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 bought a few licenses for Minecraft EDU, and will be exploring its potential as an educational environment for our library clients. We are also exploring ways to interact with Minecraft by using the Kinect camera, projector, and a wall in our library makerspace area.



I'm sure you've heard of Minecraft - it's the second most played video game. Minecraft is an online game in an environment created in 3D. As a sandbox game players can go wherever they want and do whatever they want such as building and creating structures made of cubes that are textured. Activities in the game include exploration, resource gathering, crafting, and combat. There are three types of gameplay (survival and creative), as well as various third-party mods that allow for additional content.



Minecraft EDU is a special Minecraft version specifically designed for use in classrooms. It offers numerous enhancements to the original game to makes it more effective and suitable for institutional environments. Minecraft EDU offers free lesson and activity worlds, and there's an active community of players exploring the educational benefits of Minecraft and sharing resources. Watch this video to find out more about Minecraft and Minecraft EDU as the ultimate Educational Tool'.



There are a few libraries that are Minecraft-based. For instance the Old Dominion University in Virginia has used Minecraft to create a replica library that you can tour. They also developed an online game. There are many amazing Minecraft libraries and exciting projects such as the University of Hull's HullCraft.



The Library makerspace has set up an MineCraft EDU account, with 25 licenses, and began experimenting with the creation of a virtual learning space. There are many possibilities for modifications. For instance, implementing quests that require players to explore the world 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 into ways to interact with Minecraft using physical gestures rather than the keyboard.



In this regard we have been working with HIVE and Jiayi Zhu who is an undergraduate student in computer science through the HIVE's summer internship program. Over the past 3 months Jiayi has written software for Kinect v 2. Ealatorre Kinect v 2 to allow people to interact with the Minecraft game with a variety of gestures that allow them to walk, jump, pick up, place and demolish blocks, as well as open the inventory to select and place items. We're planning to continue working on this project with a group of computer science students throughout the year. We also hope to test MinecraftEDU learning activities that could be used in conjunction with it. We will soon post more details about this project.


Website: https://www.ealatorre.com/