Tabletop Games
A selection of some of my well travelled games. What? Saturday April 30th 2016 was International Tabletop (board game) day. I hope you grabbed your friends and family and spent the…
Collaboration for Survival and Creativity
"Community Garden" by Gumby Blockhead, on Flickr There have been a couple of very clear examples over the past week that point to how successful Minecraft can be in promoting…
Design and Build
This summer I taught summer school for the Toronto District School Board's Model Schools Inner City (MSIC) program. This year the MSIC added a STEM task to the Math and…
Measurement and Merriment
Last week I made reference to a math lesson that inspired a 40 minute conversation about skins in Minecraft. It was a lesson that came at the end of our…
Passion for Play
As many of you already know, I run 2 junior/intermediate Minecraft clubs. But what you might not know is that since I created these clubs I have been the target…
Why Gamification is still BS
About two years ago, I gave up trying to tell teachers why Gamification isn't new, bold or innovative. In the past, I'd jump into any Twitter discussion and try to…
Using Student Interest Without Being an Expert
Site of home and bridge building at the Jean Augustine Girls' Leadership Academy (TDSB) area in the Minecraft Multi School Server. My student teacher @megpolley has never played Minecraft. She…
Perseverance in the Face of Technology
Perseverance is: "a steady persistence in a course of especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles or discouragement" (). We try and scaffold our students' learning so that they develop this character trait, along…
Multi-School Server Gets TNT World
Blowing stuff up in Minecraft is fun. We've been doing it since 2011, sometimes with disastrous results. And it's something our students love to do. While playing with TNT is…
Thinking through Redstone…
Thinking through Redstone Author: Zoe Branigan-Pipe My son compares Redstone in Minecraft to Electricity in the "Real World". He explains, that this wire like application has endless possibilities when it…