of the solutions came from her because she wanted to have it exact as in the real LEGO model.

Later she has also been improving the pool with lots of other activities and opportunities for playtimes, like secret underwater tunnels that connect different pools...

ComputerCraftEDU

The "problem" we face with every day is that all students, one way or another, play computer games. And if your lessons isn't interesting or fun enough, they rather play. So therefor I try to take advantage of games as much as possible. And it's only a problem if that's your opinion, me myself believes it's an opportunity.

As our students needs to have 10 free of choice courses besides their vocational training to get their professional degree, I usually find my chances to run different projects within this field. I'm interested to see what learning occur when you use a game in education, that's why I have a chance to run "Economics with World of Warcraft" and two days ago (Wednesday 26th of November) I started a beginner's course to programming using #MinecraftEDU #ComputerCraft and #CCEdu.

Half of this group will later learn deeper and more advanced code (Java, Python, C++ and more). They all today play Minecraft (that's provided to be on my course). So during 7 weeks I will have them playing Minecraft and hopefully they will also learn some programming skills. The goal of this course is to learn how to crawl as the feedback Shane Asselstine gave me the other week.

My earlier experience of these courses you most likely will have like 6-10 students notified and half of them showing up. I got 20 and 16 turned up, good because I was a bit nervous about it, I only have 19 working computers in the lab...

Sixteen students between 15 and 17 years plus my daughter, 6yo (daycare ain't open in the evenings), a bit of a challenge I must say. But lo and behold! No matter the age difference, they had the same questions, got stuck in the same places and yelled the same opinions about Internet service provider, who of course had a lot of trouble nationally in Finland yesterday afternoon and evening. My daugther, AquaVera, tried the intro to turtles stage by her own and showed the most stubborn student how easy you could make (and learn) code.

My masterplan this time is to first have Introduction to programming with the Land of Turtles world, created by Michael Harvey (can't give him enough credits for the map or hos patience with me). When we have finished the challenges there we will move on to a survival #MinecraftEDU #CCEdu server, I do believe Shane Asselstine when he says humans are lazy of nature. After the first days in game the students will think how to use turtles to do boring stuff for them: chop woods, find minerals, guard the house and more.

The goal of this course is to learn how to crawl (basics of programming) and practice on the key competences of lifelong learning. Nothing more than that, but I do believe that's enough. You see, after only one session (Wednesday) some of the guys started to think how to use this new skills at their own class server and it turned out they now have password protected doors... 

Something they admit not been thinking of before we started the course, and even though they copy-paste the code from a FAQ there still is a learning process going on, and it still very funny (for us both).

Because of the problems ISP had I also told my students after 2 hours they could leave and go home. Six students refused to leave and sat the whole time even though they were kicked out every 10 or 15 min. One student I also had to kick out from classroom because he didn't want to go home at all... And he was very pissed I didn't get him a chance to finish :D

Indeed, they do learn in another way. 

A way we're not used to or fully comfortable with but instead of deny it we could take advantage of it, control it (the gaming) and use it. Something to learn here, right? Well, as this awesome blogpost points out, at least we (teachers) can learn five things from video games:

One of the lessons I've learned of using the map, the Land of Turtles, is I must slow them down and force them to take time in the museum and force them to analysis an own piece of code. Both because everyone has problems to log on the first time and if they don't have it themselves, we have problems with the computers. So I usually share a document as they rarely read (see above and rule no 1) but also a code example they have to find, analysis and describe what it does. And I also block the entrance to the basement and portal.

When using Minecraft in education you will have lots of problems if you're using mediation pedagogy and instead you have to focus on motivational pedagogy, to be a fellow traveler as well as the travel guide so your students keep the focus.

The asthma girl got pneumonia

Saturday 11th of October we had our wedding day, six year anniversary, and I thought I had planned for everything: food, wedding cake, flowers, present. The only thing I hadn't planned for happened. 

Our daughter AquaVera, the asthma girl, got pneumonia.

Instead of having a nice weekend we have spent it at the hospital, my wife the first night and I the second night. And yes, of course it's nice the health system works that good and that she got treatment in no time, and yes she's doing much better thank you.

So what to do with a sick but restless 6 year old girl? Well, yesterday we build a 3D jigsaw house to her My Little Ponies but today I didn't had any energy to that and she also asked when I'm going to "work next time in Minecraft..." 

So we started the My Little Pony mod and started to play. Some stuff I have been giving us (as an operator); mostly armor, weapons, some food, fishing rod and the enchantment table, but the rest we've craft and built. Why? Well, try to play with a 6 yo and you'll pretty soon realize they (1) don't always has the patience and (2) she's scared about the mobs.

This time we have started to play with mobs and easy, so our enemies can't climb in the trees nor open fence gates (Thank God!) but when they're moving a bit too close she screams: 

I LOG OFF! YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN!!! 

(Thank you! I only have ten zombies chasing me...)

The hunting tower (with the windows) is her invention just like the fishing site (to the left). The closest tree house is our library and enchanting room. 

Behind the house is a two storey house with a kitchen in the "ground floor" and bedrooms above.

Because of the exploding nerds (creepers) we had to move our farming place from the ground up in the trees. Carrots and potatoes are loot from mobs and both wheat and sugar can be found outside. She has also started to make hamburgers after been looking at Everyday Minecraft (bread+beef+bread=nam nam!).

And back to the hunting tower, here we can safely kill the mobs... She needs to practice both aim with the bow as be used to the mobs. But a good thing if you compare survival peaceful and survival easy mode is it actually make sense to collect and make food. At the moment she force me to fish so we can tame cats...

Yep, lots of fence, someone was falling down in the middle of the fight, logged out, I had to clear the area while she was pissed and then she could log back.

Dusk and dawn have to end this little report from the sick leave...