Technology

Upcoming Minefaire Locations, Dates and Times

24 May 2019

Minefaire 2019 Recap

A few months ago I had the opportunity to lead a workshop at Minefaire, a Minecraft community event currently on tour across the US, which features a veritable smorgasbord of activities, speakers, and presentations for young and old (parents of) Minecraft fans alike. In my workshop titled Building Better Bases students had the opportunity to […]

10 May 2019

Minecraft Update @ Admin Council

Below is a “numbers” update to be shared at the PLP annual meeting. In addition, I want to share four major changes to the Minecraft landscape in the last 3 months that have a huge impact on the future of this project: Education Edition gained backwards compatibility with Windows 7 and 8. Previously only Windows […]

26 Mar 2019

Preparing for Your Minecraft Workshop

In a nod to Minecraft’s open-ended gameplay style, training material for the youth workshop is split into several crafting recipes or learning tracks that build on the previous experience. As you read through this material, keep in mind the youth workshop and course material was intentionally designed to be fully customizable and Minecraft-edition-agnostic. I made […]

20 Feb 2019

The Curious Question of Chromebook Chronology

A fellow PLP librarian recently asked me a very interesting question via email and I want to take a moment to answer in more detail for the wider community. They were wondering if Minecraft (any version) and the super-affordable Chromebook ecosystem worked well together. Are they compatible, or would you need a more traditional desktop […]

09 Feb 2019

Why Educators Probably Shouldn’t Use Minecraft In Their Classrooms: Reality Check Edition

As a fulfillment of my librarian duties, this is a post dedicated to an opposing viewpoint. A nod towards objectivity. Readers should be aware that I’ve been playing Minecraft on and off for nearly a decade—I’m a bit biased. So in this post I’m responding to a high school teacher’s article titled Why Educators Probably […]

30 Jan 2019

Is It Pedagogically Valid?

Inspired by a twitter thread started by Mark Anderson from the ICTEvangelist blog that I found through a fellow Minecraft Mentor’s retweet, this post should clear up a few questions about the project and our approach. Mark’s post started a few years ago in reply to Paul Moss blogging Is that edtech tool pedagogically valid? in response to the plethora […]

16 Jan 2019

A Short Guide for Library Computer Labs Wanting to Use Minecraft: Part 3

The following is a guest post by Chris Markman, Senior Librarian at Palo Alto City Library in conjunction with PLP’s 2018-2019 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant, “Cybersecurity for Youth Using Minecraft”. This project is supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of […]

28 Dec 2018

A Short Guide for Library Computer Labs Wanting to Use Minecraft: Part 2

21 Nov 2018

A Short Guide for Library Computer Labs Wanting to Use Minecraft: Part 1

The following is a guest post by Chris Markman, Senior Librarian at Palo Alto City Library in conjunction with PLP’s recently awarded Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant, “Cybersecurity for Youth Using Minecraft”. This project is supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions […]

24 Oct 2018

A Menagerie of Minecraft News & Links from Internet Librarian 2018

The following is a guest posts by Chris Markman, Senior Librarian at Palo Alto City Library in conjunction with PLP’s recently awarded Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant, “Cybersecurity for Youth Using Minecraft”. This project is supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions […]