Keep Calm and Play Minecraft

What I'm thinking about: I've been exploring the concept of gamification in the classroom lately.  There are some pretty incredible ways to incorporate quests, challenges, leader boards, and virtual stories into lesson plans.  This works perfectly for the year since the boys I'm teaching love two things: Minecraft, and sports.

I started learning about gamification through people on Twitter and my PLN.  Wow, some people have done amazing jobs adding the gaming element to their classes.

I first watched some TED talks to get me started thinking about gaming.

Jane McGonigal's TED talk

Ali Carr-Chellman's TED talk

Gabe Zichermann's TED talk

Luis de la Fuente's TED talk

I created a concept map that organized some of my ideas and thoughts for using it in the classroom.  I tweeted this picture and one of my old students responded, asking why I wasn't coming back to the high school.  It made me realize that taking risks and trying new things in the classroom can really catch the student's attention and make them engaged in the classroom happenings.

Here are two examples of gamification websites that blew me away!

1. Saga City Learning via Chris Aviles (@techedupteacher)
2. @Saradateechur also has this incredible site of gamification 

Minecraft is a perfect way for me to incorporate some different ideas.  Here are some resources I've been looking at for teaching the boys.

From: here

This wiki has some Language Arts class ideas.

This blog has some writing task ideas that connect with Minecraft.

Having students create an art project using the Minecraft style.

Here are some more Minecraft writing prompts.  The same author wrote Part II of her Minecraft writing prompts.

A creative Minecraft anchor chart about main idea can help draw in students.

This mom created Minecraft story starters to engage her boys.

Here are some more Minecraft writing ideas to use.

This Edutopia article has several ideas across different subjects.  Some of my favorites that Andrew Miller mentioned was reconstructing setting from literature or recreating scenes from novels.  Predicting what will happen next in a book and then acting it out via Minecraft.

I was also thinking about using Minecraft for Article of the Week assignments.  Reading about current events can be less engaging for some students.  Articles like this one from The Guardian about how Minecraft changed video games would be neat to draw in more students.  Here is a giant list of articles from The Guardian about Minecraft specifically.

A video game debate would be fun to incorporate speaking/listening objectives.

How are you incorporating gaming into the classroom?  Do you use Minecraft to teach middle school or high school students?