网络时代如何边打游戏边学习？风靡全球的MinecraftEdu做到了

    If you have or know any kids between the ages of 9 and 15, odds are you’re aware of Minecraft. The PC game from independent Swedish developer Mojang has attracted more than 75 million registered users since launching in December 2010, according to video game analyst firm Newzoo.

    And that number doesn’t include the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and mobile versions of the game that have expanded the audience while generating approximately $1 billion for creator Markus “Notch” Persson and his company.

    “Minecraft is often referred to as ‘what LEGO should have done online,’” said Peter Warman, video game analyst at research firm Newzoo. “Now Minecraft has become a LEGO set itself, drawing so much time from kids and youngsters that it is seriously competing with the physical LEGO bricks. And it’s not just kids and young teens that play the game. Of the millions of Minecraft Pocket Edition players, 60% is older than 20 and one-third is female.”

    “The game’s success can be attributed to the freedom of expression and the ability to build anything you can imagine,” said Carl Manneh, CEO of Mojang. “It gives people a way to visualize anything they can imagine. When you have a creative software like that, people tend to want to share it with friends. That’s really helped us in spreading the word about the game.”

    When New York City teacher Joel Levin saw this explosion of popularity among his students, he decided to blog about the game. After all, kids weren’t just playing this game across multiple platforms, they were also spending countless hours perusing the 50 million-plus Minecraft videos on YouTube.

    The educator had spent the past decade trying to incorporate video games into his classroom curriculum as a way to engage students and make learning more relevant to today’s generation. Levin said he was blown away at the range of possibilities that Minecraft offered, from building challenges, to having kids do research online and report back on what they learned, to exploring digital citizenship by building communities in the game that serves as virtual microcosms to high school.

    “Teachers from all over the world started contacting me,” said Levin. Eventually, Levin was put in touch with Mojang. “I was able to open a dialogue with teachers and programmers in Finland, which is at the forefront of the world in education.” Levin partnered with SanteriKoivisto, a teacher in Finland, to formalize a company, TeacherGaming.

    “The first thing we did was secure rights to sell Minecraft to schools at half price. Mojang loves the idea of getting its game into schools,” Levin said. “We also created a custom version of MinecraftEdu, which features the original game plus layers of new tools that teachers and students can use for the classroom.”

    Today, more than 2,100 schools around the globe on six different continents are using MinecraftEdu at a variety of grade levels—from kindergarten to high school and even at some universities. The game is being used to teach almost every subject from history to art to science. Levin said this array of subjects and grade levels speaks to how open and flexible it is.