Minecraft Education Edition Launches In Early Access

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A new version of Minecraft designed for classroom use is now available in early access. Minecraft Education Edition was released in January as part of Microsoft's acquisition MinecraftEdu, which is a team which has been developing the game for teachers. The upgrade will be made available free of charge this summer, before a per student pricing model is introduced for academic year. Microsoft has provided MinecraftEdu customers a year's free access to Education Edition as a thank you. The offer will likely kick in after the trial ends. alusky's blog



Education Edition has several advantages over the default version of Minecraft. From the beginning, up to 30 students can learn and work together within the same world which eliminates the need to establish an account on a private server via an online service such as Minecraft Realms. games To provide a more supervised experience for students, teachers can design a non-player character (NPC) and provide them with web URLs to access additional resources. Also, there's a chalkboard for displaying instructions and a camera that students can use to snap snapshots of their work and create an in-game portfolio as they go along. alusky's blog



Microsoft states that it is working on a host of other features that users have asked for. These include a new interface that gives teachers the option of a map (with markers for each student) as well as the possibility of teleporting users (should they begin to play around or wander off accidentally) and chat windows for managing both private and classroom-wide conversations. Minecraft has already proven itself to be a very effective tool for education. It can teach the arts, geology, and even coding. There is an official version available for schools.