Fun at ASTE

Wanted to write a bit about my time at ASTE, and some of how it relates to STEM.  Chip and I presented in a session together about our experiences both in this EDMA693 class as well as other classes, and then we held a Minecraft workshop after that.  As you can imagine the workshop went through many of the same hurdles we've gone through: initial disorientation, key mapping, how to get through the tutorial world, etc.  The two hours flew by.  Out of about 30 attendees, by the time we had all left almost everyone had gotten to the point where they can fly around, place blocks, etc.  There were a couple of issues though - a couple people's computers either didn't have Java installed, or the game ran a little slow due to memory or other computer problem.

The challenge was to build a world that represented something about education, such as a lesson, etc.  I had a few attendees that were fairly experienced with Minecraft and so jumped right into building a world; I'll be posting a YouTube video showing some of the builds that were in there.  I learned so much just from watching how they used tools within Minecraft.  One of the students was particularly keen on joining us for the EDMA693 class held on Monday and that's when he built that race course in short order, complete with pigs and horses, both of which you can ride, and a finish line with trip wires that indicate who won.  What a perfect way to do rate = distance / time problems!  Have a stopwatch set up and do the 25m dash, either with a saddled horse, or a saddled pig with a carrot / stick, or just the little Minecraft guy running on foot.

I had a lot of fun flying around the world looking at the work so far.  I logged in last night with my son and showed him some of the things you all were working on and he was pretty excited, too!  I'll work more on that area later on this week, which brings me to my next point: if people would like I'd like to volunteer to meet in the world at some other time to work on *some* building project, after having learned some of the build tools in greater detail this weekend I would like to share them if people like.  I found working side by side with the student at the conference was very helpful for me personally.  My schedule is a little touch and go the rest of this week but I might possibly be able to work Thursday afternoon (2/26) 2:30pm for an hour or so.

BTW - video of me finding the gold ore from a mine I made in the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rN03_gTXKo