02 Jul 2024
ISTE Live 2024 is in the books! What a great way to kickstart summertime and celebrate a huge year for educators innovating with technology and games. We hope you’ll take some time this summer to unwind and explore new ways Minecraft can spark engagement and learning this Back to School.
We had a big week spotlighting AI and coding solutions for teachers, supporting more than 14 Minecraft sessions, many hosted by educators in the Minecraft Teachers’ Lounge community, putting esports on the mainstage with a high-energy student build battle in partnership with Microsoft, ISTE, CDW and Intel, and helping tons of educators and parents see how students learn in Minecraft with fun booth conversations. ISTE is the largest edtech event in the United States, and always an invigorating opportunity to connect with our community, customers, and colleagues.
Here's a roundup of all the announcements we made alongside Microsoft this week:
Sign up for a summer training cohort starting in July or register for the live Minecraft Teacher Academy. School leaders are encouraged to learn more about Minecraft Education here where you can download a free implementation guide, watch case studies, and explore ways other schools and districts have been using Minecraft to drive student outcomes.
We brought esports with Minecraft Education to the ISTE Live mainstage in the first-ever Battle in the Rocks, featuring 4 teams of students in a live event where they designed sustainable schools over a 30-minute build battle. We heard from educators, parents, and the students how esports programs build job-ready skills, create community, and inspire meaningful learning for everyone involved. Download our new playbook for schools to explore ways to bring esports to your district.
Explore AI with teaching resources for building an understanding of AI across the curriculum. We are bringing new lessons, animated videos, and educator tools to Minecraft Education this Back to School. Minecraft is a great way to help students understand how AI works, discover its potential impact, and learn how to use AI responsibly. Download Prompt Lab, a playbook of sample prompts and guidance on using Copilot to generate lesson plans and assessment materials and explore our AI for Earth and Hour of Code lessons that introduce AI to students of all ages.
We also previewed Minecraft Education’s in-development Lesson Crafter coming this Fall. This educational tool is powered by AI and allows educators to generate custom lesson plans for Minecraft Education, in any topic and age to fit the needs of your learners. At ISTE, we showed a prototype of Lesson Crafter and received helpful feedback from educators through live demos, seeing how this tool will be instrumental for new users to create easy-to-teach lessons aligned to curriculum standards.
With curriculum progressions in Computer Science and Cyber, Minecraft offers onramps for educators to teach digital literacy at any skill level. At ISTE Live, we announced new GameCode curriculum coming next month that connects students' creativity with coding and computational thinking skills. Learners will create mini-games and learn through YouTube videos developed by our partners at Cleverlike Studios.
GameCode is also part of a new accredited AP CS Principles College Board course, offering students the opportunity to earn college credits. If you’re an AP educator, check out AP CS Principles with Minecraft and MakeCode, an introductory college-level computing course that introduces students to the breadth of the field of computer science, and join our summer learning cohort.
Finally, we celebrated our new partnership with Prodigy Learning Coding in Minecraft through a workshop and booth demos. If you’re interested in an industry recognized credentialing solution, look no further!
Our Cloud Update is currently available in Beta, on track for general availability next month! This long-awaited update brings cloud storage in OneDrive to Minecraft Education, as well as the Tricky Trials features from Bedrock. Download the Beta and share your feedback with our team!
Thanks for showing up and being part of our inspiring ISTE week in Denver. Here’s to unleashing your inner Minecrafter this summer!
