Minecraft Education

Minecraft Education (formerly Minecraft: Education Edition) is an educational edition of Minecraft specifically designed for classroom use. It is developed by Mojang Studios and Xbox Game Studios and has features that make Minecraft easy to use in a classroom setting. The full game was released on November 1, 2016.^[3] There was a beta test between June 9 and November 1, 2016.

On August 20, 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring Minecraft Education to iPad in Autumn 2018.^[6] Microsoft stated that licensed users would be able to play starting in September.^[7] It was released to the App Store on September 6, 2018.

On March 27, 2019, it was announced that Minecraft Education in China would be operated by JD.com.^[8] In January 2022, the website of Minecraft Education in China was closed, and the operation by JD.com came into an end.

On June 26, 2020, an Education Edition Public Beta was made available to Google Play compatible ChromeOS devices. The full game was released on Google Play for compatible ChromeOS devices on August 7, 2020.^[9]

In 2023, a preview for Minecraft Education Personal was made available to Android and Windows devices in China by Youdao.^[10]

Minecraft Education Preview is a variant of Minecraft Education that lets you test out future updates before they fully release.

Features

Minecraft Education is based on Bedrock Edition^[11] and contains features that make Minecraft more accessible and effective in a classroom setting, including:

• Easy classroom collaboration: Educators have told us that one of the greatest benefits of Minecraft Education is the ability for students to collaborate to build projects and solve problems. An entire classroom of up to 30 students can play in a world together with no separate server setup required. Students can also work together in pairs or groups simply by joining their classmates' world.
• Non-player characters: An educator may create an NPC to act as a guide for students in the game, giving instruction, providing more information, and also allowing educators to insert an active web link to additional references.
• Camera + portfolio: An important aspect of teaching with Minecraft is being able to collect evidence of learning in the game, and being able to track student progression. The camera and portfolio features allow students to take screenshots of their work and document the development of their projects.
• Chalkboards: Creators can use chalkboards to communicate learning goals, provide additional information and give explicit instructions within the game. Chalkboards come in three different sizes – (1×1), (2×1), and (2×3).
• Tutorial world: For educators or students new to Minecraft, a tutorial world is available that guides players on in-game navigation, crafting, and placing or breaking blocks.
• Allow and deny blocks: These blocks allow the educator (or a player with World Builder privileges) to place specific areas where players can or cannot build.
• Border blocks: These blocks prevent players from entering or leaving a specific area. The range of influence extends the full range of the Y coordinate from wherever the block is placed on the x & z coordinate. It is the same shape as a cobblestone wall but with a smooth, red texture and red particle effects. Note: These blocks can be bypassed using ender pearls or chorus fruit.
• Classroom mode: This is a complimentary program to Minecraft Education and allows educators a master view of the map (including the locations of all players), communicate with players via chat (and monitor the chat), and turn off/on some world settings.
• Additional item hotbar: There is a smaller hotbar with three additional slots that can be enabled for players by the educator. This smaller hotbar rests to the right-side of the main hotbar and educators can populate this hotbar with items.
• Code builder and the agent: A complimentary program to Minecraft Education that allows students to write code in a code editor and The Agent then executes the code in the program. This was a newly announced feature and was implemented in 1.0.1.
• New /ability command allows the player to modify permissions of players such as the World Builder permission, MayFly allows the player to enable/disable fly in all game modes, and mute allows the player to mute another player. Abilities are similar to gamerules, except they apply to a player rather than the entire world.
• A new immutable World gamerule, if true it prevents any players who are not teachers (or who don't have worldbuilder permissions) from breaking or placing any blocks unless they are on top of an allow block.
• World builder is an ability that can be applied to a player to allow bypassing the functions of border blocks and deny blocks.

Lesson plans

Lesson plans through Minecraft Education are available to download and are split between certain age groups and various subjects such as history, visual arts, and gaming. Additionally, educators can upload lesson plans that they have created for others to use from the main website.

Pricing

This is the only public Minecraft version that is completely free, albeit needing a school account to access.

Eligibility

In order to be eligible to install Minecraft Education, a player must meet the following requirements (as seen on Tech Specs):

• An eligible educator must be a full-time or part-time faculty or staff member at an academic institution and have a school-specific email address provided by the school that can receive external email.
• An eligible district or school must be a qualified education user, defined as an accredited institution organized and operated exclusively for the purpose of teaching its enrolled students.
• An eligible public library must provide general library services without charge to all residents of a given community, district, or region.
• An eligible public museum must be an agency or institution organized on a permanent basis for essentially educational or aesthetic purposes and utilize a professional staff to exhibit tangible objects to the public on a regular basis.
• Finally, an eligible home-school program must provide K-12 education to a student or students with written proof that it either belongs to a nationally recognized home-schooling organization or is expressly recognized by a local school district as an acceptable alternative to an accredited or state-recognized/approved educational institution.

Availability

The following chart shows the country availability and language availability for Minecraft Education.

Technical requirements

Minimum technical requirements (according to System Requirements – Minecraft Education):

Minimum software requirements

• Windows 10
• macOS Big Sur (11)
• ChromeOS 83
• Android Oreo (8.0)
• iOS 11

Minimum hardware requirements

Windows, macOS, & ChromeOS

• CPU: Intel Core i3-3210 3.2 GHz / AMD A8-7600 APU 3.1 GHz or equivalent
• RAM: 2 GB
• GPU (Integrated): Intel HD Graphics 4000 (Ivy Bridge) or AMD Radeon R5 series (Kaveri line) with OpenGL 4.4
• GPU (Discrete): Nvidia GeForce 400 Series or AMD Radeon HD 7000 series with OpenGL 4.4
• HDD/SSD: Minimum of 1 GB for game core, maps, and other files

Android

• CPU: 32-bit or 64-bit
• RAM: 1 GB
• Requires Android Oreo (8.0) or later
• SSD: Minimum of 1 GB for game core, maps, and other files
• Supported devices: Pixel (all models) / Most Android mobile devices

iOS & iPadOS

• iPhone 5S / iPhone SE / iPad (5^th gen) / iPad Air / iPad mini 2 / iPad Pro / iPod touch (6^th gen)

Video

Gallery

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  Minecraft Education
  logo
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  Minecraft Education
  app icon
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  Minecraft Education
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  Poster showing several Minecraft Education features, such as cameras, photos, chalkboards, NPCs, agents and the code builder.

Education Edition (retired)

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  Minecraft: Education Edition logo
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  Minecraft: Education Edition Microsoft Store
  app icon
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  Minecraft: Education Edition Apple App Store app icon
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  Minecraft: Education Edition Google Play
  app icon
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  Minecraft: Education Edition vertical key art
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  Minecraft: Education Edition horizontal key art
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  Logo

References