Responding to School Closings, Microsoft Offers Free 'Minecraft Education Edition'

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp spotted this announcement at Minecraft.net: As COVID-19 concerns prompt school closures around the world, many educators are turning to remote learning to keep students engaged. To help teachers and students stay connected to the classroom, Minecraft: Education Edition is now available through June 2020 for all educators and learners who have a valid Office 365 Education account...

We have also compiled a special Minecraft remote learning toolkit, which includes more than 50 lessons, STEM curriculum and project-based learning activities so educators can use Minecraft: Education Edition with their students whether they are in school, at home or in another remote learning environment.

Want to really help?

[RitchCraft]

Instead of using this "opportunity" to promote your STEM teaching materials, why not donate some of your off-shore profits to help combat this disease?

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[meerling]

And letting those who can't afford exhorbitant medical costs die is inhuman!

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[Local ID10T]

Perhaps you have heard of the Gates Foundation [gatesfoundation.org]? Where Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) is putting his money to work on... fighting the coronavirus (among other things.)

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[protektor]

The point was Microsoft to donate some of their profits to help, not Bill Gates who really isn't that involved with Microsoft any more. I mean Bill Gates isn't even on the board anymore.

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[tlhIngan]

Perhaps you have heard of the Gates Foundation? Where Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) is putting his money to work on... fighting the coronavirus (among other things.)

Not to besmirch the B&MGF, they are generally involved in things where they can benefit. With the economy crashing, the people on top are hurting - those CEOs can't make their obscene salaries and enjoy their tax cuts if the companies aren't making money.

So there is somewhat of a self interest in this purely because it's going to have bi

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[RazorSharp]

What's sad is that we think it's okay to cut corporate taxes to the point where, when a crisis occurs, we have to depend on corporate charity rather than a functional government.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[rtb61]

Ding bat, those debts are the direct result of unfunded tax cuts for the richest. Debt occurs where you spend more than you earn and the richest and greediest who profit the most are not paying for their privilege. So charge more taxes at the top, fuck off with the crony capitalism contracts going to corporate who got corrupt politicians elected and create functional government employees with the needed number of employees to do the work that is necessary. So at least 50% taxes for all income over 10 millio

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[RitchCraft]

From the reply below yours ... "Remember that Microsoft != Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." Calling me an f..tard behind AC is truly brave of you as well.

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[sabt-pestnu]

Remember that Microsoft != Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

You're not wrong, but perhaps if you were speaking to Bill instead...

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[LiquidAvatar]

I get what you're saying and you're not wrong... but as a parent of a second grader and a fifth grader who are now going to be abruptly missing at least 4 weeks of instructional time, I think this is incredible. I just told my kids about this and they're super excited to go through these exercises, especially if we can connect with some of their classmates and do them together over the internet. So, while I agree that Microsoft could be doing more, let's not knock what they are already doing, as this will

Re: Want to really help?

[fortfive]

How are you getting it? My elementary school kids have no education 365 email.

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[OldMugwump]

Why don't you donate YOUR money? Microsoft pays taxes per the law, same as everybody else. Why should they be any more responsible for the virus than you are? How much tax did YOU pay?

How do I get a copy without O365 Ed?

[kriston]

How do I get a copy without O365 Ed? I already have Minecraft and Office 365 Home.

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[dissy]

How do I get a copy without O365 Ed? I already have Minecraft and Office 365 Home.

If you already own a copy of Minecraft Bedrock edition, you just need to enable it.
When making a new world, under the Cheats section, turn on the first "Enable Cheats" to show the options, and below that will be an "Education Edition" option, turn that on too.

This will put all the new blocks in the world.

The only thing you won't get is a free 50 user realms server, that is tied to the account (I assume must be an .edu or similar)
Of course you can open LAN mode or pay for a realms server like normal and othe

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[kendor]

This is a solid gold suggestion, thank you.

Any idea if this also works on the XBox One Bedrock Edition?

worlds won't load, though

[kendor]

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to work with the best features of Minecraft Educational Edition. I just tried this. You can't load the Education Edition Worlds, at least on the Win10 Bedrock edition. The feature to enable cheats is there, as is the option to enable "education edition", but I think all it's doing is enabling some of the features and physics of the Chemistry pack.

Attempting to install the Education Edition worlds available at https://education.minecraft.ne... [education.minecraft.ne] [minecraft.net], using these in

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[dissy]

Unfortunately it looks like you are correct that it can't import .mcworld files from their website.

I just grabbed a random "hour of code" asset file and get an error importing the world.
The in-game dialog is a nice and generic sounding error, but the log makes it clearer:
"This level was saved from Minecraft: Education Edition. It cannot be loaded. Unable to connect to world."

I do know both the chemistry update and the code connection are available this way, but not what else might be missing.
I've heard the

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[dissy]

As a follow up to my last reply, it turns out I was mistaken about what features that option in regular bedrock edition actually gives you.
There looks to be a lot more to education edition than is included in normal bedrock

https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Education_Edition [gamepedia.com]

Also going by the eligibility section on that link, we wouldn't qualify to purchase it.
It's $5 per year per student if a school licenses it.

MSFT: blocking issue for many parents, pls fix

[kendor]

Posting this here in the hope that a MSFT dev or PM associated with Minecraft for Education reads it. There's a blocking issue that will prevent many parents who you are trying to help from accessing these resources.

The short version is that Microsoft should consider temporarily suspending the requirement to authenticate on an educational address that's registered with O365. Many parents do not know their student's district-issued email address and during the course of this crisis, many districts will not

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[kendor]

...and even parents who know their kids' education email addresses may have password reset issues, which only the school district may provide. And the staff to do that reset may not be around for the duration of school closures. Even wealthy K-12 districts often lack the sort of automated "password reset" forms that we take for granted on any commercial website.

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[jimbo]

I want to use it with my 11yr old whose school doesn't have office education accounts at all. I'd happily pay for it.

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[kendor]

See the comment above by dissy, suggesting that you can get it by buying the Minecraft Bedrock Edition.

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[dwywit]

I contract for a small school (20 students) and I'm going to recommend to the principal that the students be allowed to take their school laptops home if the school's closed. They've already got their Office365 Education accounts saved within Office itself, and I'll give them instructions to log in via browser.

I'll set up Teams, and see if the teachers want to take advantage of the Minecraft offer.

I'll see if our insurance company will come on board with it, otherwise the parents will have to sign a waiver

Microsoft Teams Available For Free For 6 Months

[theodp]

From Microsoft Teams Giving Away Paid Features for Six Months Due to Coronavirus [thurrott.com]: "By making Teams available to all for free for six months, we hope that we can support public health and safety by making remote work even easier," a Microsoft spokesperson said. The move comes following rumors of Microsoft employees being concerned over the company's "insufficient" response to the outbreak. Two anonymous employees even said the company's response was "disappointing" to Business Insider.

Now if only every kid could run it...

[phageman]

I teach in a large urban high school, and when the district announced a three week break on Friday I did a quick straw poll of my students. Only about half of them have internet access at home on any device, and less than a third have access to a computer. Not that offering this game is a bad thing, I just wish that people and corporations were as committed to providing educational opportunities all the time, not just when thereâ(TM)s a big PR payoff

Pepsi?

[Dixie_Flatline]

Troy McClure: "If you have three Pepsi's and drink one, how much more refreshed are you? You, the redhead in the Chicago school system."

Redhead: "Pepsi?"

Troy McClure: "Partial credit!"

Just offer Code Builder to everyone

[ET3D]

If Microsoft had any interest of promoting coding, it would have made this available to everyone, instead of putting it behind a pay wall that's not even accessible to parents. Lots of kids play Minecraft, and I'm sure would have played with an easy to use programming interface. Nobody but institutions needs all the Education Edition features, but letting everyone program in Minecraft is likely to get lots of kids doing some sort of programming.

I'd even be willing to pay something for that. Putting this beh

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[kendor]

I spoke to someone vaguely connected to MSFT about all of this, and he brought up a point that I hadn't thought of but that explains a lot of MSFT's choices in this matter. Anything that involves kids and user accounts is regulated to all hell, and companies that avoid legal requirements end up with 100+million dollar fines, as YouTube did. A responsible teacher or parent must have part ownership and presumed supervision of the kids' account and activities. Unless Trump and Congress is organized enough to p