Learning2gether Episode 258

Download mp3 here:
https://learning2getherdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/learning2gether-with-evo-minecraft-mooc-modifying-the-game-for-language-learning-cvpi4_a0wce.mp3?

On Sun Feb 1 at 1400 GMT Learning2gether hosted an EVO Minecraft MOOC Hangout on Modifying the game for language learning. With us we had EVOMC15 co-moderators David Dodgson, Jeff Kuhn, and Vance Stevens

Dave Dodgson  planned to outline what his students at his former school were doing with Minecraft and what he’s been doing at his current school. He has two videos his former students made on Youtube which he has shared.

• Atakule Redeveloped in Minecraft:
  http://youtu.be/KNbAXS6J2oo
• Minecraft House Project: http://youtu.be/RU_1Am-AeHs

Now that the EVOMC15 particpants have tested the Minecraft waters Jeff wanted to talk about  modifications for the game (nothing too technical) so folks can get a glimpse into how Minecraft can really be tweaked for specific learning content.

We met in Hangout on Air, streamed on
http://webheadsinaction.org/live, archived here http://webheadsinaction.org/learning2gether-evo-minecraft-mooc-modifying-game-language-learning

• G+ HoA:
  https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/ckmi5bcs2572sa408vef64oa500
• YouTube: http://youtu.be/cvpi4_a0wCE

It was interesting to hear Jeff’s and David’s perspectives on using Minecraft with students and on the benefits of gaming and advantages of Minecraft in supporting those benefits. It was especially interesting to hear how easily one could set up a Minecraft server for classroom use (David was running one on the teacher computer in his classroom, and Jeff thought I could run one from my laptop.

Meanwhile the agenda on Canvas Minecraft MOOC for this week is servers. You can join that MOOC here
https://www.canvas.net/courses/minecraft-for-educators

“Week 2 is all about servers; what they are, how to download them, install them and some things to watch out for along the way.” Here is the schedule:

• Monday 2nd Feb: An introduction to servers – What they are and the different kinds that are out there.
• Tuesday 3rd Feb: To host or not to host? LAN maybe your answer
• Wednesday 4th Feb: Installing a Vanilla 1.8 Server
• Thursday 5th Feb: Working with Bukkit
• Friday 6th Feb: The world of Forge and MinecraftEDU

Technical footnote: There were connectivity problems with HoA in UAE. Dave was having them in Gabon. He dropped out of the call at least once. In Dubai, Tomas Lorincz struggled to get in and never quite stuck (he ended up listening to the stream). I got my first disconnects in Al Ain when I was setting up for the event. This prompted me to log onto another computer, which also started disconnecting, but at least I had two in the fray. I restarted both and got one to connect, and the other appeared to connect but did not show up on the first computer. Once we were under way the first HoA froze in my browser. I could hear and people told me they could hear and see me, but that browser had no functionality (for me to mute for example). The second computer kept dropping out, I kept refreshing it, but it never joined the HoA, except that when it came time to close the recording and there was no functionality on my frozen computer, the stop recording button worked on the one that wouldn’t actually let me in the HoA.

I think things went well as far as the other participants were concerned, Tilly and Sara joined us in the HoA, and Maha and Gil Mattos were present in the stream and said all was fine, and I think the recording is ok. But it was very strange and challenging to keep things going from where I was pushing plans B and C.

Earlier this week

Sun Jan 25 1400 GMT Learning2gether with EVO Minecraft MOOC and Snake Gaming