#1. The Maze

The Maze is an awesome single-player maze game, where you find the special items, until you reach a mini-arena, and fight the waves of enemies. The modder, Mr. Sonny, says “No Cheating”, but there’s nothing stopping you from remixing his code… Check out a Youtube video of the mod in action here, or access the mod on LearnToMod here.

#2. The Room 2

The Room 2 is an awesome multiplayer mini-game to play on your LearnToMod server with your friends. To start, type “join” to be part of the group, and try to survive the waves of skeletons. Try to get the high score! Check out a Youtube video of the mod in action here, or access the mod on LearnToMod here.

#3. Mining

Spawn a chest that saves EVERYTHING that you collect while mining! No more worrying about descending into the depths and losing all your gear to a spontaneous Creeper explosion. Check out a Youtube video of the mod in action here, or access the mod on LearnToMod here.

The post Our 3 Top Mods of the Day appeared first on LearnToMod.

Why aren’t students pursuing computer science? Currently, only 2.4% of students who graduate from college have a degree in CS. 98% of current CS majors report having been exposed to CS before college, but only 1 out of 4 schools around the U.S. teach a CS class. This suggests that, without some exposure before college, many students either do not feel confident enough to pursue this prospering field or do not realize the opportunity even exists. By exposing more students to CS education in K-12 schools, we can put more students in the pipeline to filling these lucrative jobs, resulting in several billions of dollars in earnings by American workers within the next decade. 

Who’s trying to solve this problem?  Thanks to new initiatives like the Hour of Code and Computer Science Ed Week, the CS education problem is reaching the minds of parents around the country. President Obama’s 4 billion dollar pledge to support CS education in schools further highlights the nation’s need for more CS graduates. In addition to these various initiatives, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funds various research and development projects of small businesses around the country in order to promote the progress of science and advance national health, prosperity, and welfare. The NSF has a strong interest in promoting CS education for the advancement of national prosperity.

LearnToMod is trying to solve the CS education problem. This past year, the LearnToMod Team garnered support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant. Because LearnToMod engages K-12 students in coding well before college, LearnToMod has the potential to inspire students to pursue CS as a profession and gives students the building blocks necessary to feel capable in their pursuit of CS in college. We were able to develop a lot of new features on LearnToMod with the NSF’s support! Check out our Project Outcomes report for this project by going here. Ours is the first grant in this list!

Additional Resources about CS Education Statistics:

Code.org. (2016). Promote Computer Science. Retrieved January 13, 2016, from: https://code.org/promote

Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek). (2015). Blurbs and Useful Stats.  Retrieved January 13, 2016, from: https://csedweek.org/resource_kit/blurbs

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2015 was a big year for Minecraft and the mods that surround it (whether on PC or console). 2015 marked the 6^th year of Minecraft’s initial release, so it’s worth celebrating just how far Minecraft has come by counting off what we think were the 3 top Minecraft PC updates of 2015. Without further ado…

#1. The 1.7.10 Patch

1.7.10 was understated this year but is perhaps one of the most important updates of 2015 for one simple reason. Mojang’s Realms Team finally added the ability to upload your own worlds! In addition to making it easier for everyone to share their creations and experiences, they also enabled many more server settings so that those who are setting up a server can decide whether or not they want monsters, if there should be Player-vs-Player activated, and many other common wishes. These two major feature-sets in the 1.7.10 made Minecraft a lot more social and easier to have longer, more experimental sessions.

#2. The Name-Change Update & February Updates

On February 4th in 2015, Minecraft, for the first time ever, allowed players to change their names. This was a very welcomed addition and also preceded two awesome updates, 1.8.2 and 1.8.3 that allowed players to carefully measure and track new statistics in the world like pots planted or the numbers of records played. By allowing players to change their name, it gives them a freedom of identity that is very good for the community. The feature was a sign that Mojang will do a lot to make the community welcoming and as happy as possible. This was also evident in our number 3 pick…

#3. 1.8.8, MiniGames & Realm Resource packs

In the update of July 2015, we got two big surprises next to the huge list of security and performance fixes. One of them was a complimentary minigame for Minecraft by SethBling. This is a big deal because it’s a perfect way to show players what can be done in Minecraft if they know it’s possible. It sets a high bar for what can be done in Minecraft. The other big feature that was added was resource packs such as textures for whole realms. This way, resources that are common to the game can easily be universally swapped out for new ones that keep the game fresh and interesting, while also allowing for a dimension of artistic creativity!

Minecraft has a lot to offer and continued to be one of the most popular games in the world in 2015. The reason is simple, it allows people to create and invent. Especially for kids, it can teach fast brains like theirs new concepts that relate to math, science, and computer logic. Minecraft mods have kids programming in Javascript through modding softwares in order to push the limits of what Minecraft has to offer, even with these awesome updates. Learning Javascript isn’t easy but as they say, “learn to do something you love and you won’t work a day in your life”. Complicated concepts come easy with Minecraft and we’re excited for what the year 2016 will hold for Minecraft and the amazing people who power the community.

The post Top Minecraft PC Updates for 2015 appeared first on LearnToMod.

JourneyMap v. 5.1.3 – Updated Dec. 9th 2015

JourneyMap is the popular Forge mod that maps out your Minecraft world/session as you play and explore! You’re able to look at the map either in-game or in a web browser later. This version comes with additional support for high resolution textures and shaders.

CoFH Core v. 3.0.3 – Updated Dec. 13th 2015

CoFH Core increases the flexibility of the world generation and allows the player to configure things like ore generation and the consistency of certain events in the game. The new version for Minecraft 1.8 has some bug fixes as well and should be easier for people to use.

Waila v 1.1 – Updated Dec. 14 2015

Waila is the incredible mod that helps players answer the important question, “What am I looking at?” by displaying information about any block or object that the character looks at. This is very useful for keeping things organized and being able to distinguish between very similar looking blocks, and it’s a major game improvement for color-blind people!

This Week’s Minecraft Development News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etyqijWVx80

Minecraft news is big this week because of a massive update by Mojang to Minecraft on almost all consoles (not PC or Wii U yet, sorry!). On December 18th on the official Minecraft company feed, there was a huge announcement that there would be over 30 new items for all modes, new items only for creative mode, and then a huge list of new blocks, mobs, and biomes that should change countless things about the gameplay! Not only that, but hopefully the update will include lots of room for modding, as usual! Mojang calls the update version 1.8.8 and you may have already heard of it… In the event that you haven’t, however, check out the announcement on Twitter!

Latest LearnToMod Stream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj6mhnkn6ns

In our latest Let’s Play that we streamed, we played with a new Minecraft “Star Wars mod” by LearnToMod developer Oh Carlos!. The Star Wars mod was 100% written using LearnToMod, and it was a blast to play! Our content crew played it with fellow LearnToModders, and we uploaded it to our YouTube and Twitch.tv in case you missed it. The mod allows you to choose a side (the Sith or Jedi, of course), a light saber, and last but not least… allows you to use the force. See if you can win an intergalactic war in Minecraft by downloading the mod yourself!

The post Top Minecraft December Updates appeared first on LearnToMod.

Join our free LearnToMod for Educators Coursera course! We’ve partnered with the University of California, San Diego to put together this free course designed to get parents and teachers comfortable with Minecraft & Minecraft modding! Start teaching computer programming using LearnToMod today with a free teacher account!

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It’s a great extension to all the tutorials that are already on the L2M website! This is our first book in what we hope will be a fun series!

The book was recently covered by the Jacob’s School of Engineering at UCSD here.

The authors of the book & founders of LearnToMod.

The post Official Book Release: Minecraft Modding For Kids using LearnToMod appeared first on LearnToMod.

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This year, the L2M co-founders got the chance to attend Minecon in London, thanks to our partners on the Minecraft in Education Team at Microsoft! We helped Microsoft run workshops at Minecon to train teachers and parents in how to use Minecraft as a teaching tool for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). These are just half the teachers we trained at Minecon:

It was really fantastic to rub shoulders with some of the bright & famous from the Minecraft community! You can see more of our Minecon journey on Twitter (@sarahguthals and @lindseydhandley) and Instagram (@lindseyhandley).

Custom Items

Minecon or not, LearnToMod development continues! Right now, we’re making it easier to create new custom blocks that drop custom items! Check out this Mario example that one of our developers came up with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTEWjoXOEj0

Pretty cool right?

If you’re interested in learning more, watch these two tutorials on how to mod your own custom blocks & how to create a mod that drops custom items from a block:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV610JCo6d0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jhZ5qk7S6M

The post LearnToMod Development Update: July 8, 2015 appeared first on LearnToMod.

JHack aims to encourage New Zealand school kids to think about a career in digital industry, the country’s third biggest export market. Edwina Mistry, one of JHack organisers and Industry and Community Engagement Manager at MIT’s Faculty of Business and IT, says the competition will give students a head start in coding. “There’s a huge skills shortage in the IT industry. This is an opportunity to give the next generation some experience in coding, mentored by knowledgeable industry experts.”

The students will be working in teams of three; they have been mentored by 29 industry experts using LearnToMod.

Daniel Martushev, a member of the JHack Organising committee and Master Technologist at HP New Zealand said, “as an IT professional I have attended hackathons and seen first-hand the surprising and innovative ideas communities develop over the span of a weekend (e.g., the HackAKL 2014 event held in Auckland.) At the same time, there is an opportunity to extend these events and find a way to involve kids in a fun format while showing how they can play a role in New Zealand’s digital future.”

The industry mentors represent tech-savvy NZ companies, including Xero, Air New Zealand, Vodafone, Deloitte, Ernest and Young, HP, BNZ, Orion Health, Attract HQ, Tenzing, and Cognitel.

Over 150 students have been preparing for the JHack event all June! Along with their industry mentors and organisers, they have put in a lot of time, energy, and passion! Here’s just a snapshot of their progress so far:

14,595 LearnToMod badges earned by participants

145,950 minutes have been logged by participants earning badges

1008 hours logged by volunteers who organized the event and mentored students

The LearnToMod team wants to congratulate all the JHack organizers, volunteers, mentors, and students for their dedication and passion! Thank you for providing an amazing model for how others can affect change and make a difference in the lives of their local students! Check out the JHack website for more information on the upcoming event: http://jhack.co.nz/.

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Dr. Guthals here and I’m looking for someone to work with! The job description is below, and you can find it on Monster.com here. This would be a 20/hr a week job, with the possibility of being full-time starting Fall 2015. If you’re local to San Diego, I would love to have you apply!

Happy Modding!

Job Description
ThoughtSTEM is seeking a Curriculum and Educational Manager to develop, improve, and iterate on curriculum and pedagogy. This position will primarily be focused on computer science teaching to K-12 students and K-12 teachers (professional development). The main applications used to teach will be LearnToMod and Minecraft. This position may involve:

• Developing and Running Teacher Professional Development Workshops and Courses (In-Person and Online)
• Developing and Running K-12 Online Courses
• Developing written materials (such as books, articles, and blogs) to support computer science learning
• Developing and Editing videos used in online courses and/or blogs

All activities will be under the guidance of Dr. Sarah Guthals, ThoughtSTEM’s CTO.

Applicants Must Have:

• Some teaching experience (does not need to be formal)
• Curriculum Development Experience
• Experience creating lessons based on some standards (Common Core preferred but not required)

Additional Preferred skills Include:

• Experience playing Minecraft
• Some Computer Science/Programming experience (even 1 course)
• Experience with Google Apps (Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Drive, Hangouts, Gmail)
• A Master’s or Credential in Education (or something similar)

In your application, please include:

• Resume
• List of teaching experience
• One example lesson plan from any subject
• Two references (for teaching or curriculum)

Details:

• Salary USD 18000 – 21000 Per Year
• Career Level Required Entry Level
• Experience Required 1+ to 2 Years
• Education Required Bachelor’s Degree
• Job Type Employee
• Job Status Part Time

If interested email : applications@thoughtstem.com

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