Playing In The Virtual Sandbox Students Collaborative Practices In Minecraft
Minecraft is among the most played video games ever, having sold more than 100 million copies since its launch in 2009 (Huddleston 2016). The sandbox game lets players to build, explore or find ways to survive in virtual worlds. servers It is particularly popular with young people (Thompson 2016,). Teachers are beginning to recognize the potential advantages of Minecraft and are looking for ways to integrate it into their classes (Timoner 2014). welcome to my home In the classroom, Minecraft is being used to teach subjects and skills like math, physics, computational thinking, creativity and creativity, art as well as history, digital citizenship, and collaboration (e.g., Cipollone, Schifter, & Moffat, 2014; Craft, 2016; Hill, 2015; Overby & Jones, 2015; Short, 2012). A Minecraft: Education Edition is available to help teachers use Minecraft with students. Outside of the classroom, Minecraft camps and workshops have become popular in informal learning environments like libraries (e.g., Cilauro, 2015; Gauquier & Schneider, 2013). The interest of educators in Minecraft is part of a larger trend in game-based education (Gee 2007, 2008; Plass Homer, Kinzer, & Kinzer 2015; Squire 2006, 2008). These efforts are based upon a constructivist approach in education that encourages learners to build knowledge through open-ended activities that involve problem solving and decision-making.
Despite the widespread enthusiasm for Minecraft's ability to aid in learning, little research has been done. We lack empirical evidence documenting the benefits to learning, if any, related to using Minecraft to teach specific skills, and the conditions under which these benefits arise. As long as there is no evidence attempts to incorporate Minecraft and other games for multiplayer into teaching and learning will be based on hunches and guesses, not empirically supported best practices. Reviews
The present study aims to fill in this gap in knowledge with an investigation into middle school students' collaborative interactions while playing Minecraft in small groups of 2-4 players. Because collaboration is central to learning (Johnson & Johnson 1989; Rogoff 1998; Roschelle 1992), and because multiplayer games are particularly designed to be collaborative (Gee 2007; Plass et. al., 2015, Squire 2006, 2008 Steinkuehler 2004, 2004), we chose to focus our study on collaboration. While we acknowledge that collaboration is often employed in conjunction with other pedagogical aims however, this study deliberately focuses on collaboration as a focus of investigation. Prior research has shown that students have difficulty working together effectively, which can cause negative consequences to their learning outcomes (e.g. Barron, 2003). Collaboration is a key skill that students must master to reap the benefits of collaborative learning. This is a reason for a thorough study.
We focused our analysis on the kinds of discourse functions that players engaged in during the game, such as Engaging, Questioning, Instructing, and Encouraging (Bluemink, Hamalainen, Manninen, & Jarvela 2010). These findings offer new insights into the elements that promote or hinder high-quality collaboration in Minecraft. These insights will be useful to teachers who are interested in using Minecraft and other multiplayer games to promote collaboration among their students.
