Minecraft 05: Students Start Virtual Project Based Learning

"Reconstruct an ancient Greek structure to scale. Later, you will take a visiting student on a virtual guided tour explaining everything you know about the building and its' purpose in ancient times. Your visitor should be amazed at how smart you are." That is the educational Minecraft project, in a nutshell. There aren't a lot of criteria. I […]

Posted by milesmac on January 9th, 2012 | 1 Comment Posted in Gamification, Projects

Minecraft 03: Another Step Forward

We have our laptops ready to run Minecraft offline now - had to do some java updates on a few, but 16 of the 20 laptops are now able to run in single player mode. We put the Minecraft app on a few memory sticks and added the app to each computer's desktop. Once the […]

Posted by milesmac on December 20th, 2011 | No Comments Posted in Gamification

Minecraft: 01 Initial Thoughts

I feel a little like I'm looking and leaping at the same time. Minecraft has been popping up in my reading, my young nephew  is an active player, YouTube videos of Minecraft scenes appear in my searches, and I've seen the reddit images of blocky halloween costumes.. Two days ago I purchased a copy and my eight-year-old […]

Posted by milesmac on December 14th, 2011 | 3 Comments Posted in Gamification

Minecraft: 02 Organized Chaos

What a wild day. First I want to share how awesome this chaotic day was - student engagement from beginning to end by every single student. Every one of them! It started like this: We need to make this space work for our classroom network. We need to get the classroom network working. We need […]

Posted by milesmac on December 14th, 2011 | 3 Comments Posted in Gamification

FORE! Desk-Sized Mini Golf HoleProject. Front 9 in room 3, back 9 in room 2

Here is a project I put together with my former teaching partner, Linda Benson. We were looking for a quick but engaging hands-on project that integrated many subject areas. It ties together Math (scale, proportion, surface area, integers), Science (light: law of reflection) HERE is the document we circulated to the class after creating the […]

Posted by milesmac on December 14th, 2011 | No Comments Posted in Projects

How Grades Change Conversations About Assessment & Achievement

I began teaching in 1991 believing myself to be a very progressive grades-based teacher with exquisitely designed marking keys designed to quantitatively assess realms such as punctuation, spelling, organization, use of voice, and (drum roll, please) creativity. It was rather easy to bestow, scientifically, precise to tenths of a percent (any more, though feasible, would […]

Posted by milesmac on December 14th, 2011 | 2 Comments Posted in Pedagogy
Newer Entries »
%d bloggers like this: