In this first session that I attended Mary Glendenning, Library Director at Middletown Free Library in Pennsylvania, discussed the programs that their library has been doing to engage kids who love Minecraft. For the most part they haven't been having programs that really use Minecraft as a piece of software though. Instead they've focused on derivative projects in which kids, using resources in the library's maker space, create physical objects that represent or are modeled from objects that can be found in the game.
Ms. Glendenning first described the game of Minecraft and then explained why they had chosen the game as something to build their programs around. The popularity of the game, particularly with pre-teen boys (a demographic that is difficult for libraries to attract) and its open-ended nature were a couple things that made the game attractive to them. Also of critical importance is the fact that the game can touch on four Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) identified skills of importance: learning and innovation skills; information, media and technology skills; 21st century themes; and social and cross cultural skills. It was also these skills that they wished to target with their programming.
The presentation then provided a number of examples of the kinds of projects that kids have worked on and how those projects either expanded on concepts introduced in Minecraft or used Minecraft as a starting point. For example, in the game it's possible to build a kind of circuit using a material called "redstone." To demonstrate how that concept was relevant to the real world they helped kids build real electronic circuits using some kid-friendly breadboards and electronic equipment. Another circuitry project was to create a Minecraft torch using soft circuits in fabric as sewing projects, which sounds like something we could do.
Another project used Minecraft and some extra software to create, export, and print 3D designs. I found this particularly interesting as we have Minecraft installed on public computers and kids frequently have difficulty creating designs in more conventional 3D CAD software.
Kids also created Minecraft stories using video production and audio editing software. Even making Minecraft food from rice crispy treats and making a Minecraft Christmas tree from discarded boxes were projects.
This presentation provided a lot of thoughts on the ways we might be able to integrate our Minecraft software and the interest in Minecraft that kids have with the resources available in our library and in our makerspace.
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