Minecraft: Education Edition officially begins its lessons on November 1

By John Callaham
published

Microsoft has announced it will officially launch Minecraft: Education Edition for the PC on November 1. This is a special version of the popular sandbox game that's designed to be used by schools.

Microsoft previously released a free beta of Minecraft: Education Edition for schools to try out before its official launch. The final version will include some new features, including a "Classroom Mode":

A companion app for Minecraft: Education Edition that enables educators to manage world settings, communicate with students, give items and teleport students in the Minecraft world. It displays a map view of the Minecraft world, a list of all the students in the world, a set of world management settings and a chat window. There is even a Minecraft clock to show time of day in the world. Classroom Mode offers educators the ability to interact with students and manage settings from a central user interface.

The game will continue to be updated with features that are already available in the regular versions of Minecraft:

All the latest updates to Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition beta will be included, such as leads and horses, additional player skins, pistons and the remainder of Redstone functionality and an updated user interface.

Microsoft will charge $5 per year for each user of Minecraft: Education Edition. It will also be available to purchase via a school district licensing deal, but detail have yet to be announced.

John Callaham
John Callaham
4 Comments
  • I like that this is available, however I don't see the educational aspect of it. Their Minecraft offering on Hour of Code is something I am trying to get the school to adopt, but I don't know what angle to use for this.
  • It's the job of the teacher to make it educational. Minecraft is a tool. For a technical class, a teacher could develop a lesson plan on Redstone circuitry. For a science class, a teacher could develop a lesson plan on renewable and non-renewable resources. For an art or music class, a teacher could have them create pixel art or music. For an architecture class, a teacher could have them work together to design and construct a building. And so on.
  • All this time, and I still haven't seen a single reason as to why exactly Minecraft could be useful in an educational setting.
  • "I love how working in Minecraft makes my students engage in, reflect on and talk about history – or any subject, really!” -Katja Borregaard" The teachers are seeing it, so something might be there.