Do you wish students were more engaged with classroom learning? You should take a page out of what Microsoft did with Minecraft!
Deirdre Quarnstrom, VP of Educational Experiences at Microsoft, brought the video game Minecraft to mainstream education which now reaches millions of students and educators around the world. Deirdre joins us to talk about:
- How developing a game taught her to reach kids in their own learning language
- The value of project-based learning she discovered through Minecraft
- How the UN Habitat-Block by Block Foundation builds our kids as good citizens
Deirdre has dealt a major hand in education by getting kids excited about learning again - let her show you how!
Do you wish students were more engaged with classroom learning? You should take a page out of what Microsoft did with Minecraft!
Deirdre Quarnstrom, VP of Educational Experiences at Microsoft, brought the video game Minecraft to mainstream education which now reaches millions of students and educators around the world. Deirdre joins us to talk about:
- How developing a game taught her to reach kids in their own learning language
- The value of project-based learning she discovered through Minecraft
- How the UN Habitat-Block by Block Foundation builds our kids as good citizens
Deirdre has dealt a major hand in education by getting kids excited about learning again - let her show you how!
Welcome to lifelong educators, a community of teachers, parents of anyone interested in the future of education at, also with innovations and how we can keep doing it better and better. I'm Jackie gusta associate professor at Western Connecticut state university. And I'm joined today by my cohost don't ton to me or CEO of click to an online enrichment program. Hey.
Dotan Tamir:Okay. Hello.
Jackie Guzda:And also today, our very special guest is Deere drug, strong vice president of educational experiences at Microsoft. And Dierdre, by the way, brought Minecraft and online game, you might have heard of to mainstream education, which reaches millions of students and educators around the world. Hey, how are ya? Dierdre
Deirdre Quarnstrom:good. Thanks so much for having me today.
Jackie Guzda:Hey, thanks for coming on. So first of all, if you could explain what Minecraft is to those in the audience who might not know, and those of you in the audience, if you have any questions, comments for Dierdre today, please put it in the chat box because this is your chance to talk to her directly today. So if you could tell us a little bit about how you change the world.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Well, I'll start with a short description of Minecraft, which is hard because it's so. Things to so many different people. So at its core, it's a video game. You can play it on almost any screen. At the very simplest form, it's a game about placing blocks and breaking blocks. So the, the mining and crafting, but really those, those blocks become the building blocks for anything. So some people will play in survival mode where they're moving around a world and they're, they're, they're surviving against obstacles and creatures that come out at night. They do things like build a house to protect themselves. They can plant a farm but it goes so much more than that. And, and what was really exciting was even in the. Earliest stages when Minecraft was an alpha. So the developer was just putting out the game for people to try it out as he was, as he was creating it. Some educators saw it and they saw the potential for this as, as just this OpenWorld playground for simulations. And it might be used to simulate a historical event, or maybe they use those building blocks as, as the building blocks for building a model of your classroom or even all the way up into advanced programming AI. So it's been really, really exciting to be part of the Minecraft community to see the potential and to see how something that started, you know, very simply as a video game is used for building a better world.
Jackie Guzda:Well, so did they come to you or did you go to. You know,
Deirdre Quarnstrom:it really so much with Minecraft comes directly from the gaming community. So from the people who are creating the game and the people who are playing the game in terms of how Minecraft started in education, it really, it started from educators who saw the potential and started bringing it into their classrooms and a very small scale. There were a couple of educators, one based in New York and another one in Finland who wanted to do more to customize the experience for classroom learning. And so they formed a company called teacher gaming and worked with mojo Ang the creators of Minecraft to license it to schools. It was, as you can imagine, a couple of educators coming together very had a lot of empathy for the student and the educator experience, but a pretty small operation. So when Microsoft acquired mojo yang, seven years ago, we really wanted to make that available to everyone. And so we, we, at that point started W w sitting, you know, sitting on the floor in classrooms where teachers were using this early version of Minecraft in education visiting people, working with academics, looking at the research of the benefits of game-based learning and created what is today Minecraft education edition, which as you said, is, is used by millions of educators and students every month. But that process really started that seed started with an educator saying, I think this would be a great place for my students to to, to become curious about the learning process, to practice persistence and perseverance in the face of learning a challenge. And so you can imagine for any of you who play video games, there's that sort of feeling of, oh, I want to get in there and I want to get to the next level, or I want to beat this boss, or I want to get to the new high score. And so teachers wanted to have that same kind of feeling applied to learning, to multiply fractions or learning about historical events. So it really is, is magical when it works that way.
Jackie Guzda:Yeah, yeah,
Dotan Tamir:go ahead. Don't tell him, sorry. These are so, you know, I, before, before starting click to last year, I owned a camp company. That's all around stem education. And I think I'm not sure exactly about the timeline probably around 10 years ago. When Minecraft started to become you know, a hype everywhere in the world we started to implement those workshops where kids could modify Minecraft and, and basically learn coding. That's for me, it was wow. So many kids are signed up. Minecraft modding. I didn't even know what it means, but for them it was all right. So Minecraft it's, you know, that's my life and we just used it to attract them to learning code. And I think what's really was that the, that magical piece then was that they could code and immediately see it in action in their world of Minecraft, that they love so much. So the fact that coding became, you know, fun and a part of their leisure was incredible. And, and now you're saying that Minecraft can be how they learn history or almost any, anything. Right. And do you have any, any like weird or surreal story of something that kids learned through Minecraft?
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Yeah. I mean, I'll say every day I'm still amazed at, at things that kids are learning very early. We had a teacher say, my second graders come in and they know what obsidian is. And she didn't really know where that came from. It was, you know, it's something a little bit obscure for second graders to come and knowing about, but in, in Minecraft, for those of you to play if you pour lava on a, on a water block of water source block, it turns into obsidian. And in Minecraft, obsidian has some of the same properties as, as obsidian in the physical world. And so. It's not perfect. It, you know, it's not like what they would learn in school specifically, but coming in with that base level of knowledge of, of number one, the consequences of the interactions of two, two elements in the physical world the properties of those elements. So knowing that obsidian is a very hard substance it's used to build portals in Minecraft. So there's absolutely this fantasy element, but based in, in reality one of the early examples I saw working with educators, we were doing a design thinking. Workshop and, and trying to understand what kind of lessons could be best taught in Minecraft. What kind of activities would be most useful for both the learners and the educators and, and this one teacher came up with an example of having the students calculate gravity by doing an experiment, both in Minecraft and in their classroom. And so he was thinking about, okay, well, I'll have the students design the experiment. And, and he said the experience for a student of popping open the inventory of Minecraft and seeing, oh, these digital items at their disposal and being able to choose, okay, I'm going to choose a feather. And I'm going to drop a feather from a certain height in Minecraft, and I'm going to get a feather and drop a feather in the classroom and measure that which is, you know, just a great in terms of the scientific method and the approach. But also then extending that to, okay, well, there's a game designer who made Minecraft and they had to make certain assumptions and certain decisions about how objects would fall. Now, if, if you played Minecraft, if you chop down a tree, there are blocks of the use that actually stay in the sky. So that doesn't behave the same way as it does and in our physical world. But, but other items do fall. And so it creates a really interesting extension from what could be a mathematical equation to. Thinking about more deeply about game designer and potential career path and how you might apply what you're learning in school that maybe doesn't seem so fun to a career that might be really interesting. So that journey from something I enjoy, maybe it starts out with watching Minecraft videos and moves into playing Minecraft and then wanting to customize like, like you experienced with your camp, wanting to customize their mod. Minecraft provides that motivation to keep going and learning and go into coding and develop technical skills. And like you said, what we see with coding in Minecraft is that immediate payoff, that immediate feedback and a sort of a natural inclination to go in and debug and iterate and improve on, on what they've developed. And then the opportunity to share that with friends and have friends. And this very familiar Minecraft environment just provides a really great learning cycle and motivation,
Jackie Guzda:you know, and I've got to tell you this Deirdre. I was shocked the other day, a friend of mine posted on Facebook that he was playing Minecraft with his son and his sons and daughters. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it's it's for all ages, is it not?
Deirdre Quarnstrom:It really is. It's so accessible to get started and that's something again, the last several years, working with Minecraft and education, we recognize that the community of educators. Maybe not familiar with video games, not to stereotype, not everyone. There are certainly gamers among our teacher population, but in general, the idea of bringing a video game, something that's unfamiliar into a classroom environment is, can be intimidating. And so. We really looked at what sort of like the base level of knowledge that someone would need to have in order to facilitate a Minecraft lesson. And it really, you know, it can be very straight forward. It can be that very simple game about placing and breaking box. We created a tutorial that's in the education edition that anyone can use, whether it's a student or an educator, who's not familiar with the game to teach about the basic navigation. And how do you go through amaze to practice that and learn about navigation, moving through water, climbing a ladder. And then some of the specific features that are in education edition, but it, it really can be anything. It can be a purely creative environment where you can create, you know, 3d statues or artwork. It can be something that's a competitive environment where you're going player versus player and, and trying to achieve some goal. And then just in the survival mode, there's something that's really exciting that. Turns from day to night, every 10 minutes and at night, different things happen and come out. And so there's this real kind of intensity that develops that that helps bring focus sometimes in the learning environment. Sometimes some of those constraints of knowing like, oh my gosh, I have a certain time limit on this, but there's some fun and unexpected elements associated with it. It can really help bring that focus to the task rather than resistance to the.
Dotan Tamir:Hey, I want to ask about that. You mentioned that it's not always easy for teachers or educators to accept that the video game is actually a learning tool or something like that. And I, and I assume that parents are also looking at, at those kinds of games as you know, screen time. And what's your experience with that? Do parents accept it as a, as an educational time? Is there a bad side for, from Minecraft and education in general? Like, do you get some kind of criticism.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:I'm a parent. And so screen time is definitely something that I pay attention to. And I'm conscious of particularly during the pandemic it's been, you know, it's been really challenging for students that have access to do virtual schooling and are looking at a screen for a lot part of the day and then have them doing, you know, social things, gaming, social media it is concerning for sure as a parent, something we're aware of. I Mitch Mitch Resnick from the MIT media lab he's written a book called lifelong kindergarten talks about the difference between. Screen time and creative time. And I think this is really important in recognizing the, the sort of consumption element of screen time versus the thinking, collaborating, connecting, social creative elements. Something that we heard from, from parents and from schools is during the pandemic there was particularly early on. So if you think back to. March, April, may of 2020, there was this, this immediate schools closed students were home. Parents are home where they, you know, could be trying to figure out, but a real feeling of uncertainty and fear and isolation. And so Minecraft, because it is a video game. And uh, you know, so many video games are created to have multiplayer experiences and the ability like we're doing right now over this podcast to connect virtually being able to connect virtually in a Minecraft environment where there might be also some learning objectives really provided that, that social element that Ability to collaborate, even when people were isolated in their homes and not going to school. Something else that we saw, which was just really kind of amazing and has a bit of a nostalgia element to it is students who were in university, particularly at the end of university, were the first generation really to fully grow up with Minecraft and have Minecraft part of their entire childhood. And, and a phenomenon that we saw in, in spring of 2020 was students, university students were maybe being sent home or not going to classes was they started creating university campuses or started building on existing university campuses and connecting there. There were a couple of universities that held commencement ceremonies and the virtual Minecraft world UC Berkeley did that, and it, it just, it was really heartwarming to see students, but at a moment where they were isolated coming back to something that was from their childhood and making those connections.
Jackie Guzda:Yeah. And I want to say we have a community out here on our Facebook live. We've got Victoria, Susan, Miriam. Hi guys. Put your questions, put your comments for Dierdra in the chat. Please pick her brain. Here's your opportunity. I'd love to know why you're interested in this. What is, where do you come from? What's your education experience? Maybe you have a new business that you're trying to develop. Maybe you could be the next Minecraft theaters here for you. So can't wait to hear from our audience. And so dear truck, I wanted to come back to this idea that you just mentioned, which is collaboration. I wish we had at Western Connecticut state university some of our programs in a collaborative environment, we kind of, but don't because it's not been as don't Tom just mentioned not been embraced by the community at large. So tell me, please, when we're talking about collaboration, what were there some surprises, some happy surprises, perhaps apart from what you just mentioned when it came to Minecraft in universities and K through 12.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Yeah, for sure. Oh, so often the pattern that we would see, and this kind of goes back to the earlier question about like, how does an educator get started or for someone who's not sure about it, or kind of not convinced about the opportunity that's there. We would often see one educator who was maybe, maybe they were a gamer, maybe they were experienced. Maybe they had seen Minecraft or experienced it at a conference, or they've got kids in their own home or playing and they see the potential. We don't often see that one educator come in and bring it in. And then there's sort of this effect of, of the kids in that class. Maybe staying a little bit longer, maybe the bell goes off and they're a little bit reluctant or they're maybe noisier, but in a really good way. And you sort of get that effect of other educators coming and looking at what's going on in there and starting to get a little bit more comfortable and, and picking that up. And trying it often, the first lesson is for a specific subject area. So, so one thing an educator brown Stuckey in Australia, researcher recommends is take that lesson that you just, it's not your favorite. It's, it's always a struggle. The students are always resistant, whatever that lesson is, take that one and think about what a Minecraft adaptation of that might be. So again, if we, if we look at, you know, introducing the concept of ratios, maybe that's just something that is just never going well. Bringing the students into a Minecraft world and using Minecraft blocks, a different colors to show ratio and proportion and move into fractions can introduce an unexpected element that that might bring something new to that lesson. So we often see something like that, a specific topic or subject or lesson as what brings Minecraft into, into the classroom for the first time. But what we've heard from educators over and over is that the benefits that they see in using Minecraft for teaching and learning extend far beyond that, and it is things like collaboration, skills, communication, planning, listening, skills, it can be such an effective tool for reaching learners who just don't do great in the traditional learning environment. So in a classroom setting with, with 25 or 30 other students, maybe that's not where they're most comfortable speaking out or participating, but the Minecraft environment can really be empowering. And I remember one, one example. We were very early, there was an elementary school in round rock, Texas that was using Minecraft. And so we're all excited. And we went there and they were in the library. It was a third grade class and the students were learning to write a story and learning about elements of story. And they had created a setting. And so this day they were coming into the computer lab to create the setting for their story in mind. And they started out with, with the setups and rules of engagement. Like we don't use potions, we're not going to use lava, like, and, and the students went through and listed out what their rules of engagement were for that day in the computer lab in Minecraft. And I was just observing and I noticed there was one girl who's sort of sitting kind of in the, in the back of the circle and not participating well. I happened to pass by and when she was in the Minecraft world, she was on that chat. So in Minecraft, there's a chat, you can speak to all the other players in the game. And she was, she was directing and coaching and redirecting and, and they had decided where they were going to build their town. And someone started off in the wrong place and she was redirecting them to come back and join the other students. And so to see those leads. Skills show up in that way in the virtual environment where, you know, she just hadn't participated earlier in the class when they were, you know, sitting together live. It, it, it just, it starts to provide some insight into the voices that are there, that we're not necessarily hearing leadership skills providing opportunities and, and something like that. Even a very simple activity of asking students to build their classroom in Minecraft. It can be a great early in the school year activity, they're doing measurement estimation planning you know, breaking up different jobs. And so for someone who is more creative, they might be choosing the different materials they use to represent the desks or the chairs of the flooring or the walls. And so it just provides these opportunities really to help encourage participation and build confidence among the students. No, that's pretty
Jackie Guzda:fascinating because as you were speaking, I automatically thought of a student I currently. Who could benefit from that. But what I want to do is bring in Susan Finley, who is watching on Facebook right now. And she says to Dierdre from Microsoft, where can I find a video game developer? Not sure where to look.
Dotan Tamir:She continues the way she continues and she says, she explained that we want to develop one of our educational programs into video game and have wanted to do this for a while. It's inspiring to hear that this is being done with Minecraft.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:So there is an amazing, amazing community on, on Twitter. And I'm sure on Facebook too, I'm using Minecraft EDU as a hashtag that will connect you into this great community of educators and amazing creators who over the years have built these just incredible Minecraft builds and it's everything from world's looking at equity and social justice and climate and refugee crisis to more, more traditional subjects. But I w I would suggest starting there on the, the Minecraft EDU community. The Minecraft education channel is play craft, learn at play craft learn. So those would be two people to go to places to start, but, but definitely suggest connecting them in that community. They are so incredibly creative and so generous with their time and always wanting to help. Wow.
Jackie Guzda:I'm sure that helped. Thank you so much, Deirdre Miriam Epstein, who is the director of Cal patchy that your company, I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly. She says we are educators of Spanish as a second language and create online lessons with a focus on speaking practice through games. I'm very interested in the topic for this reason and how we might get started incorporating new games and ideas into our program. We love making our learning environment fun and exciting for our students
Deirdre Quarnstrom:and that's Miriam amazing Miriam. I love that. And there are some great examples of language learning in Minecraft as well. And again, some of it is There's research that shows just in general, having an avatar represent you can help, help reduce stigma or fear of failure in the learning process. Right? So, so learning is all about trying and not getting it and learning. And and so having an avatar really can help. Build confidence reduce that stigma encourage some risk-taking in the learning process. And so for language learning, I remember when I was in middle school, studying French and barely mumbling out, you know, cause I was so embarrassed about about learning and not knowing the language. Having a virtual environment can be just fantastic. There's I'm trying to, again like the, the Twitter community is, is incredible for connecting with other educators. Another place to start specifically for Minecraft worlds and lessons that have already been created by educators. There's a lesson library either in the Minecraft education edition game. If you're already there, you can go into the library or on their website, education.minecraft.net. There is a lesson library with hundreds of lessons. I know that there are some Spanish language learning lessons in there already. Often they come with worlds. So it's just a matter of downloading that and then using that in the education edition they're almost all of them have been created by educators reviewed by us nationally board certified educators and include learning objectives and assessments and tools and lesson guides. So there should be a bunch of resources. And then I would also encourage you to contribute what you create back to that community. So others can use that or build on that as well.
Jackie Guzda:So Miriam says thank you with three exclamation points
Dotan Tamir:and we have the link share them the chat so everybody can go to education, minecraft.net. I, I actually had a follow-up question on something that we spoke before answering the questions. So going back a little bit in the discussion, because you spoke about that example of that girl that used the chat and, and it shows how, you know, she, she can practice leadership skills and, you know, that's, that's fascinating to see how kids are. They feel so natural in those virtual environments or in general. So natural, you know, meeting others and meeting friends over the internet. We were not born in, I mean, we are, we're all pretty young, but we still, I think the kids today for them, they were born to this era. And I want to ask you. What do you think about it? So you know, there's a, this is a big discussion about synchronous, digital learning and asynchronous stages. And the fact that a lot of online learning went to, you know, took the direction of, you know, here's your course, do it on your own time. Play that those videos take those courses. And there's this new wave of online education that that brings live and cohort and groups and working together and learning together. What do you think about this and, and ha where is it going? And also We have to mention that you had the Minecraft pro, but you know, of a lot of other things that are happening within Microsoft and education. So I'm sure you have some insights, not just from the microphone about this.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Sorry. Yeah. So I, so for. last Six or seven years I've been building out the, the, the opportunity for our Minecraft in education. And so, again, starting from the, some of the grassroots efforts that was happening in the education community, and then working to add features that support collaboration features that support creating a safe environment. So that's certainly a concern. And something that was a main focus for us as we were bringing Minecraft into the education space, is how do we, how do we create that, that safe environment where the school districts and. Families can, can feel comfortable that this is a safe environment. So with Minecraft education edition very early on one of the features that we added that makes it a little bit different from the consumer version of the game is that when used in a school environment, the students can only interact with others in their school environment. So if you're, I live, I live in Seattle. And so if you have a Seattle public schools, email address you'd be able to interact at that level or at a smaller school building level as, as the administrator for the school it system defines. And so that's number one, just a top concern. And that's something that I always encourage parents to be aware of is when their students are online to be conscious of what, what experiences they're using having you know, understanding. Who, who can possibly interact in that world. It's really important to pay attention to that. So with Minecraft in education, we absolutely made sure that that was a primary focus for us initially. Otherwise the game is very similar to the consumer game. So we've added some of these layers for student login using their school address, creating the opportunity to interact with others in their classroom, because that. That multiplayer as we call it in the gaming world or cohort based learning is so valuable. You know, again, the, the opportunity for students to sort of play different roles of, you know, a bit more of a creator or someone who's out there, you know, placing the box and doing more of the construction and the interactions and the planning that that requires and the kind of real-world skills I'll say of things that we do every day and in traditional work environments of, you know, building a plan, working it out, you know, realizing that we're gonna run into some roadblocks. In the case of Minecraft, it may be that a creeper destroys your building. Hopefully that's not happening in, in that, in your work environment, but really using that as an environment to model some of those skills. 21st century skills that we want to see developed. So earlier this year, I, I moved from the game-based learning world and working on Minecraft into some of the more traditional teaching and learning tools that Microsoft has to offer. So things like teams for education and some of the services that we introduced during the pandemic. There's a feature where a teacher can assign work directly in teams for education. And a student can turn that in student can, a teacher can return that for revisions, have it graded. We have a feature for group assignments. Again, recognizing that even in a virtual environment, we want to create that, that group learning benefits that can happen. We also have some really amazing tools for accessibility. And so in terms of themes and trends and education one of the silver linings From the pandemic for me has been this renewed conversation around equity and education and that's everything from affordable devices and, and connectivity to having a truly accessible features. So for foreign language learners for people with learning disabilities, I have a daughter who has dyslexia and for her, a lot of this assistive technology is so valuable. You know, I think about some of the mini battles that we had about homework early on before she was diagnosed with dyslexia before we really started sort of looking into how can we best support her. And now, you know, there may be maybe an evening where. An assignment to do and just a little bit tired. And I could just imagine what that would be like if she was doing that with paper and pencil, but being able to use dictation in a Microsoft word document, it just, it allows her to express what she's thinking and get the ideas out without that. What can be really challenging for her is like getting the words out, using a pen or pencil on paper. So, so these technologies are hugely valuable for the learners again, to, in some cases to de-stigmatize and other cases per to just provide a tool or an outlet so that they can demonstrate their learning, demonstrate their knowledge and, and remove some of the barriers. Just recently, about a month ago, we launched a new tool called reading progress. And I'm so excited about this. I'm partly because of my connection with the dyslexia community, but just in general there's been some research, small amount of research showing some learning loss through the pandemic specifically in literacy. And what this reading progress tool allows teachers to do is to have their entire class submit a reading assessment at once. And then it uses AI and machine learning to evaluate that. So the students record themselves reading a passage and Microsoft teams. And then. Immediately evaluated and returned to the educator. So things like if there's a mispronunciation. So if I'm reading my passage and I mispronounce a word, it will flag that word word and identify for the teacher. Maybe that five students had trouble with this word, or if there's if I'm doing corrections, that might be great for my teacher to recognize, Hey, Hey, Dierdre I noticed you corrected yourself when you were reading this passage and you came across this word that we've practiced before. So it provides, it saves a ton of time. Normally that exercise would be the teacher and the student probably sitting in the hallway doing that and taking attention away from the rest of the class. But with this, the teacher can assign that paragraph and that reading exercise, it can be done synchronously with headphones on, in the classroom or asynchronously, right? So it provides a lot of flexibility. And then the bringing in the data and insights can be so, so powerful to help, you know, direct to appropriate content and practice exercise for the students
Jackie Guzda:Wow. And of course you're talking about accessibility, right? Students who need a little extra direction or help on something. My question is, what about, what about those kids that don't have the benefit of being in the United States of America, where we have access to everything in the world? I mean, there is the rest of the world. What is Microsoft doing about.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Yeah. So we're absolutely looking at making the tools and the devices more affordable, more accessible reading progress, you know, is sort of envisioned around language, learning early learners. And what we've seen is that there's so many other applications just in the, in the first month that that has been publicly available. We're seeing it for adult literacy. And, and again, I think I mentioned stigma earlier, but the, the, you know, stigma of adult literacy can be really challenging to overcome. And so this provides, you know, a more, just a more private environment to practice and iterate on that. So, so seeing how some of these tools can be used and applied Globally in different scenarios is, is fantastic. One other area that I work on that, that I really love is a program called block by block, which is a partnership with between Microsoft and Mojang the creators of Minecraft and UN habitat. And with that, we use Minecraft as a tool to connect communities and bring people together in the, in the global south or the developing worlds some of the least developed countries in the world. This started about eight years ago with an architect in Sweden who was looking, looking for ways to, to get more public participation in redevelopment of a public housing project area in Stockholm. So most of you, wherever you live in the world have probably seen some sort of call for public comment or assign maybe on a property that's going to be redeveloped that you might get a postcard in the mail or a notification about a community meeting about some public space. Well, most people don't participate. And when they do, it tends to be the people who are in the majority. So in many cases, it's the, the adult males who are participating in these processes. And so the opportunity that, that Jergens on Sweden and that we've seen with, with the block by block program in Minecraft is we want to bring everyone who is in the community. Everyone who's using those public spaces and has access to them. We want to hear from them. And so the, the way that that process works is we work with local communities that might be a city or a community organization that has land or a public space that they want to redevelop. We create a model of that space in Minecraft. So if you think about a public space, maybe there's an abandoned lot near where you live. We would create that space in Minecraft and then invite people from the community in to actually go into the Minecraft model and change. it So they'd be adding blocks, breaking blocks Often what we would see is people adding lighting for safety. So it might be that they don't feel safe early in the morning hours or in the evening because there isn't adequate lighting. We see people adding maybe fences or retaining walls. If there's like an unsafe area, if there's a drop-off or some sort of physical element that they want to protect from adding community buildings, spaces for recreation, for, for playing games and for communities to come together. We then have a voting process where people who live in the community come in and participate in voting. So might say, yes, we need lighting. And they might say, well, we're not really ready to have a skate park, but we want a community garden. And then they select the. The Minecraft designs and then turned over to architects who create actual actual plans for the space. And then we fund construction of those spaces. So we've created over a hundred of these public spaces around the world. And the, the Bennett, you know, again, it's, it's, it's an innovative process, which is really exciting. The workshop itself is just the energy coming from the workshops. And the confidence building that we see is really incredible. But the impacts we see longer term are everything from, you know, improving accessibility, the physical accessibility of spaces to just empowerment and, and encouraging the people who have participated and use those spaces. Even thinking about career paths are stealing that that might not have been on their, on their path. Before doing that, we also see benefits for health and public safety as well.
Dotan Tamir:Awesome. Wow. No, that's well, I think the impact is incredible and And opportunities like amazing. And, and, but what really caught me and I'm sorry, you know, my, the little geek kid within me was the opportunity to build something on Minecraft and have, and then have an architect really planning it. And then if this is really being constructed this is like a dream come true. You know, I. Printing a 3d version of what I create. Minecraft sounds incredible. So having a real, real side life-size Moto or building. Wow. Where can I sign up?
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Yeah. So block by block.org is the, is the the site for the block by block foundation. And it's, it's, it's just, you know, it's, it's one of those things that the more, that more time I spend with it, the more inspired I am and we had, you know, exactly, exactly what you're saying to Tom. We had one student, we recorded some of the workshops and the quote was like, Hey friends, I made this. And it is, it's that just amazing moment of going from being kind of an average kid to participating in this workshop. And then having your ideas come to life in a way that you and all your friends in generations to come can interact with them. It's really empowering.
Jackie Guzda:You know, we've talked about. Block by block. We've talked about the tongue click two, which is a collaborative online learning platform. So what do you see for the future Deirdre? What does this new wave of online learning needs?
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Yeah, I think so a couple things, one, there's just, there's so much uncertainty still right now. I, you know, I get emails from different education, publications and follow what's happening in the news and social media and all the really, really challenging issues that school leaders are dealing with right now around you know, when, when to have students in class, when to get a remote hybrid. So there's just, there's a ton of uncertainty and I think It's such an interesting and pivotal moment right now. So I think, you know, I mentioned the, the increased focus on equity. I, I believe that will bring a ton of value and access, you know, far beyond the pandemic. And so bringing more, bringing accessible, affordable technology into the hands of, of every learner is certainly a goal for me. And thinking about how we do that in a way that recognizes differences in access to internet and electricity in some cases and what exactly they're connecting to. So I think that's usually important and there's also an increased focus on social, emotional learning. And again, I think sort of born out of the pandemic is this renewed recognition of, of the importance of wellbeing and social, emotional learning in teaching and learning environments and for young people in general. And so very encouraged by that we Minecraft is certainly a place where And a lot of the content and lessons for the education edition topics like equity and social justice and social, emotional learning have been at the center. A few years ago, we hadn't Microsoft hackathon and the hackathon is when you have some employees, generally we'll, we'll spend a week working on some, something that's of interest to them and hacking on it, actually writing code code, and building. Products to, to explore something that's kind of outside of the definition of their day job. And one project we had come out of that a couple of years ago was something that became a Minecraft world called the mindful night. And it was night with a K like a medieval night. And what that was doing was, was building a Minecraft world based in research about social, emotional learning, and about regulation and about meditation. And so in this world, it takes the student through the sort of medieval themed world. Practicing mindfulness in a Minecraft world. So there's one element where you go into a tower and then you're lifted up in the tower and there's a countdown to remind you to breathe in that another area that is an underwater mind comfortable, which is really a lovely, peaceful space most of the time with coral and fish swimming by. And so there's just that sort of a moment for meditation and observation. And so the idea of bringing, bringing wellness and social, emotional learning into a Minecraft world was, was very surprising to me. And we've seen a huge response to that. Again, just recognizing there's, there's so much, so much stress and pressure on students and creating these environments. Is part of the curriculum. That's part of the teaching and learning process is critical. We also have in Microsoft teams, a tool called reflect and reflect, allows the students to reflect using some, some emojis, very simple how they're feeling and, and provide some information to the teacher. That's something that, that I find challenging in the work environment is not having those more casual interactions and, and seeing an understand how people are doing on a day-to-day basis. You know, we get, we of get into our cameras for those of us who work in this kind of environment. And it can be hard to know what kind of chaos is going on in the background or what you've just, just come from or a heading to. And so in a teaching and learning environment, again, everyone's carrying these extra burdens right now. Today was, you know, students are in classroom with masks on it's really hard to. Get a read for how people are feeling, how people are doing. If you have a student who's struggling either at school or at home. And so this reflect tool is just a really quick sort of check-in moment for students to be able to share how they're feeling.
Dotan Tamir:I think, well, obviously the world is going, the world of education is going digital. And you know, sometimes they still speak with people that say, you know, you know, the, the pandemic is going to get over, or basically we're going to get back to this old kind of world and everything's going to be back to normal. I don't see that happening. I say that I think the world is going more and more digital. And it's for the, for the group, you know, it's, it's for good, it's, it's, there's so much more to do and to progress and environments like Minecraft and others allow kids to really feel growth and empowerment, even remotely, even when they are in different parts of the world. And we see the happening also at click too. We see that happening with enrichment after school programs, where kids can finally pick a topic that they really, really want to explore that was not available in their school or in their neighborhood. And now they can find it somewhere because they can join under the computer. So, yeah, that's, you know, it, it's very inspiring to hear what you're saying and what Microsoft is working on. I wonder what do you think? When we, when we think only two years into the future, right. And let's not be too futuristic will kids go back to school generally speaking right in your world, will kids go back to school everyday in person and to their after and do everything back in person? Or is it like a one-way thing now? So kids will do more and more things remotely and from different.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Yeah. I, you know, I think even before the pandemic started, we've seen remote teaching and learning and, and things like, like tutoring programs, camps, afterschool programs there's a company that we work with that does coding in Minecraft called tinker tinker with a Y T Y N K E R. And they, they recognized a ton just like you saw with your canvas, like this desire and motivation to mod Minecraft and, and took an approach of, okay, this is a great way to introduce coding skills. And, and so they've built their business and that's something that in many cases is, is more student driven than sort of parent top-down parent or educator driven. And so I think we we've already seen some of that. I did some work with Minecraft in China and. The, the opportunities for afterschool learning across any subject imaginable. In China, it was just, it was, it was overwhelming. The first time that I visited, we went to a mall in Beijing and the entire top floor was dedicated to learning. There was a Lego education. We didn't have a Minecraft education, but Lego education a lot of English, language learning courses and programs, a lot of them based in play-based learning and, and fun. And again, recognizing this is outside of school and, and bringing some of that motivation in. So I think there's already, like some of that was already happening. I expect, we'll see the sort of change to the traditional go to a school building and, and be in a classroom and sort of different classes. I expect that'll be a slower change, but I do see changes, accelerating number one, and use of technology so that the sort of rapid adoption of using a device and some kind of connection for not just virtual classes, but some of the assistive technology. Note-taking like, there's a version of one note for schools called one note for education, and that can be hugely valuable for. Some of the organization that can be really tough and learning. And particularly as you go into sort of secondary school and higher education sort of note-taking scenario and using virtual tools that allow things like transcription for someone who's maybe learning in another language or accessibility issues. So there's, there's a lot of, there's been a rapid adoption in technology and I, I do hope and expect we will see that continue for just making things easier, more accessible and adding on some of that assistive technology. Another area I'm really interested in and, and hopeful about is, is in the area of assessment. This is, can be a really controversial kind of loaded topic in education. It was something when I first started sort of making the rounds and the ed tech conferences and meeting with some of the researchers who were doing research around game-based learning or play-based learning was this topic of assessment. And the first question I got was how are you going to assess it this? And so assessing Minecraft is, is kind of the equivalent of, you know, giving someone a. A piece of paper and some sort of art material, whatever, like crayons or paint or anything, and then having like a rubric to assess that you could just, you can do anything with Minecraft. And so like immediately I thought, oh my gosh, how are we going to assess this? It's an open world. Students can do anything. We don't know if breaking a block is destructive or if that's actually creating, you know, creating something that's useful. And kind of came around to the idea over time of teachers have ways to assess all sorts of, of activities that aren't necessarily sort of having a computer spit out a, a grade or a score and or evaluation. And so we, we really defaulted to that. We provided some tools there's a camera in Minecraft education edition that student can snap a photo of what they've created and add some context. And so that can then become part of the assessment tool rather than having us define what the rubric is and the assessment. So I'm really interested to see, we saw standardized tests in most places in the world, including college entrance exams. Like there was, there was no way to do that early in the pandemic, and we've seen a lot of institutions not requiring those anymore. So it creates really, really interesting opportunities for bringing in new models of assessment and really thinking about what are, what are the skills that we want to evaluate? What are the skills that are predictive of success in a particular university or major? So I'm, I'm very interested in and following what's happening in the assessment space. Again, I think there have been things. W been maybe trends or topics and education, like the idea of flipped classroom. I think that's interesting. And I'm really curious to see if there's as there sort of research coming out of the pandemic is that are teachers finding that useful or learners finding that useful what's the impact on learning outcomes? So I think we've had a lot of things piloted out of necessity during the pandemic, and it will be really interesting to follow and study learners and see, see what's happening. I think sort of 20, 20 to 2021, probably not predictive of the future, but as, as we continue and as practitioners adopt things that they have found useful it will be really interesting to track that
Dotan Tamir:no, you spoke about assessment and I had an idea maybe thought about it already, if not take it. I mean, it's a lot of the projects in Minecraft, right? in The education are done in groups, teams, or pairs or small groups of kids that are working on some, building something together. Can you measure the level of participation of each one of the group. Do you have a way to do that and to show that the teacher, if there's a leader, there's a follower, there is everybody participating.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Yeah. I mean, there was sort of lots of data that the schools or teachers can extract about, you know, what's happening at the block level. What's hard is just, is, is understanding how that contributes to the, to the effort. And so we've relied more on things like recommending peer evaluation or even even self evaluation from the students to, to sort of show their, their contribution level. But it's, it's really into, that might be an idea for a future hackathon for my team.
Jackie Guzda:I love the idea of this peer to peer learning. I mean, don't tell, does that happen in click to.
Dotan Tamir:That happens at many of the programs is funnel, click too. It's just I, you know, we see, I think, especially with kids they learn together way better that they learn on their own. They motivate each other. They love the community feeling. They love the part that somebody cares for them that they can ask question and get an immediate feedback. It's I think it's very hard for kids to learn in an asynchronous world. It's not impossible, but it's harder. So we just try to. You know, to create a platform that makes all of this synchronous learning and live courses, more fun, engaging, and mostly easier to manage because they think this is, you spoke about it, daydream about that the fact that management of education can become pretty complex. And it is especially where a lot of the people that work in education, not necessarily tech savvy. So they need a very simple, simple way. You know, even in Ms words in Microsoft word, right, there are so many features. How many teachers use more than 10% of what Ms. Ward really offers. Right? It has to be very, very simple and easy. So that's what we're really trying to make. And I think that's, by the way, that's probably one of the secrets of Minecraft because it's kids don't need to learn how to use it. They just use it.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:There are just always, always learning from it. And to your point, they're learning from each other. I I'll see my daughter is doing something new. Where'd you where'd you learn that? Where'd you get an office? Oh, my cousin did this or someone at school showed me this or YouTube video. And so that it is that, that continuous learning, but there's this like incentive and this payoff what, when they learn it, when they learn to do a new, I dunno, how do, how to load a new mod in, or some sort of new behavior that they've added. Hmm.
Jackie Guzda:You know, we're getting to the end of this Facebook live. So if anybody out there participating in, this has one last question. Common for Dierdre. Please put it in the chat because we have five minutes. So do your drunk for me. I'm an educator. I'm in college things move rather slowly. When it comes to adopting change in those environments. So does Microsoft have any kind of outreach to organizations like mine that might not be welcoming to. Something new.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Yeah. That's, that's such a great question. And I'm just, I'm remembering back to sort of six, seven years ago when we were first starting the conversations about, can we really take this video game and bring it into education? And we talked about earlier kind of expecting some resistance from all levels except for the students or the learners. You know, in most cases they're pretty eager to use a video game whether they were familiar with Minecraft or not coming into class. But we just, you know, we recognized not, not just resistance, but real, real challenges and blockers and stuff. We tried to make at least starting out with Minecraft education edition, easy enough that anyone, anyone could use it. And so there's, there's, there is a license fee for using it, but educators can access it login 20 times before they're prompted to login. So it gives you some chance to play around with it. And if you want to explore that and explore a number one, sort of learn and get comfortable moving around the environment, and then sort of think about how you might set up a lesson download worlds from the Minecraft lesson library to get a feel for it. So there's, there's lots of opportunities. And then students have five logins. Which is, you know, kind of plenty for for most settings to try it out. So we we've made it, you know, tried to make it very accessible so you can get started. You can kind of play around with it, kick the tires, see, see how it might work for you. There's also some amazing educator community. So I mentioned the, the Minecraft EDU community on Twitter for Microsoft education, we have a community on, on Microsoft teams that, that anyone can join called everyday remote learning or everyday real learning. We started out as remote, then it really became such a powerful space for educators to connect. In some cases it provided some like, Hey, I've run into an issue here. And then having another educator talk about how they solved it. It's just, it's different from, from working with your, it maybe you know, you're just like understanding the scenarios more and, and speaking in a language that's more familiar and comfortable. So there's, there's a great some great communities for educators and for it administrators to sort of share and learn from each other. I'll share, I'll share a link to that as well. You can share that with your listeners after the show. So I would, you know, encourage that sort of community connection piloting, trying things. The, the other place that we see as really interesting is the learners coming in and saying, Hey, here's, here's the thing that I learned about Minecraft, or I heard Minecraft's used in education. Can we use it in our physics class? And so. I think sort of flipping things around from, from that perspective and learning from the students and, and leaning on the students. We've seen some really exciting student mentorship programs where the students are the mentors for the educators. There's been some, some e-sports and we didn't even talk about e-sports, that's probably a whole other show, but e-sports is a really interesting area, really, you know, again, to think about how do we build competence, provide opportunities for collaboration and competition that are either when we can't be physically together, or for people who are more comfortable or want the alternative of a virtual environment. And students can be great coaches in and creating e-sports worlds and sport competitions, everything from the tech to support it, to helping define what's fun and challenging. So tapping into the knowledge of the students and the learners on, Hey, what are some tools that are using, what would make this better? What can we bring into the, the, the instruction environment that would make it even more engaging, I think is a great place to start as well. Awesome. Well,
Jackie Guzda:this has been absolutely. Firing Dierdre. I mean, I'm looking forward to the future. All good things. Yeah. So I, you know, I really want to thank my cohost from click to, and also the people who joined us today, the Victoria, Susan, Miriam, and the other people out there that are listening on the podcast or people who might catch us later on, on YouTube. So thank you so much, Deirdre. You ha you've given me the will to live as an educator today.
Deirdre Quarnstrom:Thank you
Dotan Tamir:so much. Great. You've given me the will to have a building constructed from a model that I modeled on Minecraft that I built in Minecraft. So now I have something to to look forward to. I thank you so much. Great, great, great time.
Jackie Guzda:Yeah. Thank you Deirdre. Thank you everyone. We'll see you next week, Wednesday at 1130 for our program by.