Can Minecraft be the Ultimate Educational Tool?

We've been working closely with PBS's Mike Rugnetta, check out his videos and subscribe! His channel, known as "PBS Idea Channel" is a YouTube channel with over 500,000 subscribers, their aim is to find cool ideas that our society could use, and this time we've worked with PBS, Gamepedia, Edutopia, and MinecraftEDU's Joel Levin, to prove that Minecraft can actually be, society's next generation of learning in schools. Here is the link to Pbs Mike Rugnetta. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0BN5AWOe8

So, could Minecraft actually be the ultimate learning tool for our next-generation of students and teachers? Well, here's the answer: Yes! Since 2012, there have already been over 500 positive reviews from parents that have described how Minecraft has actually changed the way their kids work and study, like, when Joel Levin said that his daughter wasn't even 5 yet, but she had actually spelt her very first word using Minecraft! Since Minecraft's reputation in education is increasing so quickly, creator Markus "Notch" Persson and Joel Levin have teamed-up and created an official, third-party mod called "MinecraftEDU"
This "MinecraftEDU" is actually an officially licensed mod specially optimized and built for teachers and students to use in the classroom. It is estimated that MinecraftEDU is used in over 20,000 schools across 6 continents in the globe.

Thanks to long research studies students and scientists have proven scientifically that Minecraft can be used as a powerful learning tool, faster than traditional methods of learning, such as using textbooks and reading typical schoolbooks. So children who are using Minecraft feel like what they are learning is useful, which MEANS that children, would be more encouraged to learn, they feel like they WANT to learn, thanks to Minecraft.

So, what are the benefits? Source: Gamepedia

1) Say for reading, players can write and read their own books and publish them in the Minecraft universe, which is a major step and a turning point in both gaming and education in gaming.

2) Spelling, teach a new language by using signs, even Latvian! Or create riddles for your friends. Minecraft has proven that it can increase your spelling skills by 30% than traditional methods of spelling education.

3) Mathematics, measure the time of how long it takes for a block to hit the ground, say I need 2+2 wood for a crafting recipe, solve mathematical problems in game! Geometry for 3D modelling, Measurement for arcitechture, the possibilities are endless!

There are endless educational benefits by using Minecraft.

By Martin

Ultimate Frisbee

Do you love throwing a Frisbee around, but wondering how to turn it into a team sport? Ultimate Frisbee is the solution to this desire. This Blog provides an overview of how to play.
View How to Play Ultimate frisbee on Howcast

How Minecraft can have Educational Benefits

Minecraft can have huge educational benefits for children; it can help teach numerous subjects both with and without adult involvement. Learning in Minecraft can be faster than traditional methods of education, as children are often far more motivated, get more practice, and feel that what they are learning is useful.

Subject	Benefit
Reading	The names of items in the inventory are a great place to start teaching children to read, since each item has a tooltip and image which go together. For older children, reading the wiki and online guides can extend their skills.
Writing	Players can use the Book and Quill within the game to keep a log, or to communicate information to other players. By contributing to the Minecraft Wiki, older children learn to write informational texts in a collaborative, multimedia environment!.
Math 17 + 44	The crafting system can help in teaching basic math (e.g. "I need 3 Sugar Cane for Paper), which transitions to multiplication (I need 3 Paper and 1 Leather for a Book, and 3 Books for a Bookshelf, so I need 9 Paper and 3 Leather altogether") and division ("When I create Paper I get 3 at once, so 9/3 = 3 times per Bookshelf I'll have to create Paper"). If players want to create fully power Beacon, they will need to mathematically calculate amounts of materials(Iron,Diamond,Emerald,Gold) they need to create one, which is 9 times {∑i=1~i=4 (2i+1)2}. This means(9+25+49+81)×9 = 1476 = 23×64+4= 23 stacks and 4 pieces of materials. This shows not only you need math very much in Minecraft, but you also practice and possibly learn some mathematic skills.
Geometry	While the Minecraft world is only made up of cubes, the creations a child makes may resemble other shapes. Parental involvement can help teach children to recognize these shapes (cube, cuboid, square based pyramid, tesseract, et cetera). Also, counting the number of blocks that were dug out when making a 6x6x3 cave can help multiplication skills and understanding the concepts of volume and area. Also, Minecraft is all about three-dimensional graphing. A Minecraft world is based on x, y, and z coordinates. This very useful method of gaming can be used to learn high-leveled math such as the Pythagorean theorem (e.g.: x2+y2=c2) therefore not only is Minecraft used to learn "child-level geometry", it can also be used to learn fairly difficult geometric concepts very easily.
Music	With the preparation of some Redstone circuitry, experimenting with Note Blocks can teach children about notes, octaves and chords.
Social skills	By setting up a private server, parents can provide a safe environment for children to interact with friends and make playing Minecraft a cooperative event. Using a Local Area Network (LAN, or "home network") will allow children to play in the same room or same WI-FI network with their friends. By using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP, or "voice chat"), a phone call, or the in-game text chat, they can play together wherever they are. It is also possible to set up a Minecraft Realm. A minecraft realm is a server run by Mojang. Minecraft Realms cost $13/Month. You can easily setup a server and invite your child's minecraft friends. You can also set up various minigames for your child to play on or just a default minecraft world. For more info on Minecraft Realms go to https://minecraft.net/realms These methods allows children to work together to build, explore, and learn as they develop their social skills, especially teamwork. For older children, contributing to the Minecraft Wiki can be a chance to learn about Internet etiquette and collaboration.
Basic Technological Science	Redstone circuitry provides an interactive environment to build basic logic circuits and combine them for more sophisticated purposes. Feedback is immediate, and the mistakes don't destroy expensive electrical components.

The Gaming Group! FTW

This term we have decided to focus our topic on Gaming and Esport, since it is such a huge issue and it is very popular in pop culture, we decided to prove schools that gaming may not only train your brain, but can change your life as well, you might become famous one day from winning a gaming tournament, who knows?

We focused mainly on Minecraft, yup, the popular sandbox indie game developed and published by Mojang AB and Notch, since many NZ schools use it as a learning tool for their students, we decided that Howick Intermediate should have their own Minecraft club open for students who are wanting to join, and we can host our own free2play legitimate Minecraft PvP tournamnet, like the 1st prize is a juicie (legit right?)

Nutrition Group

This Cycle the Nutrition group in Room 7 have been focusing on our school canteen menu and were trying to improve the menu by adding more healthy choices that do not contain dirty palm oil. We have made pizza and chicken burgers in Food Technology with Mrs Watson to look at selling them in the tuck shop. We have been looking at ways to change the school menu to one with more healthy options on it. This Thursday we are making muffins to sell in our school tuck shop. We have been working with the Deforestation group in our class by making foods that that do not contain dirty palm oil. We attempted to contact Heart Foundation, Fuelled4Life, and 5+ a Day however none of them were able to help us with our inquiry.

Nutrition makes Pizza!

On Friday 21st march the Nutrition Group went to Food Technology with Mrs Watson.
We made a pizza each and filled it with delicious toppings. We had to bring our own toppings and sauces while Mrs Watson provided the ingredients for the Pizza base. Our guidelines for bringing toppings is that they couldn't contain dirty palm oil and had to be healthy.

Our Pizza dough ingredients:

• 3 Cups of Self Raising Flour
• 2 tsp of sugar
• 1 Cup of Warm Water
• 1 desert spoon of yeast
• 1 tsp Garlic & Herb salt
• 350g of Butter

Our Pizza Toppings:

• Chicken
• Sausages
• Bacon
• Ham
• Salami
• Cheese
• Tomato Paste/Puree
• Pineapple
• BBQ Sauce

The pizza was yummy & fun to make, We all loved cooking.

Visit from the Melanoma Foundation

On Thursday 6 March Linda and Lyn came to meet Skin Cancer group in Room 7.

Linda and Lyn talked about different type of skin cancer and Spotty Day at the end. There 5 different type of cancer so if you find any spots on you that don't look like freckles or you which is not usually on your body then GET IT CHECKED UP!

The 5 different types of skin cancers are:

A- Asymmetry-One half is different from the other half.
B-Border irregularity- The edges are notched, uneven or blurred.
C-Colour is uneven- Shades of brown, tan and black are present.
D-Diameter- Is greater than 6 millimetres.
E-Evolution- Any change in growth; new or elevated

Thanks Lyn and Linda for coming to talk to us about Melanoma skin cancer.