I should probably talk about how the Minecraft Elective got started in the first place. It all started last year when I asked my mom if I could use Minecraft to teach my brother area and volume. She agreed and I began creating a server to teach him the basics. As part of the project, I created lesson plans detailing my process. At the time, I was enrolled in Da Vinci Innovation Academy's High School Pilot. Since I needed an internship, a teacher named Chris Miko was gracious enough to be my mentor. I focused on applying gamification (the use of gaming mechanics in non-game contexts) to education. I used the two lessons I created for evidence of my internship.
Fast forward to September of 2012. I'm a full time homeschooler now, and Miko asked me if I would like to work with him to create a school server and an elective using Minecraft. We talked about how it would be a challenge to get funding. Ten minutes later, synchronicity struck. The principal of Da Vinci Innovation Academy told us that we had the funding from Pepperdine University. Looking back, things would have been much harder without that lucky timing with Pepperdine. Three weeks later, we were teaching an elective called Electrical Engineering and Minecraft.
The elective is about using Minecraft to explain and reinforce concepts about electrical engineering. The concepts we have learned so far range from the vocabulary and history of electricity to logic gates. Logic gates are a very important focus because understanding them is going to be fundamental to the elective's goal. Our goal as a class is to create a working redstone computer/calculator.
Fast forward to September of 2012. I'm a full time homeschooler now, and Miko asked me if I would like to work with him to create a school server and an elective using Minecraft. We talked about how it would be a challenge to get funding. Ten minutes later, synchronicity struck. The principal of Da Vinci Innovation Academy told us that we had the funding from Pepperdine University. Looking back, things would have been much harder without that lucky timing with Pepperdine. Three weeks later, we were teaching an elective called Electrical Engineering and Minecraft.
The elective is about using Minecraft to explain and reinforce concepts about electrical engineering. The concepts we have learned so far range from the vocabulary and history of electricity to logic gates. Logic gates are a very important focus because understanding them is going to be fundamental to the elective's goal. Our goal as a class is to create a working redstone computer/calculator.