I am aware that the title of this blog post might be slightly provocative. Good. That’s the point. I really want you who are working in school to read this post. Or maybe you are a parent and (like me) worried about your child playing games rather than doing homework and ”learning” something.
Different learning styles
We all have different ways to receive and process information and gain knowledge. Some of us learn through practical experience, others through theoretical studies. But, more commonly, we gain knowledge through a mixture of both.
We can discern four different learning styles:
- Visual – using sight to gain knowledge
- Auditory – listening and gaining knowledge that way
- Kinesthetic/tactile – through acting and performing, using your body/hands to gain knowledge
Taking this into consideration, I have been viewing games as a possible and powerful educational tool for a long time. In addition, games often use mechanisms that trigger motivation and other basic needs in a very exciting way.
Game Mechanisms
Gamification has been a buzzword during 2012, especially when it comes to school issues. The concept of gamification includes increased motivation to complete a task through game mechanisms, a sense of belonging, finding confidence in their character, problem solving (both individually and as a team), guidance along the way, etc.
Living with Asperger Syndrome
My son has Asperger’s. He is, like all children, wonderful and amazing with his unique strengths and weaknesses that must be overcome. But for him, like for many children (and adults) with Asperger’s, obstacles can be especially difficult and what is easy might be additionally easy.
Mainly my son’s difficulties are noticeable in the school environment. At home, we provide an environment that gives him the means to succeed in his everyday life and to develop and live up to his full potential. We often use visual support such as picture schedules with checklists, timers and reminders, picture cards to choose activity etc. Furthermore, we have routines for meals (energy refill), physical activity and we adapt the environment to suit him (including not moving around things in our home, not having strong light sources, adjusting audio etc. making sure not to interfere). Socially, we work a lot with social stories (Ritprata) in order for him to understand himself in relation to others, giving him small social tasks, such as going to the bakery etc…
I fully understand that the school has difficulties providing the same platform and opportunities for my son and his learning, in spite of the fact that Swedish law says they should. What if things were different?
(Please note that Asperger Syndrome has nothing to do with intellect. Most people with Asperger Syndrome have normal intellectual abilities or above average.)
Minecraft as a teaching tool
Something happens to my son’s self-esteem when he is playing games. In the game world he is confident, he dares to try things and, above all, he feels good and competent. He makes new friends in the game, he gets to practice his social skills, he feels like part of a group and he gets positive feedback from other players. He also learns how to accept defeat as well as letting others win for the group or for the game to go on.
To understand how Minecraft could serve as an educational tool it is not enough to read about it online, or to sit next to the person while he or she is playing. Like in many other cases, we need to try for ourselves in order to understand and see what opportunities are available.
I wanted to see if I could help him overcome his difficulties with writing and reading, by adapting to my son’s learning style and source of motivation as well as by using a digital teaching tool.
Guess what! I found the answer to this and so much more!
I dare say that Minecraft is by far one of the most educating digital tools we can find on the market today. It is actually much better than many products by educational publishers in the same field. But it takes some ingenuity, time and dedication to understand the mindset.
How we use Minecraft for learning
Me and my son have one Minecraft account each. It costs about $ 20. We play ”creative mode” which means that there are no monsters or obstacles in the game. We open up a Minecraft world which we distribute to our own network at home, so that only we have access to ”our world”.
For the uninitiated, Minecraft is a construction game where you build your own environment by using a variety of elements and materials found in the nature. You can then use these to create different tools and objects. You can also put up signs and classify things in the surroundings, which we have been doing a lot as an excuse to writing. Moreover, he has shown great interest in translating from English to Swedish while playing, as well as understanding other players (who write in English) while playing on other platforms.
During the game, I can use the chat feature to write brief instructions to my son where I encourage him to do certain tasks. He reads my chat and gives response by writing his own commands to me. At first this was a little frustrating for him because he wanted to be able to both read and write back quickly. But the game was so motivating in itself that he struggled with the keys more and more. Finally things went much faster. I have also started writing down common English phrases and asking him in English to find objects or do things in the surroundings.
Since Minecraft is a fairly complex game and you cannot learn everything overnight, it also encourages you to search for information from other sources. My son has learned how to use YouTube, Google and Wikipedia as a natural way to look for information that can be applied in the game. He has also started to produce and publish his own videos on YouTube, teaching others about the game.
Besides encouraging and motivating young people to read and write, there are other things that Minecraft has to offer. Me and ICT teacher Annika have created a map showing how to learn within the curriculum and school subjects using Minecraft.
Thanks for reading!
Map which connects Minecraft to school subjects and the Swedish school curriculum
(in Swedish) http://popplet.com/app/#/676799
Lukas explains Minecraft and read (in Swedish)
Great post. I can fully relate to your experience. When my son (also 9y old) started playing he was actually quite good at reading/writing but what happend was that his English skills rather quickly improved 10-fold because he wanted to improve in the game and was forced to search for information and wanted to know the instructions. So he started using Google Translate and moved on from there. Furthermore the play has given him new friends because he plays online with them (and yes they meet in real life as well
).
Your showing the world wonderful information. You have a great son and I applaud you.
Hi!!! I’m a Minecraft user and a teacher as well. Once, my boyfriend told me he wanted to play with our future sons Minecraft. instantly I said not, ”they should play outside, blah blah blah”. A few minutes ago he showed me this… and I have no words
Thank you!!!!!!
I was not talking about this but playing all the time in front of the computer but I loved this post. I do believe games are great as a teaching strategy and I like to read this helps children for real.
Could you post the connects-map in english or at least in a .doc in order to translate it? I’d like to see your thoughts. I know it is an extra work but I’d appreciate it
good job! keep going, this is great!
Hello, Anna,
Thank you for this illuminating post. Are you aware of a program called Minecraftedu that aims to encourage pedagogical uses of Minecraft in traditional school settings? It seems like your experiences verify the cultural hunch that Minecraft is a powerful game for education and other uses.
I especially think it is important for people to realize that using it as a tool and not a game does take tremendous work. Still, if it can help your son and other learners with their particular challenges it is work worth doing.
Thank you again,
Jordan
I have Asperger’s too, and I know how much we can get really focused (okay, obsessed) with a single topic. For me, it’s motor racing. For your son, it’s Minecraft. When people can connect with us through what we love, it’s fantastic. We will pretty much do ANYTHING if it relates to the thing we are interested in.
If he’s anything like me, one day your son will find something else to be interested in and you’ll have to do this all over again, but hopefully the Minecraft obsession will last a few years!
I remember when I was young, maybe seven or eight. I would sit next to my father as he played SimCity 2000 and constantly interrogated him about what the English terms meant. Later we would reverse the roles – I would play and he would sit next to me and answer my questions and give hints to my city planning, gradually distancing himself as I grew more comfortable.
I’m absolutely convinced that early experiences like that were far more educational than anything I learned in school. My familiarity with English let me read books no-one else could understand and indulge in foreign hobbies, and those things further compounded to let me keep up a degree of English that put me miles above the norm (though the rigid and unchallenging school system did mean that my grades dropped when I lost interest in the tasks given).
Games – be they computer games, board games, role-playing games or something else – as long as they sit partly outside of your comfort zone, will drive you to push your boundaries in ways that school rarely can. Because games are intrinsically crafted to be interesting, and the only way we can learn something is if we’re interested in it.
School basically only works as intended for two types of people: the ones who can be inspired by the idea of learning by itself, and the ones who can motivate themselves based on a future goal (getting into the university you want, getting the job of your dreams, etc).
Games, on the other hand, will work for everybody (who are willing to try them, and not all games will work for everybody). ”Educational” games tend to be incredibly dull, because what they all tend to do is to trick the players into doing school exercises. What you need is a game with integral mechanics or information the players need to grasp in order to succeed, structured in a non-arbitrary way. Having to spell 20 words correctly to proceed to the Forest Kingdom is arbitrary, figuring out that you can make glass for your windows by smelting sands is not.
A few games that I adore that have educationally valuable mechanics and themes are games like the Sim and Tycoon games (I grew up on SimCity, RollerCoaster Tycoon and Railroad Tycoon. Tons of valuable understanding of economics and resources), the Civilization series (historically important people, civilizations, and technologies; and the rise of civilizations from the stone age to the future), and the grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive (medieval, renaissance, revolutionary era, and world war history).
Anna,
Thanks for the amazing post. I have a friend working in the education field who I play games with(Minecraft and Second Life), and one of our frequent topics of conversation is gaming to educate. This is exactly the kind of real world use that we love hearing about, and I’ll be passing this on to her.
I run a child/family friendly cooperative survival server for Minecraft – very few users, but we’re a close-knit community of real life friends. If you’re ever interested in visiting our server with your son to ”take a field trip” or chat with friendly people, my contact information is on my webpage. Just email me your minecraft names and I will add you to the server whitelist.
Another great platform for what you are doing would be the Second Life engine, but I would not recommend actually using Second Life. It’s way too adult oriented. I would suggest something like ReactionGrid -
http://reactiongrid.com/
John Lester, The Chief Learning Officer at ReactionGrid Keeps a blog as well -
http://becunningandfulloftricks.com/
ReactionGrid would be a fantastic way to get your child into programming. They use the C# language for scripting, which is used by other Opensim grids, as well as having other real world applications. Programming didn’t make as much sense to me until I had visaual representations of what my scripting was doing. There are also already other educational environments already in ReactionGrid – the NOBLE virtual world comes to mind.
Again, thanks for the wonderful post.
As a teacher, I really appreciate parents like you who are involved in and conducive to their child’s learning. It can be difficult, almost impossible, in a large public school setting to work one-on-one with each student, the most effective way to teach and learn. Parents can be a teacher’s best asset in discovering an individual student’s best learning practice, because parents have such greater insight into their children. Parents like you are really an asset to teachers. I love this idea, and I’m going to refer to it at my school’s next faculty meeting. Thanks so much for being such a great parent and advocate for your son!
Love this post! My son is 11, and also loves MC. Like your son, it has encouraged him to read, and discover so much, plus he is awesome at it, so it builds his confidence while he learns!
Thank you for sharing this. My daughter, 8, was recently diagnosed with Aspergers and we are navigating through some new territory still unsure of how best to assit her on her path. She too loves video games and I see potential to helping her learn this way. I set up a private Instagram account for her as a way for her to share her world and practice her spelling with captioning her photos.
This is wonderful. I love it when I see how Minecraft helps parents connect with kids. I have this same experiance with my son. It is how he is learning to type.
My son was 10 before he learned to read. We educate him at home. It was not until he started to play games that he had any interest at all in reading. I can’t remember now what game it was that captured his attention, he is 16 in a few weeks time, but he wanted to play it so much that it gave him the motivation that he has thus far lacked to learn to read. He then wanted to talk to other kids about the game and we went into the games rooms together. He now has virtual friends from all over the world; he plays on line in our sitting room. He texts he friends, real and virtual, and he is at the moment total addicted to Minecraft as are his neurotypical friends.
It’s not just reading either this game encompasses many other subjects like maths, physics and electronics to name but a few.
I love this blog. My seven yr old is autistic and loves Minecraft. He does things inside this world that he cannot do in his own. By reading this, you have given me another direction to take him and I thank you. I am challenged when it comes to gaming and had no idea other avenues to take with this. Guess it is time for this mom to become more educated with the gaming world. Anything that unlocks some of the doors for my son which will help him grow and come out of the shell he lives in.
Thank you from Texas!
I made the decision to get my autistic (PPD) grandson a computer because he loved to play games. I debated for quite some time knowing the addictiveness of games. When I noticed my grandson vegetating in front of the TV during the long winter months, I decided for the computer. At least he will be mentally active with the games was my reasoning. I was surprised to find out that not only was he mentally challenged in a way that encouraged him to want more, he was learning to read, to communicate with others, spell, form stategy, follow directions, learn by trial and error, form groups (clans) and set up rules for their operation and as an added plus since he was left handed and had difficulties with using his right hand, I left the mouse in right hand use and he has learned to use that hand more efficiently. Yes he is addicted to games, but I think the benefits far outweight this. He has learned to use virtual money and how to budget his allowance to it’s best advantage. He has learned to earn game money and goods by improving his game. All in all I think the games have taught him more about living in the real world than we could have taught him in years of teaching in conventional ways.
Thanks so much for sharing. There is a growing group of educators using Minecraft in schools for various purposes, and meeting with great success. Here’s a video introduction to my own use of the game with my classes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y6zwv5MZpo
I totally appreciate this article! Everything thinks we are crazy for letting our son play video games, but he learned to read because of them. He’s 6 and was reading and writing well before most of his friends because of games like Minecraft. He was able to chat with us and write full sentences well before he should have because he wanted to play the game. Bravo Minecraft! Now he’s learning some ”science” and big words on Dragonvale.
minecraft is great,it gives my 11yr old something she feels good at,there are times she wont talk all day,but she gets on this game and all she does is talk mom look at this,mom look at that,i tell her i dont understand the game i need her to explane it to me and she will for hours,its so nice to see her happy about something.
Awesome post, the kind that had me saying ”YES!” out loud at every main point.
My oldest has Asperger’s and my youngest does not. My youngest has learned MANY school and community skills through Minecraft and is now a Junior Moderator at http://massivelyminecraft.org/ thanks to some awesome mentoring by the server host, who is a teacher in New Zealand. My youngest has Skyped in to a number of teacher conferences by request, explaining the educational values of the game — so at age 13, he is an ”international speaker” of sorts, in Scotland and Australia and New Zealand. By the way, Minecraft is one of the few subjects that my two sons can converse about without arguing. Incredible game, wonderful people who teach children how to use it well.
What an encouraging thing it is to find people valuing computer games – especially Minecraft! I was won over by my 7 year old, who has Aspergers, because of his enormous enthusiasm for this game and how he ‘comes alive’ through playing and reading about it but at the same time worried about how much time he was spending on it instead of other ‘more worthy’ activities. However from reading this blog and these comments I’m encouraged to get even more involved myself so I can maybe help him learn although he knows 100 times more about it than me.
Things we’ve talked about through Minecraft include stuff like mining for ores, smelting, the elements (periodic table), electrical circuits, the stone age, iron age for example.
As many people have commented it gives players who have difficulties such as Aspergers a chance to shine. He’s also showing an astonishing amount of patience with his blundering father who keeps falling down holes created by creepers!
What a relief to find and read your blog! Thanks
It’s amazing when people want something from the bottom of their heart, they dive deep. In your case, a passion for helping your son. I love to see the use of technology contributing to good faith and spirit. It motivates me to continue to work with technology. Thanks for sharing your son’s experience and congratulations. I will definitely try to incorporate this game in some after school activities.
This is amazing!! My son also has Aspergers and loves Minecraft, which has taught him how to spell (something I thought would never sink in, thank you Minecraft). My son asks endless questions (this is how he learns) so he has been kicked of many servers because of this (which breaks my heart). So I was wondering if you know of a server that might be more willing to accept him??
Thanks Carolyn