“Mr. Kahn, I have some ideas for our Exploratory. Some of the kids are kinda frustrated because they feel like they don’t have enough time to work on their projects. It might be like a good idea if the server could be available outside of our Exploratory period?”

Other suggestions that Rhys maturely expressed to me included:

• Switching to survival from creative mode to increase the challenge.
• Starting a new world to level the playing field so to speak.
• Having it be every man for themselves at first.
• Students could then form alliances and factions (This made me think of Survivor.)
• Install IConomy from Bukkit- shops/stores/games to set up and manage.

I told Rhys that these were great ideas, but I saw three problems.

Firstly, if the server were available outside of class, then some kids could just give out the IP address and give access to those not in the Exploratory class. His response, “Well, only students that are whitelisted can use the server.” Problem, solved.

Secondly, from off campus kids can’t to access the server through the school’s firewall. “If the server were hosted off campus then they could access it.” Problem, solved.

“But Rhys, what concerns me about the alliances or factions is having kids being left out or excluded, like being picked last for a game during P.E. or recess.” “But Mr. Kahn, the way the factions work is like, the more people they include the better, so that would prevent kids from being left out. We would also have rules and stuff on what kids can do and if they die, then we would have a spawning area.”

“So Rhys, we would just kind of see how it develops and unfolds. Right?”

“Right.”

As we were having this conversation, I was thinking about comments I heard at Minecon, either on the Education panel or the Social Change panel about how kids can learn about rules and consequences. There was a lot said about negative interactions in Minecraft being used to affect change with regard to how people treat each other.

My thoughts about Rhys’s suggestions were, while this might be messy at first, the new plan might evolve into something very meaningful.

Problem, solved.