There were 20 boys in my Exploratory class last semester. The next Exploratory class begins in two weeks and I hope to get some girls to sign up. I have been making references to Minecraft in my science classes this last semester and I heard many girls say things like, “What’s Mindcraft?” “I don’t know anything about Mindcraft.” I think you can see the problem here. So, I announced at assembly that I would offer a training course at lunch the next day for anybody interested in learning the game that was sweeping through our middle school. I knew everyone would forget, so I went around to some lunch tables and encouraged some of my girl students to bring their lunch and come up to the classroom. I think it is very important to get girls involved in technology, and Minecraft is a great way to do this. MinecraftEdu provides an excellent education version with an easy to use tutorial world for students. I watched a video by the Minecraft Teacher called Using MinecraftEdu – Part 1 – Introduction to learn how to set up the server tool; several clicks of the mouse and the server was up and running.

Some of my observations of the girls include: – how engaged they were in the game. – how social they were. – their physical proximity to each other; they preferred to bring the laptops near each other, rather than work separately at the lab stations. Safety in numbers, maybe, while trying something new?

Did I miss anything?

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