minecraft esports
Brief
Product
We were commissioned by Microsoft to explore the learning potential of Minecraft: Education Edition for esports, In particular we:
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Undertook an international literature review to investigate the educational impacts of esports including:
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Cognitive benefits & academic achievement
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Affect on intrinsic motivation
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Social & emotional skills
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Health & well-being
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Inclusion
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Connected with and interviewed esports educators in schools
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Developed a scholastic definition for esports as 'organised, competitive, collaborative play'
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Developed a Scholastic Esports Pathway for Educators
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Developed a series of Minecraft esports worlds
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Investigated Minecraft's potential to broaden the audience and be inclusive of groups who might ordinarily not participate.
You can read the highlights from our research and find out more about the benefits of esports in our blog series.
The final product is a suite of resources to enable educators to get started with Minecraft epsorts in their classroom, and includes:
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7 x Make & Model Build Battle Arenas
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7 x Coding Build Battle Arenas
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3 x Creative Clash Strategic-play Arenas
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Educator Guidebook
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Playbooks for each arena
The worlds are designed to encourage students to develop a range of 21st Century skills, including strategic thinking, adaptive, flexible thinking and dynamic decision-making. The highly collaborative and social aspects of esports, supports students in developing Social and Emotional skills, and since the learning takes place both within a digital game environment and in class, there are large opportunities for developing digital literacies.
Used in Sweden, France, South Africa, Canada and the US already, these resources are proving to be highly engaging and motivating for students, whilst being described as something of a Trojan Horse for learning by educators.
You can download the learning resources using the button below.