Having been abroad on family visit for the weekend, I was fortunate enough to steal a little time with my young cousins (aged 8), and after securing two more laptops, was able to test a little bit of minecraft education. Below you can see some of the results.
Having found their current topic was the Egyptians, we worked for two hours building a pyramid, albeit heavily influenced by pop culture and not particularly historically accurate (giant golden skull with flaming eyes?!), complete with all sorts of traps for would be robbers. It was a fantastic experience for me, and fascinating to see their ideas develop through discussion, questioning and teamwork. I would, however, have loved to have been able to put them in separate rooms and see how they fared communicating solely through typing, but was unfortunately too caught up in watching to arrange this. I was particularly impressed by how quickly they became independent in working and taking control of their own learning , designing almost everything themselves (Although the circuitry did take some assistance and direction).
Have a click of the images below to enlarge them, and feel free to comment with any suggestions.
Having found their current topic was the Egyptians, we worked for two hours building a pyramid, albeit heavily influenced by pop culture and not particularly historically accurate (giant golden skull with flaming eyes?!), complete with all sorts of traps for would be robbers. It was a fantastic experience for me, and fascinating to see their ideas develop through discussion, questioning and teamwork. I would, however, have loved to have been able to put them in separate rooms and see how they fared communicating solely through typing, but was unfortunately too caught up in watching to arrange this. I was particularly impressed by how quickly they became independent in working and taking control of their own learning , designing almost everything themselves (Although the circuitry did take some assistance and direction).
Have a click of the images below to enlarge them, and feel free to comment with any suggestions.
 Night view of the work in progress pyramid. |  Daytime view of the almost completed entrance. |  The circuitry behind one of the traps. |  The first trap, disappearing floor (Part 1) |  The first trap, disappearing floor (Part 2) |
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