Aleksi, our Lead Developer has posted to our development blog with some more information about what went on to get the most recent update out the door.
It has been a long battle to tame the bugs and problems we have been encountering while updating from the previous MinecraftEdu release, but finally the latest stable build is live.
- Read more about the features of this release in our news section!
- Download the latest build…
After a long winter of bug fixing, polishing, and cramming in new features, we are delighted to announce that MinecraftEdu has been updated. As always, MinecraftEdu customers can grab the latest version on our Members’ site.
You can see a detailed changelog on our wiki, but here are some of the biggest additions and improvements:
We’d like to talk about that last item for a moment. One of our dreams for MinecraftEdu has always been to allow the seamless sharing of educational Minecraft worlds. That dream is one step closer to reality with Online World Templates.
The idea is that anyone can make a world/lesson/activity, augment the content with custom MinecraftEdu features, and then share it with teachers everywhere. Teachers can browse what’s available, download a world, and get a server running with that content in just a few clicks. This basic functionality is now working!
We still have a long way to go, and we haven’t made much content available yet… but we didn’t want to keep this feature to ourselves. We think Online World Templates will be an indispensable feature of MinecraftEdu and we can’t wait to hear your feedback!
~Joel
The past several months have been busy ones!
Schools from all corners of the Earth have purchased Minecraft from us and are embarking on amazing projects. In fact, we are rapidly approaching our 1000th school! The game is being used in literally every subject area across all age groups.
We consider it part of our mission to network these trailblazers, provide support, and share ideas as widely as possible. Here are some of the most effective ways to connect:
MinecraftEdu Forums - there is a lively community of educators sharing ideas, solving problems, and providing inspiration. It’s actually just a Google Group which allows a variety of ways to participate (including email) and handy browsing tools.
MinecraftEdu Chat - This is the most direct way to gain access to the MinecraftEdu team. We conduct a large portion of our daily business over IRC (Internet Relay Chat), and we are happy to welcome anyone to our channel. Especially if you are interested in Beta testing new versions of our MinecraftEdu mod! Either use the link above, or point your favorite IRC client to #MinecraftEdu on irc.quakenet.org
MinecraftEdu Wiki - Our wiki contains a wealth of tutorials and details about how our mod works. But a good starting point might be this list of Real World Examples.
We are trying to figure out what sort of formalized training and materials we will offer in the future. But for now, these resources are the best way to jump in, get help, plan your use of the game, and share your experiences.
Join us!
MinecraftEdu 0.984 released!
A new version of MinecraftEdu (0.984) has been released! You can see all the changes and new features on our wiki page.
We recommend that you upgrade to the new version as it includes some major enhancements for better overall performance.
It is recommended that you backup your saved worlds before updating. If you are unsure how to do this we recommend taking a backup of your entire MinecraftEdu directory prior to installing.
The new version can be downloaded from our member area.
As always, thank you so much for your support. It is quite inspiring to hear how everyone is using Minecraft in their schools, libraries, museums, and more. If you are not already a member, we would like to invite you to join the Minecraft Teacher’s Google Group to further share ideas, examples, and stories.
We’ve got a great group of helpful members but we’d love to add more!
Thanks and hope to see you online!
~The MinecraftEdu Team
We are really proud of how far MinecraftEdu has come in a short time, and so we’re excited to start showing it off and hearing feedback. You can have the chance to play it for yourself at the following two completely free events:
And if you want to hear more discussion about game-based learning and its potential…
Now, who said teachers take the summer off? We’ve been hard at work on MinecraftEdu as you can see by reading Aleksi’s Development Blog. Many new useful and powerful tools are being introduced.
Coming soon… Quiz Blocks! FUN FACT: A correct answer can trigger redstone!
Things are moving fast for the TeacherGaming Team. As we begin Summer, those of us with academic jobs are now able to concentrate fully on MinecraftEdu, and we’ve welcomed several interns to our headquarters in Finland.
About a month ago we released a MAJOR update to MinecraftEdu that brought many requested features and powerful world-building options into the game. Here are some of the highlights:
The full set of changes are listed here… there’s a lot! The response from our pilot schools to the new version has been great! But we’re not done yet…
Work continues on the next set of features. One of the most exciting is Online World Templates. Essentially, a library of content, allowing our users to upload, download, and share their creations. Once complete, you’ll be able to browse, tag, rate, and discuss a wide array of lessons, activities, and adventures. Do you need a good map to teach Roman history? Search for it. Did you think of a good way to teach about Geometry? Upload it!
We think this feature will prove incredibly useful to the growing community of contributors and supporters using Minecraft in schools.
Looking ahead, the MinecraftEdu team will also be busy making the rounds at various gaming and education conferences this Summer. We’ll be demonstrating MinecraftEdu, conducting workshops, discussing the power of game-based learning and explaining why Minecraft is THE BEST game for the job! Here are some events to look out for:
Joel Levin (a.k.a @MinecraftTeachr) is also scheduled to appear on a panel at a Slate Magazine/Future Tense Event at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C. on August 9th.
Many of our pilot schools using MinecraftEdu are anxious to make their servers accessible outside of the classroom. This can easily be done with a little server know-how. Contact us if you have questions.
But for many reasons, it may make sense for a school to host their servers with a 3rd party hosting provider. And this is fine if they are just using it to play the original Minecraft game. However, it’s not so straightforward if they want to use our MinecraftEdu custom mod.
We would just like to clarify that as of right now, there are no 3rd party hosts that are authorized to offer a MinecraftEdu server.
You can certainly host your own MinecraftEdu server for your class or others. But you are not allowed to charge money for the service. We are working hard to make a 3rd party hosting option available. But for right now, there is no way to do this.
We appreciate your patience. We should have some news soon!
Repost from kulttuuri:
Hey all!
Been a long time and the release of our next version is close now, so wanted to show all of you the new build tools I’ve been working on…
We’ve been quite busy preparing the first public release of MinecraftEdu. You can see screenshots of the latest build below. This version will first be sent to our pilot schools in the next week, or so. And then after some testing, we will make MinecraftEdu available to the general public!
Some new features we’ve been working on:
You can follow @MinecraftEdu for more frequent updates.
We are very excited to finally get our version of the game into everyone’s hands. We can’t wait to see the uses that people find for MinecraftEdu!
Also, exciting is the news that the TeacherGaming crew is travelling! Some of the team is meeting face-to-face for the first time right now in New York City. It will be great to finally get together and discuss our next steps. But this also means is that order processing might be slow for the next week. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Enjoy the pics! How do you think you’ll use the mod?
~Joel
Happy holidays to all! We wanted to update everyone on our progress. But first two quick announcements:
1) Our small team is taking some much needed downtime over the holidays. We will not be processing any Minecraft orders placed between between now and January 3rd. (You can still place orders, but they won’t be fulfilled until we return). Also expect our customer support response time to be slower than normal.
But we are still accepting donations, and sending out MinecraftEdu Beta invitations to folks that donate $5 or more. So you can playtest over the holidays. :)
2) We will be raising our prices a tiny bit for Minecraft (original version). This adjustment comes partly because Minecraft, itself, has gone up in price now that it’s out of Beta. But also we have chosen to pursue some more ambitious goals than when we first announced our pricing structure. Don’t worry. We’re still dirt cheap for the amount of gaming you’ll receive!
Please note:
Now some updates.
The past few months have seen some great developments for our little company as we try to bring the benefits of Minecraft and game-based learning to classrooms worldwide. The interest and support from both the gaming and educational communities has been overwhelming. We are trying our best to live up to everyone’s high expectations!
But it’s been exhausting, and there is still a lot of work left to do. Hence the vacation. It’s been a challenge to get all the international business aspects of our operation up and running, but we are taking the time to do things right. And when we return to full operation in the new year, we’ll have quite a few behind-the-scenes improvements that will allow us to focus on our most important goals. Namely, creating a meaningful and versatile game experience for teachers and students. We want MinecraftEdu to be rock-solid and powerful, and backed by a large library of content.
And speaking of MinecraftEdu! We are reaching the home stretch in the development of the mod. The first public release will probably happen in the month of January.
A handful of pilot schools have already been using it with students and giving us some extremely useful feedback. We want to thank all the teachers and students that are diving in head first! We will continue to refine the software to be the most complete tool a teacher could wish for. Personally, I have been using the mod in my own classes, as well. It has been quite rewarding, and MUCH easier than in the past to manage my class and create meaningful content.
We have also been delighted to see interest in our mod extending beyond the classroom. Homeschooling and unschooling families have embraced it as a tool to bring the educational benefits of Minecraft into new settings. Researchers are using it to develop eye-tracking game controls for disabled people. And a team of Dungeons & Dragons players are even planning to use it as the basis of an online campaign.
It is a point of pride that our mod is flexible enough to support these varied ideas. We will continue to keep our focus on a coherent set of classroom tools, but we will do what we can to support anyone with ideas for creative applications.
As my Finnish partners say: Hyvää joulua ja onnellista uutta vuotta 2012!
(Merry Christmas and a happy New Year 2012 to everybody!)
~Joel
