him an account. After listening to stories about his adventures, I bought one for myself too. At that time, Minecraft
was in an early beta stage, but the basics of the game world
were already set:
• The entire game is a first-person perspective 3D world,
and the game allows multiple players.
• The world is huge, with a playable area larger than the
surface of eight earths.
• The world is made of blocks, almost all of which are
cubes of different colors and simple patterns, representing different types of organic and hand-crafted materials.
The world also contains objects such as pick axes, seeds,
and wood.
• Players can chop down trees for wood and mine rocks
and minerals, such as diamonds, emeralds, and stone,
to craft objects such as tools by combining materials
according to a specific formula.
• Players can use foraged and created blocks to build
persistent structures.
• One mode of the game includes monsters that come
out at night. Players protect themselves from the monsters. If a player dies, he returns to his home point, and
everything he is carrying is left where he dies.
Although many of our staff regarded video games as
one cause of reduced student achievement, Madathil and
I decided to create a small Minecraft class, which I would
teach. Initially we enrolled five students, although that
number rose and fell as the year went on. Ultimately seven
students finished the class.
In the first months, I attended most of the class sessions.
As the year went on, however, I was often unable to attend
because of something going on in the office. One of my
chief realizations from this pilot is that a video game–based
class can be supervised by a support staff member because
the content, student engagement, and on-task performance
are completely mediated by the electronic content generated by the teacher asynchonously.
Students Set the Goals
During our first class meetings, we worked to establish
the goals of the class. I provided the students with links
to the Oregon content standards and national curriculum
resources, including Common Core State Standards. I also
gave them what little research I had found about using
Minecraft in the classroom. They were tasked with answer-
ing the question of whether Minecraft could be a valuable
tool to enhance education and why it should be a regular
class at Monroe. They all researched the question and were
excited to have the chance to justify and elevate the
importance of this game—and gaming in general.
