Notes

The Old Dominion University in Virginia

One of the exciting projects the Curtin Library Makerspace is working on this year is to establish an online makerspace using Minecraft. We have purchased some licences for Minecraft EDU, and will be investigating its potential as a learning environment for our library users. We are also investigating how we can interact with Minecraft using a Kinect camera or projector, as well as a wall in our library makerspace.



I'm sure that you've heard of Minecraft - it's the second most viewed video game. Minecraft is an online game that uses a 3D-generated environment. As a "sandbox" game, players can go wherever they want and play whatever they like including creating and building constructions out of cubes that are textured. Activities in the game include exploration, resource collection crafting, and combat. There are three modes of gameplay (survival and creative) as well as several mods from third-party developers that allow for additional content.



Minecraft EDU is a unique version of Minecraft designed specifically for classroom use, with many additions to the game that make it more useful and appropriate for use in an institution. Minecraft EDU offers free lesson/activity worlds. There is also a vibrant community that explores the educational uses and shares resources. This video will help you understand Minecraft and Minecraft EDU.



There are a few instances of Minecraft being utilized in libraries for academic use. For example, the Old Dominion University in Virginia has used Minecraft to create a replica library that you can visit. They also developed games. In fact there are some fantastic libraries that have been constructed in Minecraft and amazing projects such as the fantastic HullCraft at the University of Hull.
Rokan themes


The Library makerspace created an MineCraft EDU account, which includes 25 licenses, and began exploring the possibility of creating a virtual learning space. There are many options for modifying the game. For example, creating an adventure that requires players to navigate across the globe to complete the challenges could be an opportunity to teach information literacy. You can also create modifications or use an existing API, such as Trove's to find and explore library resources within Minecraft. We are also looking at ways to interact with the Minecraft environment using physical gestures, rather than the keyboard, by using the Kinect camera.



We have been working with Jiayi Zhu (a computer science student) through HIVE's summer intern program. Jiayi has been working on a software for the Kinect 2 in the last three months. The software lets users interact with Minecraft with a variety gestures, such as walking or jumping and picking up, putting and destroying blocks, and opening the inventory to choose and placing items. We hope to continue to work on this project throughout the year with an ensemble of computer science students, and to develop learning activities using MinecraftEDU that can be used in conjunction with the program. We will soon provide more information on this project.


My Website: https://rokanthemes.com/