Gadgetory

a few years ago our students started to come into the classroom and talk about this minecraft game and they were just engrossed in it and they were very passionate about it so we thought as a teaching staff we need to really look at this game and get good sense of what it's about I'm Craig Smith and I'm the deputy principal at the aspect hunter school for children on the autism spectrum students on the autism spectrum a very visual learners and the more that we looked at it the more that we felt it really reflected a lot of the core characteristics of autism they find abstractions difficult and problem solving and convey a tricky thing our teachers started to put together lessons around minecraft and to share them with each other and to talk about the different ways you could use them and we ended up with such a really big Bank of all these really interesting lessons that use minecraft that we were able to put together a textbook called minecraft in your classroom conceptualizing time can be quite an abstract notion to talk about that process of change and we did a series of lessons on Sidney Nolan's led kelly series of artworks the students recreated those artwork so you have these beautiful big sculptures inside of the Minecraft world what was fantastic was the students could see what the same painting would have looked like at night for first thing of the morning and to get a sense of her time changes and transitions around in objects like this painting together so we've seen Hamish take a real big interest in in Minecraft and it's also helped him engage in other areas of the curriculum he would go to the library and often wander around a bit aimlessly before and he'll look at lots of other books now as well to try and think oh you know what can I create in Minecraft to challenge himself it's been a big pride moment for me because I'm a gamer and have been the years I play MechWarrior a lot so he's now making mechs in Minecraft it's him reaching out in a different way to try and get attention so it's it's been good for me in some senses because it shows me just what we can do that way as a parent you're always concerned about how much screen time your children take on but I think when it is used in a way that's creative and enjoyable so has that learning aspect to it I think it's um a real big benefit minecraft gives the children a smaller version of the world to test things out they're able to test our social skills practice rules and are able to understand the world on a level that's very manageable to them and apply that into bigger social situations in the real world and that transfer of skill from the game into the real world is a really exciting thing for our students