Minecraft Education Edition It will Launch In Early Access

A new version of Minecraft developed for the classroom is now available for early access. Minecraft: Education Edition was announced back in January alongside Microsoft's acquisition of MinecraftEdu, a team that had already been developing the game for teachers. The new version is available for free this summer until the per-student pricing model is launched for the academic year. Microsoft has offered MinecraftEdu customers a year's free access to Education Edition as a thank you. It is likely to start after the trial expires.

The Education Edition of Minecraft has certain advantages over the vanilla version. Right off the bat, up 30 students can be taught and work together in the same world which eliminates the need to set up an individual server using an online service like Minecraft Realms. To create a more guided experience for students, teachers can create a non-player characters (NPC) and provide them with URLs to access additional resources. There's also a chalkboard item for displaying instructions and an camera that students can use to snap pictures of their work, creating an in-game portfolio along the way.

Microsoft says it is currently working on many other features requested by the public. The new interface provides teachers with the ability to map out their classrooms with markers for each student, the possibility of teleporting users (should someone wander off or mess up), and a chat area to manage class-wide and private conversations. Minecraft has proven to be a highly effective educational tool. It is able to teach geography, art and coding. There is an official version for schools.

FEAH