Minecraft - the Game

     Our children have been playing the game Minecraft.  I typically try to limit time on their electronics, but I was impressed when I found this article about the educational benefits of them playing this game.  Here is the review, taken from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.

Why buy?

LearnToMod is the perfect way to channel your child's passion for Minecraft towards a skill that they can nurture and develop as they grow up. Professions in computer science are not only some of the highest paying jobs out there, they are also some of the highest satisfaction jobs! Because computer science isn't being taught in most schools, these jobs are ripe for the taking.

What is included?

Tutorials, videos, and puzzles guide students through basic and complex mod building; soon students will be dreaming up and creating their own mods from scratch. Today's purchase will give your student access to the LearnToMod software and their own private Minecraft for 1 year.

Modding Studio
The studio is where you bring your ideas to life with code. It's where you write your mods. You get to choose from two powerful programming languages. You can even share your code with others and remix code that others have written.

Private Server
Test your mods on a private server. Invite friends to play too. You control everything about your server: The weather, the time of day, who's banned and who's not. You can install texture packs. And, of course, you can mod it with mods you've written.

Lessons
Even if you've never coded before, you can learn to mod. We have hundreds of video lessons, puzzles, and quizzes to teach you. Unlock cool badge and start leveling-up as a coder. Soon you'll be designing and coding multi-player mini-games of your own."