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.

Games in education

Fittingly enough, I had an interesting conversation this morning with one of my colleagues, the master chef. The other week he coached two students in the international competitions in Cervia, Italy with an extraordinary result: gold medal in class haute cuisine and silver medal in crotch decathlon.

His experience about where students fail are in situations where they often succeed when they play games. In his opinion, key skills for chefs are problem solving, planning, strategy and creativity. 

He has already understood that he must be the link between video games and reality, that what one learns in a game needs students have translated to reality. If that can be done, you have succeed with reaching an higher goal with a small amount of effort.

But he is not using games in education.

Imagine what could be achieved if he did, as our students anyway play games during class...

Real life

He told me quickly this morning how you have to have a plan, use a strategy, that after you serve the first course have the main course to be ready to be served within 7 minutes (in our training restaurant). The serving itself must be done within 2-3 minutes, and so on.

We can't have five chefs who cut onions, then we have five cutting boards and five knives that must be cleaned. You need to communicate and collaborate.

This is the computer game all the way. 

The worst thing is that it's actually HayDay in a nutshell.

Could this be an example how to use computer games in education? Make teachers understand how to benefit from games as the students anyway play? What if you allow one only game...? Will they learn more?

HayDay

My next challenge in HayDay is to fill my riverboat with an unknown amount of raspberry jam, potato bread and potato pancakes.

As in the kitchen you have to be prepared, you have to have done a proper planning or else you won't succeed. When the boat arrives I have between 15 and 16 hours to get the challenge done. Raspberry jam takes 5 hours 57 minutes to make, potato bread 38 minutes and potato pancakes 1 hour 42 minutes. Most probably I will have three crates to fill of each product.

We're doing the math.

• One jar of raspberry jam (5h57min) and I need 3 berries
• One potato bread and I need 2 potatoes, 1 butter, 1 granulated sugar and 3 eggs. 
• One potato pancake and I need 1 potato, 1 egg and 1 goat cheese.

Planning

I need three raspberries which grow on bushes and takes 18h before I can harvest, therefor I must have done this before and I must have a storage. My Jam Factory must be running 24/7.

A lot of resources as milk and eggs require to first make the food for the animals, feed them and after some additional time collect the stuff. Before you could start with the production of that particular ingredients.

For example:

A cow can be milked every hour, assuming you have entered the feed. 3x cattle feed is available from 1 corn and 2 soybeans. Corn takes 5 min to grow while soybean grows at 20 min. The cattle feed itself takes 9 minutes to produce. 

Just to get the milk to the butter to the bread we are talking about the 20 + 8 + 60 min = 88 min or 1h 28 min. The butter takes 25 min and now, before even started with the bread we've spent 1 h 53 min. The bread will take another 38 min, so 2 h 31 min. Will I be able to produce let say 3x3 breads within 15 hours? (probability theory)

Will it be even possible to make it? 

In real life you would have given up by now. 

But, now it's a game. 

It's a challenge. 

You give yourself the heck you can do it. 

Imagine if we could get that feeling, the attitude, into the classroom.

Solution?

Communicate, collaborate, make it happen as a team. Skills you do need in a kitchen so you don't end up with five chefs cutting onions...

Minecraft Math

My very awesome colleague Edward starts to be a really splendid MinecraftEDU teacher! He really thinks out of the box and for example one of the first thing the students should build was a hexagon. 

And I thought for myself: 

How on earth will they succeed with that and at the same time learn Pythagorean theorem?

I had not had to worry about.

They wasn't supposed to build the line but finding the correct coordinates. When find the right spot put a sign with the groups name on it. At each hexagon corner each group started to build their own math area.

As you rarely starts at the coordinate (0,0) the first thing you had to do was to find origin. The class did chose themselves to each side (of the hexagon) would have the distance 100 and therefor the height should be approx 87 blocks.

Away you (they) go to find the location...

Out of the box thinking

Coordinates, not lines of blocks! 

Why havn't I thought of that??

One other thing that's truly amazing and also serves as a good example of minecraft tend to be cross curriculum. 

We're not only learning geometry (what's this course is usually is about) but also the coordinate system (the next math course), programming (python) and a foreign language (English (vocabulary))

He made the class to navigate where to execute python online! Copy-paste this code:

It's a formula for the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle with cathetus x and y, the distance between the two points (x_1,y_1) and (x_2,y_2).

Also, he and the class, also found this awesome tool Mineconics where you can draw geometry figures with an online tool and later build the same inside Minecraft, like lines, rectangles and circles.

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!

The plane crash!

The Finnish vocational education consists of 75% vocational subjects, 17% joint (eligibility for further study) and 8% subject courses to choose and who should strengthen your career choice. Within the last 8% I usually find opportunities to give courses with other and new methods such as math in Minecraft or business in World of Warcraft.

During this school year, I have had rolling minecraft courses in order to practice on key competences for lifelong learning and as my principal didn't know what to call them (the courses) we named them "Math in Minecraft". But, like my colleagues, students have difficulty connecting games with learning and they have become very confused when I asked them to play together toward a larger goal, like building a nuclear plant (Industrial Craft) and you'll learn math, language, problem solving while playing.

To force them to collaborate was a too hard task as they came from different classes, as well as to see a bigger goal. Even though they are between 16-18 they have big difficulties to see the whole picture, to understand the chain of what it takes. You have the soldier for example, one soldier in the army requires 10 workers that will make sure he has food, armor, weapons, protection and so on.

Lesson 1:

Don't think that they are already adults, give them small targets to work towards.

One day when I'm was in the final stage of the fourth round I had to give them a homework assignment. I used Google Form, gave them a mission "compare the time it will take you to dig to the bedrock with and without equipment (food or weapons). Count how many times you die as well as all the material you mine". And suddenly they started working and also requested more assignments.

Lesson 2:

As they can't see how you learn with games you have to choose the boring way to make them work, make them understand, give them a form to fill in!

So to my final course I created a scenario (with some help from my friend Spelläraren), a plane crash! You have to survive! All you got with you from the aircraft was a broken radio: you can receive messages but not send. 

The plane crash! (course site and hopefully Google translate works)

I managed to find an old news story about a plane crash in Finland that I started from, and from that start I would - on a weekly basis - try to push the plot forward. The angle of this course was to get students to understand the coordinate system where many have difficulty understanding 2D (X and Y axis) but easier to understand 3D chart Minecraft (X, Y, and Z axis).

The students have thought I've been crazy, how can I learn math from Minecraft? But this note might bring some brightness?

During the course, I lost the motivation multiple times because my students did not give me any feedback and I was not sure if I did the course in this way for me or for them. 

Unfortunately, there was a course with few close study hours, and therefore it was not more than six missions, five of them with the help of Google Form and the sixth to reach the goal and inside the game write a report (with book and quill) and answer the questions:

1. Did you like this way of running a course, through action and with mission come forward?
2. What has been the biggest challenge?
3. What have you learned?
4. When did you learn it?
5. Why did you learn it?

So first when the course is over, I've had them to start reflect what they have been doing. Voilá! You've been doing math all time!

And now I got the feedback, they had all liked the way of how I challenged them - but sometimes they thought I had a bit too long distance (too many blocks) between the missions. My thought had been that they would be much more active, move more, sneaking up on each other and also to move forward in the direction I decided. 

Lesson 3:

It not only helps with a story line but the students also appreciate it!

Just because PvP was allowed doesn't mean that it's the smartest solution to solve all conflicts. With MinecraftEDU it would have been easy to separate the warring parties, have a discussion, and get them focus on target (to be saved). Instead, they spent four lessons with trying to kill each other and after that day, they realized that they had not come any closer to the goal and that day was a waste of time.

Lesson 4:

Try to keep them busy! Then they don't have time to do something else.

One of the problems they had to solve was something you could either test inside game or draw a scheme of: 

If you manage to catch two animals you can get them to mate by feeding them. Cows for example, you feed hay (wheat) and two animals can have a child every five minutes and it takes 20 minutes for a baby to grow up. You have two cooldowns to keep track of.

Multiply 2 animals maximum of 30 minutes, how many animals do you have when the time runs out?

Conclusion

This course form worked and I will continue to use that. You shouldn't get too many math task, the fact is less than half will be schoolstuff and the rest must be games: "keep the illusion alive" (as spellararen told me).

Minecraft: Hack the math

A working mate convinced me to see this TEDx clip on YouTube with 13yo Logan Lapante and hackschooling.

Hackschooling

He isn't talking about geeky nerds sitting in their parents basement, creating and spreading data viruses. Not at all. Among other things he explain the hackschooling mindset with this picture.

And I can't help thinking of Gabe Zichermann when he talks about what increasing fluid intelligence, what you gain with playing games, gamification.

The hacker Mindset.

Back to Logan LaPlante and he explains. Hackers are innovators, hackers are people who challenges and changes the systems to make them more differently, to make them better, it's how they see it. It's a mindset. And according to Lapante, Everything could, and should, be hacked: skiing, education...

You could take shortcuts or hacks to get a better, and faster, result. Flexible, opportunist, and never loose the sight of healthy, happy and creativity the 8 TLC (look at the video!). But, here's the thing, doing this usually freaks people out. Especially teachers...

But hey!?

Where have I heard that before? 

And where have I seen results as that?

Well, after listen to Lapante I realized:

I've hacked the math! 

With Minecraft and Gamification (yep, again: Nobel price, here I am).

As most teachers who uses Minecraft we see increasing math skills. But it doesn't stop there, we also have the interesting point: What unintentional learning occurred? 

The 'hard data' and my evaluation

My school wanted the "hard data" to be shown. Because whatever results I gain, they need figures, something "on paper" to see it actually worked. So I had to come up with some sort of evaluation, and thanks to master Stephen Elford I got some ideas what questions to ask. 

This is definitely not any science, six students had the chance to use Minecraft as an option with geometry, three of them have answered my evaluation. At least one of them has dyscalculia. My scale is 1-6, where 1 is nothing and 6 very much, and there's no middle - either they are a bit weaker (3) or a bit better (4), I force them to think.

Knowledge before the Minecraft experience?

How fun I believe Math is?

Motivation during our classes and by the way, I got the same result when use Minecraft to learn math...

Your activity during class?

The activity was a fun thing. All of my participants are students that usually stays focus for 15 minutes. Now they where all sitting, without a break, for two hours. The only time they used their smartphone was when they needed the calculator. One of my students also participated in class when he was home and sick.

I have them to choose the best and worse lesson and put on a scale how fun it was, how much help they got from that class. They had to give an answer to the worst one but as you can see, it's still a very good lesson. They can't explain why, they had to pick one. 

Best lesson on a scale

Worst lesson on a scale

Knowledge afterwards

And I believe this is an important one and please compare it to the first graph. Do you experience you have better knowledge about math and geometry now? 

How much have you enjoyed using Minecraft during this math experience?

What have you learned (including the unintentional learning)? 

Scale, geometry, to be creative, solve problems, convert 2D to 3D, technical drawings, planning and foresight. 

And of course: 
They couldn't believe math could be funny!

Math geometry test

Finally I have a math test ready for the students, a test we - the Minecraft allies - all could agree on. I have not yet any experience about MinecraftEDU but in a vanilla server it's pretty hard to make triangles, cylinders and circles. But I solved that part with give the students the solution, instead they have to explain, write down, how you do it. Or more exactly: analyze my solutions.

Some of my fellow teachers went nuts when I told them the test includes eight (8) papers. And because of the eight papers the students must have several hours... eh? what? I have 14 tasks where the first and last is to put yourself in position and record your activity. 

So twelve tasks to go. 

Several hours? 

I think not. 

We're talking about generation G, not ourselves :P

Sharing is caring: Geometry math test

In upper secondary vocational institutions you get the marks

• U0 (underkänd) - FAIL!
• N1 (nöjaktig) - satisfactory
• G2 (godkänt) - approved
• B3 (berömlig) - excellent

Each task should have the mark so the student know how hard the task is and what it's worth.

Okay, so my thought about this test is to include much geometry but also a bit of equations and do it in a fun way. Therefor they have to go to the airport, travel to the math test and begin their journey. Three tasks they have to write down in the booklet so I have just made task numbers without workspace here and there. They will have workspace both in the paper copy (that's why it's eight pages) as well in Minecraft.

I only have them one by one, these students, so therefor I can use this single map (sort of) to everyone. I only have to clear their sketches now and then :D

I will have two full scale tests next week: the student with dyscalculia (I'm sure he will pass on N1) and one lazy non-motivated student that now works harder than ever...

Geometry in Minecraft

OK, so today I've had a couple of groups who has been learning math throu Minecraft. And again, the most awesome things happens. We usually have 45 min classes, most of my students has problems with their concentration. Well, they sit at my classes till I tell them they have to go... So, I've succeed make math so fun they don't want to quit. In fact, I've succeed with this math mission so well the students ask me for more sessions - even if it's on their sparetime. As today.

They also do something that I've never experienced before: they shake my hand and thanks for the class... some of them do it the gangsta style, but hey - they show what it means. And the gangsta way, that's respect.

And as Gabe Zichermann explains (don't remember if it's this clip or another) the students explains it with two words, it is

1. Fun
2. Multiplaying

So today I had this guy who tries to pass an old course. Math for this guy is booooooooring. Ok, so he came before the class started. We talked about last lesson, what he missunderstood and what he had to do to make it better next time. And he started to do his tasks. In mid time when I asked if he needed a break (he refused!) I also asked what he's learning and why? Or do I fool myself make him play a game...

While he continue build he explained:

• I have to count all the time, I can't relax, I have to think about math all the time. How many blocks from here to there, up, sides and so on...
• I create a model of my task at the same time.
• I can directly see if I've done something wrong in my calculations and change it.
• I can, whenever I want or need, control myself. Back a bit and reflect to my self: is this realistic?
• I practice my skills to imagine something 2D into 3D

Later he actually proved this when I wanted him to do the task with the red dice with white spots. Because I showed him some different ways how to make that work, where the sides could be 5, 7 or 9 blocks.

He made it with 10 blocks. He realized he had to build a bit more but it would be much easier to do the counting afterwards: perimeter, area and volume.

I also did a personal reflection: he has started to make notes on paper and also started to make a sketch at his paper before he starts to build his tasks... And please remember, he doesn't like math. And now he's learning without thinking!