Most of what we get at school is consumption and spoon fed – "here's the information" and "master this information," then "take the test," "now we can move on" – but, the reality is that we live in a world that is changing so quickly that the best skill you can have, possibly, is your ability to adapt and to learn new things on the fly. ...With Minecraft, you have to figure it out, you have to read about it yourself, you have to ask a friend, you have to experiment until you learn. ...So the best we can do is to prepare students to be really successful learners and problem solvers, to be creative and learn to collaborate, and that is what I think these games do the best.
~Marianne Malmstrom
EMS Technology Teacher Marianne Malmstrom was recently the featured speaker on It Takes A Guild: A Guild of Educators, an "educator centric webinar series offered" by Gamers Advancing Meaningful Education or G.A.M.E. In the webinar interview, Ms. Malmstrom talks about how " the EMS Tech team successfully guided the integration of the popular game Minecraft into the activities and curriculum of most of the grades at The Elisabeth Morrow School" (webinar synopsis of episode 2).
You can also check out an abridged reprise of her Appletree Magazine article Game to Learn on the recently launched A Platform For Good, "a project of the Family Online Safety Institute designed to help parents, teachers and teens to connect, share and do good online." A featured blogger for this site, this article will be the start of many other articles to follow for Ms. Malmstrom.