The scheme has been created as part of the annual CultureTECH festival and will see 200 schools and 30 libraries and community organisations receive free download codes for MinecraftEdu, the educational version of the worldwide phenomenon. The initiative will be funded by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure.
MinecraftEdu was created by a company called TeacherGaming soon after the release of the original game. It is a special classroom-orientated edition with teaching tools built in that make it easy to share play between students on different machines. TeacherGaming claim that MinecraftEdu is used by more than 3,000 teachers worldwide to teach a huge range of lessons.
The game has previously been recognised for its educational characteristics and is already used in many classrooms worldwide to teach children about architecture and agriculture in a fun, directly engaging way that teachers and children can both easily relate to.
Mark Nagurski, chief executive of CultureTECH, said: “The level of engagement is the first thing you notice. This is work that the kids really want to do and if you’re able to harness that enthusiasm, energy and creativity you end up with a pretty significant learning opportunity.”
CultureTECH will be providing training and support to teachers who wish to use the program. It is the first time that Minecraft has been distributed across an entire geographical region for free.
The game has sold over 60 million copies worldwide after being created for fun by indie developer “Notch”. He sold his studio Mojang to Microsoft last year after becoming tired of the fame he had brought himself by creating the most successful video game the world has ever known.
