VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

minecraft

Connecting to the Virtual Environments PLN

logo for VE PLN

The VE PLN hosts events on most Mondays at 8 PM ET in either Second Life or Minecraft. Learn more about how to connect to both these virtual worlds.

VSTE in Second Life Office Hours:

There is a small learning curve for getting up and running in Second Life. But, we think it's worth it. If you want some help, join Jaz and Thunder for Saturday morning office hours. Use the directions below to install the software and set up a free account.

screen shot of Second Life avatars

Basic directions to join VSTE Place, VSTE’s Minecraft world:

You must have a Minecraft account from https://minecraft.net/en/ to join. There is a one time fee of $26.95 to download and install the software. You will need to be whitelisted to enter the VSTE server.

Email Kim Harrison at [email protected] from an educational email address with your real name and Minecraft account name.

Start the software and choose multiplayer and add a server: Name VSTE Place IP 69.175.17.26:25565

We use Discord to share voices in Minecraft. This is a voice and screen sharing application that will run on your computer or mobile device. Download and install it for free. Create an account. Many of us use the same name for our Discord account as our Minecraft account to keep things simple. Our channel is https://discord.gg/nDX4mZv It helps us to be able to play Minecraft in one screen and listen via Discord with earbuds or headphones.

Basic Directions to access VSTE in Second Life:

Tutorial Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TdiHylfcvM&feature=youtu.be

Second Life is a virtual world that is navigated using an avatar. You will need a free Second Life account as well as the software in order to participate. We recommend setting up an account at the Rockcliffe University Consortium's Gateway here: https://urockcliffe.com/reg/second-life/ Download and install the software.

Once the software is installed and open, click this link http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Soulgiver/156/169/58 and your avatar will be teleported to VSTE Island. Look for an avatar on VSTE Island and say, "Hey, I'm new!" We will take care of the rest.

 

Past Events:

 

Minecraft Monday

Monday, May 4, 2020, 8 PM

Let's go Orienteering in Minecraft!

Minecraft Monday will be on May 4th at 8 PM Eastern time in VSTE Place. I have maps purchased from my village cartographer which we will duplicate and use to find treasure or temples! Come work with a friend, alone, compete or cooperate - you do you, but first we will talk about coordinates and how to follow the map. How could you use this with students?

 

Scroll down for more information about how to connect to Minecraft.

Virtual environments like Second Life and Minecraft offer opportunities to expand online learning for both teachers and students. The VSTE Virtual Environments PLN will be offering a variety of events in the coming weeks. Minecraft Monday: Held the first Monday of each month at VSTE Place in Minecraft. Details for connecting are at the bottom of this post.

VSTE in Second Life Photo Tour: Staying home and looking for ways to stay connected with your fellow educators? Come join us in Second Life, Monday, April 27, 8:00 PM EST at the VSTE Virtual Education Network. We will do a Photo Tour of the 2020 Fantasy Faire, a virtual Relay for Life event that supports Cancer Research. Featuring over 18 fantastical-themed zones, partake in a Tour of the various areas as we talk about the creations and take some magical photos. Details for setting up a free Second Life account and accessing VSTE in SL are at the bottom of this post.

VSTE in Second Life Student Presentation: A Comparison of the Jurassic Rocks of Switzerland and Como Bluff,  WY USA: A CaseStudy in International Collaboration at the High School Level

Monday, May 11, 2020, 8:00 PM

We often hear in schools about the need for students to learn 21st Century skills such as creativity and collaboration on an international scale. Franklin County High School student Darien Bradley worked for months with a scientist in Switzerland to compare and contrast the geology of the Jurassic time period of Switzerland with the classic dinosaur locality at Como Bluff, WY. He will discuss challenges and benefits of doing online collaboration with someone in another country as well as what he learned about the Jurassic time period in these countries.

Join us in Second Life, Monday, May 11 at 8:00 PM EST.

Details for setting up a free Second Life account and accessing VSTE in SL are at the bottom of this post.

Thinking Outside the Blocks

Roanoke County Public Schools has access to Minecraft: Education Edition. While the elementary and middle school levels have had no trouble finding projects for students such as recreating Jamestown or showing fractions with the building blocks, the high school level educators have been a bit skeptical. This year, however, I have had more teachers hop on board, due mainly to the desire and begging of the students.

Stadium constructed in Minecraft(click image for a larger view)

A Sports and Entertainment Marketing teacher approached me with a project her students were working on, looking for ideas of where they could build a professional football stadium. The students had to select an area in the United States that did not have a professional football team, propose a team to the ìtown councilî, ìsecureî a local corporate sponsor, design logos and jerseys, set pricing for tickets and concessions, and much more. She wanted the final stage of the project to be to build the stadium, complete with gift shops, parking garages, concession stands with prices displayed, and more. It took the students, working in groups of 3 to 4, about 4 weeks working half of the 90 minute block every other day to build their stadiums. The results are impressive. However, the teamwork, collaboration, and communication was even more impressive. Students had to work together to be efficient and effective in their building process. Skill levels of Minecraft ranged from novice to expert but that didnít seem to matter, there was a job for everyone.

Stadium constructed in Minecraft(click image for a larger view)

An Earth Science teacher was begged by students to come up with a Minecraft project. She found they were even choosing to play Minecraft (and would build content related items without her prompting) when they had completed all of their work! When she approached me about a project, we decided that the students should be given some freedom in their construction. They had been studying oceanography and their requirement was to show all parts of the ocean floor, complete with sea life (real and fiction), tools to study the ocean, and ways to show the current. As you can see in the picture, not all students chose to create their masterpieces in the Ocean Biome world. This group created a viewing boardwalk complete to view their ocean aquarium. While the students were very creative and often exceeded the expectations of the project, the most impressive aspect was the conversations students held during the building process. The amount of science vocabulary they were using was more than you could draw out of them during a worksheet or independent task.

ocean world constructed in Minecraft (click image for a larger view)

Lastly, the World Geography teacher was discussing human impacts on global regions and decided she wanted the students to use Minecraft to show the dangers of human impact and ways that it could be reversed. Students researched a given biome and had to answer questions before jumping into the Minecraft portion of the project. Once again, the vocabulary that emerged during the project was more than just normal teenage vernacular. The students were discussing real global issues and solutions. They were helping each other find ways to show the destruction in Minecraft and were very creative in their final results.

Building and yard in Minecraft (click image for a larger view)

Some drawbacks of using Minecraft in the classroom? The biggest fear my teachers have is that the students know more about the program than they do. And I tell them that is just how it is! Embrace it. You are the content teacher, you have given them the assignment. It is up to the student to build (which the majority of them know how to do quite well). They will most likely only ask content questions anyways. If a student has a Minecraft question, they often refer to peers or YouTube.

The biggest take away is the opportunity to see your students flourish in an environment where they are the most comfortable. They are collaborating, communicating, using critical thinking skills, being creative, and, depending on the project, thinking about how they can be better citizens. When it comes to education technology, Minecraft is a definite way to think outside the blocks, er, box!

Written by Kelsey Huffman, an ITRT in Roanoke County Public Schools.

Minecraft Monday: Connect & Learn, February 3, 2020, 8 PM

Logo for EventJoin members of the VSTE Virtual Environments PLN on Monday, February 3, at 8 PM EST, when participants in the EVOMOOC (Electronic Village Online Massively Open Online Course) will visit VSTE Place, and Dakotah Redstone will provide them with a tour.

Electronic Village Online sponsors the MOOC, and this week, the participants are exploring the multi-player game Minecraft as a virtual world for learning. Many of participants are teachers, particularly language teachers, but some enjoy online gaming as a way of improving their English as a second language.  This MOOC is run by Vance Stevens, who is a member of the VSTE VE PLN.

Basic directions to join VSTE Place, VSTE’s Minecraft world:

You must have a Minecraft account from https://minecraft.net/en/ to join. There is a one time fee of $26.95 to download and install the software. You will need to be whitelisted to enter the VSTE server. Email Kim Harrison at [email protected] from an educational email address with your real name and Minecraft account name.

Start the software and choose multiplayer and add a server: Name VSTE Place IP 69.175.17.26:25565

We use Discord to share voices in Minecraft. This is a voice and screen sharing application that will run on your computer or mobile device. Download and install it for free. Create an account. Many of us use the same name for our Discord account as our Minecraft account to keep things simple. Our channel is https://discord.gg/nDX4mZv It helps us to be able to play Minecraft in one screen and listen via Discord with earbuds or headphones.

Minecraft Monday

The first Monday of every month is Minecraft Monday. It happens at 8 PM Eastern time, in Maine USA. Unless that Monday is a holiday in the USA; then it’s the second Monday (like the Monday after Memorial Day in September, for example).

So on the second Monday in September 2019, at 8 in the evening on the eastern seaboard, USA, a group of miners, all educators from the looks of it, and mostly teachers of other young miners, met before bedtime for their monthly Monday play-date. By then I (Vance in Penang, Malaysia) was just waking up the following morning, Tuesday midnight Sept 10 UTC. So for me and folks in Europe and parts east of there, it’s Minecraft Tuesdays.

The event was announced by Kim Harrison (a.k.a. K4sons / Thunder in SL) as an informal discussion about ways to use Minecraft at school while building in the creative side of VSTE Place.

Basic directions to join VSTE Place, VSTE’s Minecraft world 

To participate in Minecraft Mondays, you must have a computer Minecraft account from https://minecraft.net/en/. There is a one time fee of $26.95. Download and install the software. Choose multiplayer and add a server:

  • Name VSTE Place IP 69.175.17.26:25565
  • Our server is protected. You will need to be whitelisted to enter. For that, email Kim Harrison at [email protected] from an educational email address with your real name and Minecraft account name.

Discord

Discord is a voice and screen sharing application that will run on your computer or mobile device. In order to talk with others in VSTE virtual environments, you need to download and install it for free. It helps us to be able to play Minecraft in one screen and listen via Discord with earbuds or headphones.

Create an account.

  • Many of us use the same name for our Discord account as our Minecraft account to keep things simple.
  • Our channel is https://discord.gg/nDX4mZv 

Discussion and links from the group chat in Discord

Someone asked if people in the group were planning to use Minecraft with their students next term. I was quite surprised that one or two in the group answered in the negative, giving reasons of reduced funding for licenses and adequately powerful computers for students to use to run Minecraft, and poor to negligible technical and admin support, which again are additional symptoms of under-funding for staffing and overtime for after-school activities. If schools could fund creativity through increased staffing, it seems to me they would. It seems to me a step in the very wrong direction when a school system can’t support the efforts of teachers to integrate into their curricula something as creative and promotional of critical thinking as Minecraft. As someone else said in the chat, he thought you could teach anything in Minecraft. The point was discussed, and someone else pointed out the learning was in the discussion following the meaningful play, and that it takes a teacher with experience and the instincts to be able to convert game play into meaningful discussion, and from there into learning outcomes that jibe with the curriculum.

Again, this is just my opinion, but it seems to me that the nation has a crying need to be led by someone who can let the people’s elected congress decide where the money gets spent and stop draining it off arbitrarily (from schools, from disaster relief, from the military e.g. military schools) on pet, cosmetic, and ineffective partisan projects, and someone who would appoint as secretary of the Dept. of Education a highly qualified person who was passionate about and seriously attuned to education, not ignorant of its nuances, and who rose to her position only through her wealth and whom she had graced with it.

Anyway, it would have been unseemly to have raised all this in the chat, but I did mention that though I was not planning to use Minecraft with students this year, I was planning to use it with teachers, as I have done for the past five years, in the upcoming EVO sessions (Electronic Village Online, https://evosessions.pbworks.com). I invited those present to check our website (I say ‘our’ because two present at this event, Kim Harrison and Beth O’Connell) have been moderators of our EVO Minecraft MOOC sessions. I posted the URL for more information in the Discord chat, http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/.

Speaking of discussion afterwards, as people were departing, I lingered to talk with someone named SunTzu about the comic books he was generating from his work with students in virtual worlds. Called Second Life Adventure Comics, SunTzu said he’d be “willing to do one for educators if we can come up with an interesting story narrative and visuals and hopefully have a purpose to use it”. See his work at https://sl-ac.weebly.com/
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SunTzu uses Gyayzo to get the screen captures for his books, https://gyazo.com/f09ad6d02347442005b72ae974bda5e5. To read the books click on the links at top of the images that say SCAC 19-01, 02, and 03 (the book icons also appear hyperlinked, so clicking on just the text above the icons was not intuitive).

To visit SunTzu in world, follow this SLURL in Second Life
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gulls%20Wing%20Marina/81/195/22

What happened on the day

Here are some of the screen shots I made while engaged in this event. There are more screen captures uploaded to the Discord chatroom for those who wish to talk with VSTE teachers.

Most of those present just started building, all in creative mode, with unlimited tools and resources at their disposal. We start with an overview taken from across the way looking back on where the building was taking place

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And moving in closer as the building was getting under way

2019-09-10_08.25.34Mainecakes made a turtle pond, complete with turtle she’d either spawned or lured there. Once done, she set about decorating the area with some of the plants available in creative inventory.

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K4sons set about making a saddlery shop. Some of the local mobs came around to have a look. I right clicked on one. I could have grabbed a few dozen lumps of coal from inventory and traded them with him for the emerald he had concealed under his cloak.

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SunTzu and Beth_Ghostraven created a crenelated castle and when they moved to the second floor, the ground floor started attracting spiders and zombies, who tend to emerge during periods of relative darkness, such as rainstorms. In the screenshot below someone has slain a zombie and left its rotten carcass there for someone else to collect. If you accumulate such carcasses you can trade them with villagers for things you can’t find otherwise in Minecraft.

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JazMar created something with impenetrable doors, so I had to catch him/her working with screenshots made through the windows. At one point a skeleton took up a position near one of the doors. He turned and faced me as I moved around him. However, as we were in creative mode, he did not attack. But then Beth appeared on the scene and took her sword to him. Before succumbing to that he got off an arrow that caught her on the bum. Ouch!

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And when Dak arrived, he set about constructing one of his signature neo-monolithic structures. Asked how he could do it so quickly, he said he had done it so many times before. He is indeed a prolific and experienced builder. I followed him through the roof on the staircase leading to the ground floor, where I watched Dakotah making hasty improvements to the decor there, ignoring a llama and a neutered skeleton who had taken up residence downstairs.

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I created my own monstrosity on a plateau behind where the others were building.

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At the end of the day, we all gathered, as you do, for selfies and photos. There are more group photos in the Discord chat room. Those who are members can get there using this link: https://discordapp.com/channels/154391510064824320

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Coming up at VSTE

Next week, in Second Life at VSTE Space we will talk about the books we read this summer.

Basic directions to join VSTE Space

If you don’t have a Second Life account, you can get one for free. We recommend setting one up at the Rockcliffe University Consortium’s Gateway here:https://urockcliffe.com/reg/second-life/  Here’s how

  1. Download and install the software.
  2. While your Second Life viewer (software) is open click this link http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Soulgiver/155/144/58 and voila!
  3. Look for an avatar on VSTE Space and say, “Hey, I’m new!” We will take care of the rest.

We now have office hours every Saturday from 9 am to 11 am Eastern time.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Soulgiver/155/144/58

Written by Vance Stevens and originally published on his blog, Learning2gether. It is reprinted here with his permission.

Help Plan Minecraft Survival Summer II: May 7 at 8 PM

logo for minecraftThe VSTE VE PLN will once again "Survive the Summer" in Minecraft! This year, the organizer, Kim Harrison, is asking for community input when planning this experience. Anyone interested being part of this now-annual event should meet with the team on Monday, May 7, at 8 PM Eastern time, in Minecraft ( IP address 69.175.17.26:25565) and on Discord (https://discord.gg/ZHbjsv) to discuss it.

Participants may be able to earn points from their division with the VSTE certificate of participation. There will be a list of achievements to accomplish within a certain time period. Participants can complete them in a few weeks or take the entire summer. The idea is to have fun while networking with other educators inside Minecraft, learn why our students love this game, and brainstorm ways to use it for instruction.

Won't you come help organize?

In order to participate, you must have a computer Minecraft account from https://minecraft.net/en/ to join. There is a one time fee of $26.95. Download and install the software. Choose multiplayer and add a server: Name VSTE Place IP 69.175.17.26:25565 Our server is protected. If you want to be whitelisted to enter anytime you want to continue building this, or anything else, email Kim Harrison at [email protected] or [email protected] from an educational email address with your real name and minecraft name.

The Virtual Environments Professional Learning Network sponsors events in virtual environments including Minecraft and Second Life. The best way to keep up with their work is to join their Google Plus community.