Dungeons and Dragons - Minecraft: Educaton in St Lukes Catholic College.

Today I spent the day at the wonderful St Lukes Catholic College in Marsden Park, NSW. The school is in the Catholic Education diocese of Parramatta. All students have been given access to Minecraft: Education across the diocese for several years and we are seeing it go from strength to strength. I have been out to the school regularly over several years and love seeing the school grow. Today I caught up with the fantastic Principal (Kelly), Instructional Leader for Stage 3 (Scott) but spent the majority of the day with the amazing Josh, Stage 3 History & Esports lead along with his classes sharing some stunning Minecraft: Education work.

The students were in years 5 and 6 and being tasked with work from year 8 around Medieval architecture. They also followed the Australian Esports League guidelines (for example: starting with a flat world and working in groups so the best ones could enter this competition). The results of the learning were incredible. This was not a Minecraft build competition. It was a creative, historical research project and the discourse around the learning was evident.

One group of girls decided to pivot and look at Japanese, medieval architectures and researched and shared learnings around Life, Death and the Shogun era. You can see the temple and entrance ways above. Even the Cherry Blossoms flowered. They wanted to focus on the garden and natural habitat such as ponds and meditation areas.

This group (above) had created a full narrative. Not only about the clans within the castle walls but actually showed them in action. Archers poised ready to strike from the battlements to protect their king in the tower. There was even a dragon that had been let loose on some areas, where the wooden houses had burned and stone ones had not. The stories were gripping and I wish their English teacher would have been in the room.

The sheer scale of these builds I saw today was enormous. The students used code to scale out walls and create realistic forests.

The students spent a lot of time ensuring the buildings and environment were factually correct, from the timbers used to the animals roaming the farms.

The level of detail and research was fantastic and ranged from Blacksmith forges to secret treasury rooms brimmed to the roof with diamonds and gold. There were many social aspects of the builds too. These ranged from servant quarters to central fountains and even a church with a congregation and a stained glass window.

When asked about the experience the students said :

"We enjoyed writing the story connection around prince to become king. It made us realise why the architecture and areas were needed to defend and protect as well as provide food and water"

"We loved making or own armour and textures to make it realistic to the medieval times"

"It was quite challenging but helped us learn something that was totally new in History and made it fun to create what we had learned"

"I learned about design and even what medieval means. I thought it meant really bad and evil but it actually just means old"

"I learned a lot about programming.  Used it to copy and paste trees to make it look natural"

The teacher Josh commented to me that his general feeling was that "The quality of historical work and deep learning were much higher than if they didn't use Minecraft: Education as a vehicle to support their learning". We also discussed other ideas such as Ancient Egypt, ANZAC cove and other contexts.

This was such a privilege and a joy today. I was very lucky to spend the day at St Lukes again. Last time I was at the school Kylie and the team were looking at Excel Exams and really getting the kids ready for the world of work with the Microsoft tools at their disposal.

The staff and students at the school continue to blow me away with their innovative approach to the curriculum and study and I can't wait to see what's next! (Hopefully we can run an AI for Good / Imagine Cup Junior Hackathon early next year? What do you reckon Kelly?)