Minecraft Education

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Not to be confused with MinecraftEdu.
This page describes an edition of the game that has been officially discontinued.
 
This edition is no longer updated nor available for download.
Minecraft Education
Minecraft Education 1.21.06.png: Infobox image for Minecraft Education the program in Minecraft
Author(s)
Key staff members
Platform(s)
  • WindowsmacOSChromeOS
  • AndroidiOSiPadOS
Written in

C++ C++

Latest version

Release: 1.21.06
Preview: Preview 1.21.51.0

Release date

Windows & macOS
November 1, 2016[3]
iOS
September 6, 2018
iPadOS
September 24, 2019
ChromeOS
August 7, 2020
Android
August 9, 2022

Rating(s)
Size
  • Microsoft Store: 1.7 GB[6]
  • iOS & iPadOS: 1.3 GB[5]
  • ChromeOS & Android: "Varies with device"[4]
License

Terms of Use

Source available

No

Links

Purchase

Download

  • Windows
Microsoft Store
Other installations

Beta

Preview

A game-based learning platform supporting thousands of educators in over 100 countries!

minecraft.net on Minecraft Education
Key art by Mojang Studios

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 Studios announced that it would bring Minecraft Education to iPad in Autumn 2018.[7] Microsoft stated that licensed users would be able to play starting in September.[8] It was released to the App Store on September 6, 2018.

On March 27, 2019, it was announced that Minecraft Education in mainland China would be operated by JD.com.[9] In January 2022, operation by JD.com came to an end. In August 2023, a subsidiary of NetEase, Youdao, reaquired rights to Minecraft Education in mainland China, and introduced Minecraft Education Personal, including a preview for Minecraft Education Personal for Android and Windows devices.[10] Operations of Minecraft Education Personal shut down in August 2024.

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.[11]

Features

Minecraft Education is based on Bedrock Edition.[12] Enabling the "Education edition" setting within the Bedrock Edition Cheats settings tab provides many Minecraft Education blocks and items. The full Minecraft Education feature set makes Minecraft more accessible and effective in a classroom setting. These features include:

  • 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 40 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 coordinates. 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.
  • 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 World Builder 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.
  • Minecraft Education does not include the Spectator mode found in the vanilla game.

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

The full game costs US$5.04 (US$4.99 on the Apple App Store) per user per year to use, depending on school size and if qualifications for volume licensing are met. Volume pricing for school-wide deployments and large-scale academic institutions is also planned. Schools and districts that already have MinecraftEdu can get Minecraft Education for free.

It was announced on May 2, 2017, that schools and educational institutions that purchase new Windows 10 devices receive a free year of Minecraft Education.[13]

Eligibility

In order to be eligible to purchase 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

Availability of Minecraft Education as of June 2019

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

Technical requirements

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

Software requirements

  • Windows 10
  • macOS Monterey (12)
  • Chrome OS 114
  • Android Oreo (8.0)
  • iOS 13 / iPadOS 13

System requirements

Windows, macOS, & ChromeOS

Specs Minimum Recommended
Processor Intel Core i3-4150 or Intel Celeron N4100
AMD A8-6600K
Intel Core i7-6500U
AMD FX-4100
Memory (RAM) 2GB 8GB
Storage space Minimum of 2GB for game core, maps and other files 4GB
Graphics drivers Integrated: Intel HD Graphics 4400 or AMD Radeon R5 series with OpenGL 4.4
Discrete: Nvidia GeForce 400 Series or AMD Radeon HD 8000 series with OpenGL 4.4
Discrete: Nvidia GeForce 940M or AMD Radeon HD 7750

Android, iOS & iPadOS

Specs Minimum Recommended
Processor 32-bit or 64-bit CPU 64-bit CPU
Memory (RAM) 1GB 4GB
Storage space Minimum of 2GB for game core, maps and other files 4GB

Video

Gallery

Education Edition

References

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