The open forum on the success of Minecraft versus SL has attracted some really interesting reader comments, one of my favorites being this one from Jo Kay, an educator deeply involved with Second Life and OpenSim as a teaching tool:
One of the key factors IMHO is Minecraft's simplicity AND its complexity. A small child can quickly learn how to negotiate the space (without lengthy tutorials or clunky viewer software to learn) and get almost instant satisfaction from exploring and socializing, monster slaying and/or building a little house, castle, secret base etc.
Meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum, Minecraft allows for complex modding which has seen developers from around and world and across a huge age range creating their own versions and flavors of the game - from themed servers (Hunger Mines, Harry Potter etc) to Factions, Feed the Beast and PVP).
Additionally the extensive "metagame" that exists around the game is compelling - from YouTube stars to kids writing epic Minecraft theme stories and beyond, the eco-system of fan created media is endless and amazing and operates from beginner to elite. Kids are able to join that community easily via Twitch, Youtube, fan sites and Forums, and via coding communities like Bukkit.
... all of which leads to several advantages of Minecraft as a pedagogical platform:
From an educational perspective, tools that allow us to create all sorts of learning spaces and experiences for kids, including out on public servers such as the informal learning community I run for 1200 kids from around the world, through to classroom servers where teachers can manage things in house at relatively low cost and with low levels of drama for IT departments. There are also a range of options that can support kids learning to code or explore quantum physics for example. Unfortunately Second Life and OpenSim are still much harder and more costly to implement for most educators, and require much more knowledge/effort.
I love Second Life and OpenSim and work in those spaces too, and sometimes they are a better option for learning. It would be impossible to do some of the more complex simulation based learning we do with students in OpenSim on a Minecraft server. However, neither have that perfect mix of simplicity and complexity, nor the amazing community that Minecraft does.
More comments and thoughts soon!
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Playing around with Google Trends (if you believe such stuff) suggests that MinecraftEdu (the company) is on a bit of a rise although Minecraft itself is on a plateau. The latter might be because it holds attention for a finite span (like many games) but continues to attract new users to balance those leaving? Adding Twitter to the graph as a search term is interesting...
Posted by: Graham Mills | Friday, June 12, 2015 at 05:29 AM
erm, is interesting if you also include Minecraft.
Posted by: Graham Mills | Friday, June 12, 2015 at 05:30 AM