CAPE TOWN – Microsoft yesterday officially announced that Minecraft will have an Education Edition, following months of development testing.
In a move to develop lessons and activities to assist educators in an array of subjects including STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), history, language and arts. This comes after Microsoft purchased MinecraftEdu in January 2016.
Since the release of the sandbox game in 2011, the game was played in over 7000 classrooms worldwide before the ink dried up on the MinecraftEdu deal was made official. Capitalising on this notion, the developers aimed to create a game that can be played by pre-schoolers to college students.
During its developmental phase, Microsoft gave educators free trials to provide the tech giant with feedback as over 35 000 students had access to the free trials.
Along with the rollout of the Education Edition, Microsoft plans to launch Classroom Mode – a companion app that will feature more educational games and lessons on the go. The software will have continuous updates to include more features and compatibility options.
Since its launch, the beta version is available on Windows 10.
