Microsoft Is Very Determined That Kids Will Learn To Code Using Minecraft 56
theodp writes: On Tuesday, Code.org announced that the new activities for kids in this year's Hour Of Code will include yet another Minecraft-themed tutorial from Code.org Diamond Supporter Microsoft, making it seven years in a row that the best-selling videogame of all time has 'headlined' the Hour of Code during the holiday buying season. Going into the Hour of Code in 2018, Microsoft boasted that 100+ million Minecraft Hour of Code tutorials had already been logged by students.
In this year's Hour of Code: TimeCraft tutorial, kids will "learn basic coding concepts to correct mysterious mishaps throughout history!" An accompanying one-size-fits-all lesson plan for ages 6-18 instructs students to: "Experience a choose-your-own-adventure game, exploring key moments in human achievement. Using your coding superpowers, save the future by solving mysterious mishaps in time." Among other things, the coding challenges have K-12 students travel back in time to save Jazz from a kazoo future, prevent the Great Pyramids from being built as cubes, save the Great Wall of China from destruction by pandas, and wipe the frown off of the Mona Lisa. New this year, Microsoft notes, is that educators can sign up to have a Microsoft Education Expert lead their classroom through an Hour of Code lesson with Minecraft, thanks to the magic of Microsoft Teams Live Events.
In this year's Hour of Code: TimeCraft tutorial, kids will "learn basic coding concepts to correct mysterious mishaps throughout history!" An accompanying one-size-fits-all lesson plan for ages 6-18 instructs students to: "Experience a choose-your-own-adventure game, exploring key moments in human achievement. Using your coding superpowers, save the future by solving mysterious mishaps in time." Among other things, the coding challenges have K-12 students travel back in time to save Jazz from a kazoo future, prevent the Great Pyramids from being built as cubes, save the Great Wall of China from destruction by pandas, and wipe the frown off of the Mona Lisa. New this year, Microsoft notes, is that educators can sign up to have a Microsoft Education Expert lead their classroom through an Hour of Code lesson with Minecraft, thanks to the magic of Microsoft Teams Live Events.
Gatekeepers (Score:3)
I have a 9yo in my orbit who would dearly like to program his minecraft game , the problem is the version with python and all the ammenities that kids would use to do this seems to require being enrolled in a particular school program, and his school just isnt in that program. (And the Java option is way about his competence, we're talking about a little kid here)
Microsoft, just put it out there, and the kids will flock to it. Don't put gatekeepers in the way that a significant portion of working class kids cant pass.
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I never understood why microsoft felt the need to buy a clunky toy
They must be out of Halo game ideas and they didn't have any other hits.
Also MC is cross-platform and they had to fuck that up
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How have Microsoft fucked up cross-platform Minecraft?
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By moving most development to the Windows version, including new educational features which are arguably most important to have be cross-platform, and by requiring a Microsoft account.
Now ask me a hard one.
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Do you even play Minecraft? It doesn't sound like you do.
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Not in a while, but I still have it installed. Haven't updated since Microsoft announced you would need a Microsoft account. Nice way to jump to conclusions though, kid.
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Other than the Microsoft account requirement you don't really have any idea what you're talking about, it would seem.
MC Education edition is separate from what you call "Windows" edition. It's available on Windows, Chromebook, MacOS and iOS. It works cross platform.
The "Windows" edition (aka Bedrock aka Minecraft) is available on Windows, Android, iOS, Xbox, Linux, Playstation and Switch. Again, it works cross platform.
Minecraft Java is as cross platform as it's ever been and is still being developed, kid.
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Other than the Microsoft account requirement you don't really have any idea what you're talking about, it would seem.
Yes, to the ignorant observer.
MC Education edition is separate from what you call "Windows" edition. It's available on Windows, Chromebook, MacOS and iOS. It works cross platform.
Not on Linux, like the Java version does.
The "Windows" edition (aka Bedrock aka Minecraft) is available on Windows, Android, iOS, Xbox, Linux, Playstation and Switch. Again, it works cross platform.
No, it's not available from Microsoft on Linux either. You have to use unofficial software to make it work there.
Minecraft Java is as cross platform as it's ever been and is still being developed, kid.
There are features being put into other versions which Microsoft is not putting into the Java version, including the educational features, which is what I was talking about.
So at first glance you're right, but a detailed examination reveals that you're full of shit.
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I gave up when I realised their massive hardon for being "right" was leading the conversation nowhere.
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I would formulate this differently (Score:1)
Why fix what's not broken? (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft already makes excellent educational software to learn programming and software engineering: it's called Microsoft products.
I learned assembly by abusing MSDOS internals every which way.
I learned optimization by trying to speed up GWBASIC
I learned APIs (and how not to obfuscate them) by coding a TSR to trick Windows 95 into running on top of DRDOS.
I learned about the importance of input checking by sending OOB packets to Win95's TCP/IP stack and crashing people's machines on IRC.
I learned to code viruses on all versions on all Microsoft OSes of yore - and everything that goes with them, like filesystems, steganography, self-modifying code to evade antivirus software...
I learned never to trust a third party to automatically any of my machines unattended - especially production machines - thanks to one fuck-up Tuesday too many.
Etc etc.
Imagine if I had learned programming and IT on good software: I'd never have learned anything. Thank you Microsoft! - and I'm not even joking :)
Here we go again (Score:4, Insightful)
Every month its "We'll get kids coding using [insert gamified coding enviroment here]".
Newflash - kids who are interested in coding will naturally take it up anyway, the ones who arn't, won't. Forcing them to do it will achieve nothing and may put them off even more.
Also despite what a lot of people in IT seem to think , learning to code is not a particularly valuable skill in the real world UNLESS you go into IT. Learning basic maths is far more useful.
Re: Here we go again (Score:2)
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"Coding basics should be a requirement in elementary school"
Why?
"Worst case the kids learn a bit about logic and cause/ effect (if/then)"
They learn that through normal life. Learning maths, english (or whatever their native language is) and other skills are far more important at that age. Let them taking CS as a module when they're teenagers if they want.
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Why?
Same reason English, maths, science, history, geography, foreign languages, shop, etc are taught.
Learning maths, english (or whatever their native language is) and other skills are far more important at that age.
Why?
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Learning maths, english (or whatever their native language is) and other skills are far more important at that age.
Why?
Can't collaborate with others in MC without language. Going to need math for everything in life including MC.
I'm not against teaching programming, and it's a false dichotomy to suggest that they can't also learn it in addition to math and english, but it's clear what's more important.
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English and basic maths are essential for everyday life and a knowledge of the world is required to successfully operate in it, hence geography. Programming is essential for nothing unless you're a programmer. Even websites can be designed using point and click now so even learning HTML and javascript is pointless for that.
Unfortunately you're like a lot of people in IT who seem to think its the hub the world revolves around. It isn't. The world is a distributed topology, not wheel and spoke.
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IMO the really useful lesson that they could all learn, regardless of whether programming is for them or not, is that computers don't read your mind. If everyone understood that, they would be able to communicate far more effectively with the small percentage of people who continue with programming because they enjoy and/or are good at it.
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You got it backwards: logic should be required in school.
Coding? Why? Which kid, as in *kid* will ever have a device that is not his parents computer where any code it does is in any way relevant?
Let it read a cook book and help cooking. (That is what a CPU is doing).
Challenge it to write a summary about what it did during cooking. That is a cooking recipe. That is coding.
Coding as in "coding for a computer" as in "learning how to use a programming language" as in "doing something - that simply sucks", has
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Also despite what a lot of people in IT seem to think , learning to code is not a particularly valuable skill in the real world UNLESS you go into IT.
Ah... right:
Experimenting with Arduino's, Lego Mindstorm etc. is not fun.
Hacking a LED driver board for a flashlight is not something you'd ever want to do.
NOBODY does the oldskool "develop a fun game in your bedroom" anymore.
Drones, electronic toys, home automation systems etc, etc. ONLY come as closed-source appliances that are used as-is & discarded afterwards.
Bugs in all software in existence are only fixed by IT experts, never by that software's users, hobbyists or interested m
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Coding usually requires some basic math skills. Comes with the territory. Therefore learning to code = at least learning some math. Never a bad thing imho, given how many people seem to lack basic math skills. ;-)
Indeed. I started learning about basic 3D geometry precisely because I was trying to code 3D graphics in QBasic. I didn't even realise I was "learning maths", I was just finding out things I needed to make my game work. My game never worked, but I did end up with a starfield screensaver that had c
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Which part of "kids who are interested in coding will naturally take it up anyway" confused you? Perhaps you should have spent a bit more time on your english comprehension skills at school.
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Every month its "We'll get kids coding using [insert gamified coding enviroment here]".
Newflash - kids who are interested in coding will naturally take it up anyway, the ones who arn't, won't. Forcing them to do it will achieve nothing and may put them off even more.
Also despite what a lot of people in IT seem to think , learning to code is not a particularly valuable skill in the real world UNLESS you go into IT. Learning basic maths is far more useful.
The same can be said about any subject. I haven't seen a kid yet that is not inclined to learn the basic blocks of coding. There are a lot of games that are actual, physical board games that teach the basic blocks (Coder Bunnyz, Coder Marz, robotic kits) and kids love them. My kid on her own signed up in Middle School for a class using MIT App Inventor, etc.
The entire experience of Minecraft and Roblox involves world building, and customization, a lot of which is, in fact, configuration-driven programming
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Kids learn by playing. Make coding fun and they come. It doesn't mean we make them software engineers, but the basics of programming are here to stay as fundamental business skills (it's been like that for almost two decades since programmable spreadsheets became the norm in businesses.)
We in IT truly fail to realize how important programming has become outside the realm of IT and "serious" software development.
I don't have a thing against exposing kids to coding. I remember when I was learning way back in the dark ages. Couldn't stop me. Staying up way too late with a C64 and writing Basic. Even did some machine language, which was kind of torture, but made that little computer kick in the afterburners.
Now, let's make some sense of this all. Most children will not grow up to be programmers. It is kinda like having chemistry classes or biology classes does not cause everyone to be industrial chemists or doctors.
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If kids were going to learn how to program with Minecraft (or anything else, for that matter), it would have happened organically by now.
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Well, I would use a greek word describing my answer perfectly, but Americans can not pronounce it, so I go with battle star galactica: so shall we all! (Sarcasm: that is actually what the greek word means).
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Good thing I'm not american then. However nor do I watch geeky sci fi series either so you lost me on that.
thereby enshrining the von Neumann paradigm (Score:2)
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I agree with the dataflow idea. I loved Prograph when it was a thing, now it is Marten. Nice graphical interface, debugger, etc.
It needs to appeal to what they know. (Score:2)
Whether it's mining dumb shit in a video game, or even murdering their parents.
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Yep. Probably the only time i have seen a large group of kids want to learn code was when MySpace was a thing. Kids wanted to learn how to make their MySpace page "cool". So out of a self interest kids that normally wouldn't be interested in coding were learning HTML and whatever else MySpace would let them do.
This is only about indoctrination! (Score:2)
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Well, this is Slashdot, so most readers should go first through a few fundamental steps before following your route:
1) find a woman
2) get married
3) make children
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As usually you got it all wrong.
Find a woman, get children.
Find another woman, get more children - if you like.
Repeat at your pleasure.
Marry someone. Bonus point if it is one from the opposite gender/sex.
If you still want more children, you are a helpless cause. (Does not prevent you from finding another sex partner, though)
My brother... (Score:1)
Will they soon EOL it like almost all their ideas? (Score:2)
Call me old fashioned... (Score:2)
Good - at least it something kids like (Score:2)
My first language was MS Basic on an 8bit TRS-80 machine. At the time that was fun, but nothing like today.
Today machines have amazing graphics and GUI front-ends. If I were learning to code today and was young, I would be picking something fun to do. From my perspective, I am glad Microsoft is encouraging kids to engage. Would you rather have your kids sitting around drooling over TikTok or YouTube videos?
Encourage this please.
Maybe a fe
GWBasic. (Score:2)
As a kid, I learned to code with GWBasic.
Why?
1. I can run each command individually to see what it does.
2. Simple commands that give you access to Graphics and Sound.
3. No well defined structure and practices other than incrementing you line count by 10 or 100 so you can fill in the gaps without renumbering them.
In school we were given Logo to code in. However while it still fits the reasons above, When I was 10, I didn't like to think in terms of degrees and angles, but just X and Y concordance. But Bas
TypeScript won't fly here (Score:1)
They will probably have to introduce a simpler domain-specific language that tightly fits Minecraft. JavaScript/C# style is just too confusing for most newbies. It probably should resemble a cross between VB and COBOL. Rough draft:
As a Middle School Computer teacher (Score:2)
There really is very little out there that is free, well-paced, and features a compelling theme.
Why is Python the only non-MakeCode Blocks choice? (Score:1)
One aspect that I find continually frustrating about gaming projects that purport to teach programming, such as this one, is that they tend to offer Python as the only available choice for students who wish to use any programming language that requires actually typing code.
Why only Python? Why not, say, Ruby, Scheme, or even Haskell?
In college, the first programming language that I learned in a course that counted toward the Computer Science major was Scheme, not Python. Furthermore, I learned to think in