Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the world as it enables dedicated players to build whatever they imagine. However, it can also be a powerful learning tool through which we can appeal to kids in a variety of topics. Now, a new program wants to use Minecraft to teach kids how to code.
Code is already a valuable skill and it will become even more essential in the future. However, it can be difficult to pick it up at an advanced age and difficult for kids to learn it through the usual ways. However, games have always provided a simple and fascinating tool to teach kids. Microsoft, the owner of the game, has launched a new Minecraft Hour of Code Designer tutorial.
The program is part of the company’s Hour of Code campaign which is being held from December 5th to December 11th, during the Computer Science Education Week. The Minecraft tutorial is available for free the Code.org website. Anyone can access it and learn about coding through Minecraft, despite being designed for kids.
Although Minecraft tutorials for the annual Hour of Code is not entirely a new endeavor for Microsoft, the company does develop different types of tutorials within the game each year. For the current one, Microsoft has stated that their own developers, as well as a few from Mojang, have worked together to create it.
The tutorial itself is short, lasting one hour on average, in order to fit with the Hour of Code overall theme. It is also available in ten languages currently, but Microsoft plans to release for up 50 by December 5th.
In the tutorial, users are presented with a very small Minecraft world display where their chosen character is present. They gradually learn to control the character by dragging various blocks of code from a panel into the editor, after which they run their lines of code. Kids can create anything you can imagine in the Minecraft tutorial, setting rules which are ludicrous or as logical as you like.
The tutorial is specially designed to entice kids as young as six years old to learn more about coding by giving them a very basic idea of how the whole process works.