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Abstract: The use of Minecraft as a tool for teaching has become increasingly popular recently. Game components can be linked together allowing their effect to be experimented with easily and thus offering great potential for investigating children's use of the tool in educational settings. The tool has been observed to attract children in their exploration of the game environments. The "creator" mode is most useful in developing ideas for game-play. However, to get the players to engage with more abstract learning concepts can be quite challenging. This is where the concept of developing "mods" becomes very valuable. Minecraft "mods" can be developed freely with a system development kit (SDK) that can be downloaded. The authors of Minecraft make the full source code available for download to enable off-line development and testing. It is thus possible to check the design fully before launch, including developing server based applications. This paper outlines the way in which we have been using a Minecraft mod to create a collaborative game for teaching maths to UK primary school children (age 7-9). Minecraft is very attractive for this design as a large proportion of children are familiar with the basic gameplay, the gameplay is attractive to both males and females and with the use of mods learning outcome specific tools can be created. The design practice has highlighted a number of issues that are of value when using Minecraft to teach any subject - specifically when trying to create mods. The solution is quite creative and uses game component development that is familiar to players of Minecraft. We have piloted the game with a number of children, without experience in using Minecraft as a game, as well as those with extensive experience. Both have enabled us to overcome pitfalls in our approach to designing the game that will give pointers to others wishing to make learning outcome specific mods. The game has been tested in a school situation on children of all levels with varying results. This has helped in refining the game and further longer term testing will take place with the target age group.
Keywords: games-based learning, collaborative learning, mathematics, problem solving, game design, Minecraft
1. Introduction
According to Jacques and Salmon (2000) "Group interaction allows students...