Artifacts from our #MinecraftEdu #IPW2013 showcase at @The_School

One of the many things that make The School at Columbia University special is our Integrated Projects Week (IPW). Students break up into small groups with faculty advisors and explore something in depth for a week. On the last day of the last week before Spring Break, there is a showcase of all the projects. This year, teachers actively tweeted with the hashtag #IPW2013 on Twitter. A variety of tweets were shared or retweeted from The School’s Twitter account (@The_School).

Over the years, I’ve led Haunted New York, Black Rock Forest Leaders, Digital Archivists, Paper and Book Making, and Minecraft (this is the 2nd year of Minecraft). I partnered with 7th grade English teacher, Albert DeGrasse, to explore the geography and architecture of New York City in order to inspire the virtual world our 4th-7th graders built on our private MinecraftEdu server. We visited the Panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum of Art, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, and the High Line Park. Our Google site with our collected reflections, images, and videos is here.

Today is the showcase, and tomorrow I will sleep late.

The geek shall inherit the earth: Video of kids from @The_School building a #Minecraft city

This is IPW week at The School at Columbia University. Integrated Projects Week is a week when normally scheduled classes are suspended, and kids sign up for a week of in-depth exploration of selected topics. It’s one of the things that make The School so special.

I’m collaborating with Don Buckley and Gina Marcel to lead this Minecraft IPW. We bought 10 licences of MinecraftEdu and are couching the kids’ exploration of the virtual environment with conversations about architecture, city planning, Minecraft Lexicon, and best practices for collaborative building projects.

We also went on some field trips to observe city structures and integrated spaces: Monday, we visited the Queens Museum of Art to see the Panorama of the City of New York. Tuesday, we took an architectural tour of The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Wednesday, we walked the full length of the High Line park to see how abandoned elevated train tracks were transformed into a unique park that inspired many of the newer buildings around and above it. Thursday we spent the day at school choosing an area on our hosted landscape to plan and build a joint city

This has been my first time in a room full of kids actively playing the game. I’m surprised by their interest, investment, conversations, learning, hypothesizing, sharing, and willingness to experiment. Their communications have not all been positive – building too close to each other, sabotaging each other’s strucures, exhibiting disrespectful physical/virtual behavior  – however, each incident is a teachable moment, and we’ve had reinforcing conversations about respect, appropriate behavior, community norms, etc. Overall, I’m watching them demonstrate the importance of “Play.”