It was a really fun class today full of really engaging materials discussed! In reality, I did not know of much digital games to use in a class. I have done a lot of physical games in a classroom, but growing up with limited technology available in each classroom, I don’t think my teachers ever tried so hard for digital literacy.

MineCraft education was an amazing discovery. I know it was discussed a handful of times and some of my friends in upper year education has also said they have tried using it in their practicums, but it was the first time I got it explained to me how it works. I have played Minecraft growing up and I personally really enjoyed being able to build a lot of things as freely as I want and to hear that it has educational benefit is amazing! I was surprised that there’s a survival mode in the education version as well. I thought the creative mode has many benefits to spatial awareness, creativity and some math, but I questioned that survival mode is really about surviving in the wilderness. That’s when I suddenly thought of the use of film in education from the pro-d day presentation and the portions of our drama class last semester. Exposing students to various situations under controlled environment and making vivid lived experiences really do change the bounds of education and make it more applicable and fun. From this I thought the survival mode of Minecraft could really enhance the student problem solving skills, quick strategizing, awareness of the resources and potentially even collaborating under some stress. I do understand that we need to be mindful of individual students when giving a stressor, but I also believe that a continuous stressor of any sort is needed for growing and expanding their comfort zone and learning. I would be using Minecraft education for sure in my teaching practice and maybe even in my upcoming practicum!

I only realized after playing around with Scratch that I have used it before in my computers class in grade 8 rotation block for ADST courses. I really like this application and although I’m nowhere near proficient in coding, I would like to introduce the concept to the students in school, because it is definitely becoming a language in post modern society. In my personal opinion, there’s the mother tongue and various other languages, and there’s music, drama, art and codes that also now serve as a mode of communication universally. I didn’t have much creative idea in the morning to aim towards making anything meaningful, but I clicked through multiple things and added and took out stuff to play around with Scratch and my final outcome is below! I’m honestly excited to integrate these things into a classroom learning, which might equip students for the society we now live in.