Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Category: games

  • Exemplary MinecraftEDU Water Challenge Build

    One of my 5th grade STEM students this semester, Phoebie, did a great job in the MinecraftEDU station of our Maker’s Studio this month. Students used the “Water Challenge Remix” world and project in MinecraftEDU to create irrigation canals and cultivated fields where they could grow wheat and make bread to survive. Phoebie did an awesome…

  • Substitute Wood for Coal in Minecraft

    I absolutely love being able to stay in touch with my 4th grade daughter using the free iOS instant message app Kik, as she does not yet have her own phone. This is a message she sent me today after making a new discovery in Minecraft after school. I also love how Minecraft encourages so…

  • MinecraftEDU student computer (client) configuration

    This quick video (2 min) shows the steps for configuring our school computer lab computers for MinecraftEDU so they can readily connect to the 2 computers (1 Dell and 1 Apple/Mac) we use as MinecraftEDU servers. This video is included on my MinecraftEDU resources page of my STEM curriculum site under “My MinecraftEDU Tutorial Videos.”…

  • Load Saved MinecraftEDU World on School Server

    Today I’m making final arrangements and tweaks to the “MinecraftEDU Orienteering Challenge” my 4th and 5th grade STEM students will be completing this week in class. As I moved this saved world to the school computers I’m using as MinecraftEDU servers I recorded a short (just under 5 minutes) screencast, using Screencast-o-Matic, showing the steps…

  • Orientation Challenge in MinecraftEDU

    This is the next-to-last week of school for this academic year in our district, and I’ve been planning a final MinecraftEDU lesson for several months for my students that is ready at last. I wanted to create a scavenger hunt, and decided to focus on developing student knowledge and skills of the Minecraft coordinate grid…

  • Cool Stuff Rachel & I Learned in Minecraft This Weekend

    Yesterday and today my 10 year old daughter and I played Minecraft for at least six combined hours. What fun we had together!   by  Wesley Fryer  Playing Minecraft as we did is absolutely a “flow” experience for me, and likely for her as well. We lose track of time, as we are so engrossed and engaged…

  • Fun Scratch Projects Today in STEM Class

    I’m continuing to teach my 4th and 5th graders in STEM class about coding and how to create projects using Scratch software. Last week students got started with coding using tutorials on Code.org. For our first lesson of this week students completed the “Step-by-Step Intro” to Scratch. I recorded a screencast of the instructions for…

  • MinecraftEDU Tips: An iPad Narrated Slideshow Created with @HaikuDeck & @ExplainEvrythng

    This evening I taught the sixth of seven classes for K-12 teachers in Montana on “Mapping Media to the Common Core: Part 1.” I love teaching this class over H.323 videoconferencing from my house! Tonight we focused primarily on creating narrated slideshows and screencasts. Following class, I used the iPad apps Haiku Deck, Mail, Explain…

  • Initial Minecraft Competition World Created with MCEdit

    Today was the second week and second meeting of our “Maker’s Club” for 4th and 5th graders at my elementary school. The post, “Project 1845 and the Forbidden City of China” describes some of the things students in our club did on our two MinecraftEDU servers this afternoon. I’m starting a 3 day series of…

  • Basic, Intermediate and Advanced MinecraftEDU Challenges

    After three consecutive snow days starting last Friday, we’re finally back to school this week on Wednesday and my STEM class will be exploring MinecraftEDU a second week. With the help of my 16 year old son, who is a Minecraft expert, I created three different challenges for students to try based on their past…