While Minecraft is largely viewed as a game, there seems to be something about it that has some kind of educational value attached to it. Previously we have heard how the game could be used to teach children about science and technology, and now a tech education company by the name of Youth Digital is planning to use the game to teach kids how to code.
According to Justin Richards who is the CEO of Youth Digital, “If you tell 9-year-olds that coding experience will help them get a job in the future, they might not be too interested. But if you ask them if they want to create a video game, they’ll answer yes every time.” So how will this work, you ask?
Basically kids will be subscribed to a year-long curriculum in which they will be able to access tools and a hosting service by Youth Digital. From there they will be able to custom-code their own Minecraft environments, characters, scenarios, all for an annual fee of $250. 10-year old Ronan, who is one of the early adopters of the program said, “You get to add things that you would never ever, ever, ever be able to do without a programming interface. You can create skeletons wearing iron doors. How weird is that?”
Back in 2014, Microsoft announced that they would be acquiring Mojang, the developers of Minecraft for a cool $2.5 billion, and it looks like their investment into the company and its properties are yielding somewhat unconventional results.
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