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Microsoft is using Minecraft to vie for kids’ brain space and schools’ dollars

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Re: Microsoft is using Minecraft to vie for kids’ brain space and schools’ dollars

#21

Post by cwyers »

weavie wrote: post #8
inputcoffee wrote: post #2

Has anyone here programmed minecraft? Can you report to the rest of us how the following compare as learning experiences: 1. Minecraft 2. Swift Playground 3. Commodore 64 or other old basic 4. Game Salad, or Game Maker, 5. Just learning Javascript in the browser I know #2 is my favorite experience, but I think #5 is the most useful now. Just wondering if anyone has played around with minecraft to compare. If I had to…

What I really enjoyed with Minecraft was using a plugin which enabled you to connect a Clojure repl to the server [1]. It was great fun being able to write some code to spawn cows and then blow them up all in real time. With a bit of work, and some better documentation I think a real time environment coupled with something that kids are really into could make for a great educational experience. [1] https://github.com…

I have a hard time putting into words how little interest I have in Minecraft personally, but I may have to buy a copy myself to see if I can get this working and get my daughter interested in it.

Re: Microsoft is using Minecraft to vie for kids’ brain space and schools’ dollars

#23

Post by cjdell »

inputcoffee wrote: post #2

Has anyone here programmed minecraft? Can you report to the rest of us how the following compare as learning experiences: 1. Minecraft 2. Swift Playground 3. Commodore 64 or other old basic 4. Game Salad, or Game Maker, 5. Just learning Javascript in the browser I know #2 is my favorite experience, but I think #5 is the most useful now. Just wondering if anyone has played around with minecraft to compare. If I had to…

I created this as a kids learning tool: http://webblocks.uk/

Has a built in code editor. Had the opportunity to run a few workshops around it. Kids seemed to enjoy it.

Re: Microsoft is using Minecraft to vie for kids’ brain space and schools’ dollars

#24

Post by thr0waway1239 »

Haul4ss wrote: post #5

When Apple makes an iPad app to teach kids a programming language useful only in the Apple ecosystem, they're promoting STEM education. When Microsoft leverages a massively popular game to promote STEM education, they're weaponizing.

When I saw Apple's playground story yesterday, my first reaction was that it would be benchmarked against Minecraft. Perhaps an example of the submarine [1]?

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Re: Microsoft is using Minecraft to vie for kids’ brain space and schools’ dollars

#25

Post by douche »

vvanders wrote: post #11
Haul4ss wrote: post #5

When Apple makes an iPad app to teach kids a programming language useful only in the Apple ecosystem, they're promoting STEM education. When Microsoft leverages a massively popular game to promote STEM education, they're weaponizing.

Exactly. Microsoft has always offered educational versions of Visual Studio at discounted/zero cost. I clearly remember getting a student copy of Visual Basic(VS6.0!) for ~$50. I built all sorts of stupid things with that and while it definitely biased me in favor of Microsoft tools you know what else it did? Helped me into a rich and diverse career in a wide array of technologies and stacks. Anything that helps brid…

It used to be called DreamSpark, and it was awesome when I was in college - particularly since in those days, the Express, single-language free versions of VS hadn't come out quite yet, and the community edition was yet to be a twinkle in someone's eye.

It looks like they give away many Azure services now as well (https://catalog.imagine.microsoft.com/en-us)

Re: Microsoft is using Minecraft to vie for kids’ brain space and schools’ dollars

#26

Post by gdulli »

Haul4ss wrote: post #5

When Apple makes an iPad app to teach kids a programming language useful only in the Apple ecosystem, they're promoting STEM education. When Microsoft leverages a massively popular game to promote STEM education, they're weaponizing.

HN definitely has this bias and it's not a place to expect reasonable discussion of Microsoft, but if you look at the actual headline of the article instead of the submitted one the use of "weaponize" has more context and makes sense: "Microsoft Weaponizes Minecraft in the War over Classrooms"

Re: Microsoft is using Minecraft to vie for kids’ brain space and schools’ dollars

#28

Post by orf »

Games like this are the best way to teach programming. I first started by programming Counter Strike Source mods using EventScripts that let you write mods in Python. That changed my life.

Small 2D games are cool to look at and kind of fun, but nothing is better than taking a game you already love and scripting it. Far better than making a tortoise walk across the screen, it's more engrossing and rewarding and it becomes sort of a game in itself. You want to make your UZI shoot bananas? Figure out what that weird error is and you can.

Kudos to Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft is using Minecraft to vie for kids’ brain space and schools’ dollars

#29

Post by na85 »

Haul4ss wrote: post #5

When Apple makes an iPad app to teach kids a programming language useful only in the Apple ecosystem, they're promoting STEM education. When Microsoft leverages a massively popular game to promote STEM education, they're weaponizing.

Look, I hate Apple as much as the next guy, but I don't get the sudden benevolence for Microsoft that's cropped up in the last few years.

Microsoft has a well-known history of user-hostile and downright unethical behaviour, notwithstanding this latest bit of spyware they call Windows 10.

Re: Microsoft is using Minecraft to vie for kids’ brain space and schools’ dollars

#30

Post by rocky1138 »

thesimpsons1022 wrote: post #17
rocky1138 wrote: post #3

If you're a developer looking to fight this, I'd suggest taking a look at Minetest, which started out as a fully libre open-source clone of Minecraft but has really grown into its own project in its own right. The core engine is C++ and mods are programmed using Lua. http://www.minetest.net/#about

and why do you want to fight it?

Embrace, extend, extinguish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extingui...
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