Special thanks to Yvonne Mickens, Fashion design teacher at Battle Creek Central High School. She made this beautiful prototype by hand from the original patterns below. We are working together to see if her students might like to join the Twinzy team to apply their skills and make money to further their education. This might be the first finished doll in over 50 years!
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The Minecraft Cell: Biology Meets Game-Based Learning | Edutopia.
DECEMBER 10, 2013
Minecraft, the popular sandbox game, is beloved by educators for its use as a learning tool. It enables students to explore, create and imagine in a completely different way than they could ever do in a traditional classroom. The beauty of the game is in the way it unleashes the creativity of both students and teachers.
But for Minecraft novices like me, it’s hard to know exactly where to begin unleashing all that creativity. If you’re just getting started with Minecraft, it might be helpful to use the game in an activity of your own design. That way, you familiarize yourself with the powerful tools for educators available inMinecraftEdu by building a virtual world for the class to explore before you jump into to using the game as a creative tool for your students.
This semester, I used Minecraft for the first time in my ninth grade science class at Quest to Learn. I decided to incorporate the game into my curriculum to meet a specific learning goal: to aid in students’ understanding of our DNA extraction lab. In this lab, students practice a step-by-step technique that involves adding certain chemicals to a mixture of cells in order to break apart the cellular components and isolate the DNA molecules.
Working with a game designer from Institute of Play at my school, we created a valuable cell model in Minecraft that could mimic the real properties of a cell, and the real interactions between a cell membrane and the different chemicals used to extract DNA, which students could experiment with in the game.
If you’re considering using Minecraft in your classroom, here are four steps to walk you through incorporating the game into your curriculum.
The reason I chose to use Minecraft as a learning tool was to aid in the students’ understanding of our DNA extraction lab. When I did this lab with my students in the past, they walked away with very little understanding as to why they followed those steps and what exactly was happening at a cellular level.
My vision was to create a cell model in Minecraft that students could explore and manipulate. This pre-lab activity would allow them to use different “chemical tools” to break down the various parts of the cell and, in the end, identify a list of materials needed to complete the DNA extraction lab.
Though I am a novice to Minecraft, I was able to work closely with a game designer, Claudio, to help create a realistic cell model. Using the MinecraftEdu educator tools, Claudio renamed the Minecraft tools with different chemical names. He also figured out how to make some of the materials susceptible to certain chemical tools, while being impenetrable to others. Once this mechanic was ironed out, we were very quickly able to create the world of the cell.
In the end, we had a single-player, immersive world in which students could explore the inside of a cell while using chemical tools to break through to the DNA. They were using their content knowledge to find the DNA, and they were figuring out which chemicals were necessary to dissolve the components of the cell.
I created a student handout to serve as a guide for focusing their exploration. In addition to providing setup instructions to start that exploration, the handout included a checklist for exploring the cell, and questions for students to answer as they interacted with the different chemical tools in the cell.
The purpose of the student handout was to provide them with some sort of direction as they explored, and also to point out connections between the game and our class content that they may not have noticed on their own. We added extra organelles to the model, and we even created a realistic cell membrane that mimics the lipid bilayer found in real membranes. In addition to preparing the students for the upcoming lab activity, this game also served as review for our cells unit.
The questions on the handout also provided a way for me to assess students. I was able to see if they could make connections back to course content (review) while also getting a clear picture of whether they were able to meet the learning goal and identify the chemicals needed for the lab. By the end of the activity, they had a clear understanding of the changes the cell goes through during the DNA extraction lab, and when we actually completed the lab, the students felt comfortable talking about it and could successfully explain why we used each chemical.
The activity was a resounding success. Engagement was at an all-time high. Students who felt weak in science class were able to approach the subject in a way that felt comfortable for them. Some students who were new to Minecraft struggled in the beginning, but quickly picked it up after a brief tutorial from a Minecraft regular.
My students ask me often when we will use Minecraft again. I already have two projects in the works, both involving the use of Minecraft as a creative tool so that students are actually creating something of their own that’s unique. Stay tuned to learn more about these projects!
For further resources, check out the webinar series from the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media & Learning Research Hub and Institute of Play’s webinar about how we’ve used Minecraft at our school.
Please share your own classroom adventures with Minecraft in the comments section below.
Intrigued by game-based learning, but not sure where to begin? Edutopia’s new Made With Play series takes a look at game-like learning principles in action and commercial games in real classrooms — and offers tips and tools for bringing them into your own practice. Get more resources for game-based learning here.
Videos made possible through generous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Made With Play series is a co-production with Institute of Play.
Copied below is an iKids.com article by Jeremy Dickson on the new child specific tablet. As a parent I was and am cognizant of my child’s screen time and the content therein. There have been some studies documenting neural trimming due to screen viewing in children under 2. That said this new tablet is a purpose built edutainment tool that I believe can expand a childs imagination while educating them.
The highly competitive kids tablet market just got more crowded thanks to the launch of DreamTab, a brand new COPPA-compliant Android kids tablet from DreamWorks Animation and El Segundo, California-based children’s tablet maker Fuhu that will feature regularly updated original content.
Set to be introduced at this week’s CES before hitting US retail this spring, the tablet includes a substantial number of original and differentiating features including exclusive content from DreamWorks animators that kids can customize and a creative studio educational program entitled “Be an Artist.” The feature gives kids one-on-one animation lessons, with acclaimed DreamWorks artists using the same stylus tool employed by the studio for hit films such asShrek, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon.
Additional features include advanced parental controls, a curated app library, the enhanced Fuhu education Wings Learning System that adapts to children’s levels of math, reading and writing, offline Bluetooth-enabled workbooks that work in conjunction with the tablet experience and a variety of kids programming from DreamWorks, Nick, Disney, Cartoon Network and other leading kidsnets.
The DreamTab also features safe e-mail, text and photo sharing capabilities and leverages near field communication gaming technology a la Disney Infinity and Skylanders to bring physical DreamWorks-branded toys to life. The first game to utilize the technology is online multiplayer School of Dragons featuring DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon franchise.
The tablet, which will also roll out internationally later this year, comes in eight-inch and 12-inch versions with 16GB and 32GB options, and its regularly refreshed original content is made possible from cloud-syncing technology. A price tag for the DreamTab has not yet been announced by its co-developers.
The new tablet comes on the heels of Fuhu’s best-selling nabi tablet for kids six to 11.
Tags: apps, Cartoon Network, COPPA, digital media, DreamTab, DreamWorks Animation, Fuhu,nabi, near field communication, School of Dragons, tablets
The journey of reviving the Twinzy toy brand began with a walk in the park. Maddie, the late great Golden Retriever and I , were in Quaker Park for the first time after having relocated to Battle Creek.
On that foggy February morning we came across the plaque pictured and I my imagination starting spinning. This story of two sisters, in an era before
women’s suffrage, starting their own business to attend University was captivating. The fact that they succeeded in that goal and much more was even more inspiring. So much so that I embarked on a 3+ year journey to bring their brand and products back to life.
It is still early on in this adventure but the excitement has only grown with each step. I invite you to join us as we continue to explore the possibilities of a Twinzy Toy revival in the 21st century. In the meantime please enjoy this blog and keep an eye out for the next Twinzy post where I will offer more detail around the Squire twins and the origins of what became Twinzy Toys then and now.
TWINZY TOYS 