Skip to main content

Add More Teacher Controls

Comments

50 comments

  • Aleece Landis
    Bug Zapper Beacon of Knowledge Super Star

    Yes need a major upgrade to the "classroom mode"
      It needs to supply the predictive text that you get when running commands in game to help teachers get the commands right.

    It needs to log more than just the chat.  It needs to log all events that are shown, like who killed who and if any commands are being run by students and when students log on/off.


    It really needs to be able to be implemented on student hosted worlds without making them operators.

    1
  • Andrew C

    I feel more and more like Microsoft doesn't know how transformative M:EE can be for their education business because it wont be routinely used by teachers without the implementation of apparently simple-to-design features. They also have significant competition, especially from Roblox.

    Minecraft is not that unique - its an open world creative sandbox game and there are many good ones. The longer that basic classroom management tools are absent, the more likely we are to find a creative multi-learner sandbox that meets our requirement for a simple teacher UI that includes classroom management and student safety tools.

    The main benefit of M:EE is not its popularity as a video game.  It is the app's potential usefulness as a learning/teaching environment that makes it worthwhile.

    Do you know any teachers who routinely don't know what their students are doing, saying, or even where they are located? I hope not.

    1
  • Debbie Alexander
    Moderator Beacon of Knowledge Super Star

    Ahh, I am late to the party on this convo! Micah Beasley - in a classroom full of students, the job of keeping screens on task is definitely challenging, whether MC:EE is available or not. Being able to block azurewebsites at the network level, as Jordan Frankc mentions would essentially stop the game from functioning, I guess, but trust me, there are so many other ways to waste time on a Chromebook. The underlying problem for a classroom teacher remains, whether Minecraft is present or not. So for me, I'd rather have great, engaging material at hand, and deal with classroom management over MC:EE than Slither.io and shoe shopping. =D

    I agree with Aleece Landis that chat supervision is a uniquely necessary feature for teachers. There is too much potential for excess harm in digital messages to ignore adding accountability here, if it is at all possible.

    The shared worlds issues are real. Paul Hudson Tim Longman and Andrew C are making great points about the potential, the power, and also the trouble-making in them. I rule shared worlds with a grumpy iron first in my class. (*honest declaration here*) We only allow them in extremely well defined circumstances. 

    But they are mighty and transformative! lol, I just have to watch the balance between collaboration and design versus TNT and foolish impulses and loud voices! plus, as a teacher, a girl can only take so much!

    I love this discussion! Bryan Sanders I think you were in here four years ago!

    1
  • Aleece Landis
    Bug Zapper Beacon of Knowledge Super Star

    Debbie Alexander Yes good point that devices can be used for all sorts of things OTHER than what the teacher wants available.  But I don't think we get to solve all the problems of technology from within the MCEE community and I don't think we can expect the MCEE developers to try to tackle that.

    I really wish there were some way though that the "administrator or teacher" for a tenet could have some control over the student log ins ability to Host multiplayer games and dictate what multiplayer games they are allowed to join.
    Along with being able to log the chat sessions in multiplayer games.  And it would be good if there were logs of commands and the command feedback.

    Some of this stuff (White listing what players are allowed and the logging and in world controls) would be far easier to handle on a dedicated server.   Back in the GOAT update I found it easier to maintain a "Class" world Using an "extra account" and "extra computer" since I could get everthing set up in the world using a "classroom management pack" and get the hosting account into a box in the nether so as not to disturb survival activities of the class.  Back in 1.17 we could use the IP address and port to log in and it was very stable, only very rarely needing to restart.  Now in 1.18 it is not stable, I constantly have to restart and re-share join codes/links AND I'm constantly having to re-connect the wss for logging (either classroom mode or the one I created.)

    Please, some one, we need to really upgrade the classroom mode to be more effective for classroom management.  The fact that you have to OP and student to run the connection to a student hosted world has some major problems.

    1
  • Bryan Sanders
    Bug Zapper Beacon of Knowledge Super Star Moderator

    Debbie Alexander FOUR YEARS LOL -- it's a struggle, but we live to suffer!

    1
  • Tim Longman

    Aleece Landis nails it - MEE just needs a way for the teacher to allow/deny the ability for students to host multiplayer worlds. The logs point is also well made.

    if the teacher is the operator and is hosting a world then with some training on slash commands they have all the power that the old java edition gave. I would rate this as the number 1 education feature needed.

    I really wish there were some way though that the "administrator or teacher" for a tenet could have some control over the student log ins ability to Host multiplayer games and dictate what multiplayer games they are allowed to join.
    Along with being able to log the chat sessions in multiplayer games.  And it would be good if there were logs of commands and the command feedback.

    1
  • will blagg

    Is MinecraftEdu still accessible? I have found the "official" MS version to be pretty much unusable at this point and would happily track down and old version of MinecraftEdu if I could.

    0
  • Steven O'Neal

    I completely agree with this also. 

    0
  • E A

    I’m a bit upset at points 1 and 2. My understanding originally was that would be features, and so students couldn’t play the game during other classes or even at home if they aren't suppose to.  I mean really, they’re teens!!

    I’d also like to add cross-platform would be amazing too.  My students have iPads and iPads work but having a keyboard/mouse is easier to control and much easier to put in the slash commands.  But when I ran the game off my computer, no one was able to join.

     

    It would also be nice if (though maybe impractical) to see what blocks were placed by what student.  Like maybe a [/view username highlight] and/or a log to see what a student did.  I mean I can see in chat if a student kills another, but one class I’ve had students complaining another is stealing items from their chest or destroying what they’re working on.

     

    Or maybe a way to teleport to kids (this might exist, so many / commands!).  If student X says Y is doing something, if I could just quickly move to their location to see what is happening would be really useful!

    0
  • Andrew Forgrave

    M Davis Bryan Sanders (archived) Minecraft-EDU-Official

    The question of supervision is important.  The fact that M:EE is positioned as an educational product accessed through the school district create the perception that educators are responsible for supervising what happens within Minecraft worlds. The fact that we have no control over the peer-to-peer sharing model makes this problematic.

    Certainly, there are benefits to the peer to peer sharing model in that it turns over the control of collaboration to the students. Does this benefit outweigh the concerns?

    Depending upon the age and emotional maturity of the students, along with the norms established within the classroom, supervision concerns may be minimal to none for some classroom educators. However, duty of care requires that educators be confident in the approaches they use in their classrooms – if they are concerned, they will temper their implementation.

    In working with younger students who had a very “enthusiastic appetite“ for Minecraft, I found that those with less self-control would find it too easy to start up Minecraft and become distracted when they might have been better working on something else. With the @TeacherGaming #MinecraftEDU, it was possible to configure the clients to automatically connect to the Classroom server, and if the Classroom server was not running, students found that launching the game was pointless. Working from the server meant that everyone’s work was always saved and backed up, and there was no need for students to work with or manage local worlds. When you are working with grade threes (truly a sweet spot for Minecraft learning) any single issue can be compounded by 25 as you work to resolve it for each and every student. Working from a common, collaborative world is so much more fun!

     

    0
  • I think that "rolling out" Minecraft in school needs to be a thoughtful and deliberate process. Simply turning it on within one's system will lead to issues that schools likely do not have time to deal with, as it is outside of the traditional functioning of school.

    However, there are some advanced teacher users who would like to go deeper into what exists within MCEE and those suggestions are useful on this thread for further developments.

    0
  • I also teach programming among other things in the multi-faceted realm of computer science -- and I do not choose to teach programming inside of Minecraft as the primary environment for developing projects. I have found what you are finding in that the graphics and gameplay move students (particularly those with less programming experience) into actions/activities that focus less on programming.

    Turtle Art is a crowd favorite for more focus. I highly recommend it, for it is Logo, the world's first computer programming language designed for children.

    0
  • Tim Longman

    In their defence a lot of the worlds are useful as single player worlds. It is when multiplayer comes in that it has the potential to go wrong. It needs someway for the game to identify teachers vs pupils and then give teachers the power to allow or deny pupils the right to host multiplayer games. 

    0
  • Shannon McNeice

    I can't believe this thread is three years old with teachers begging for more control and nothing has been done. I am at my wits end with kids being able to start servers and set my worlds on fire with lava and tnt. This is not usable in a classroom setting.

    0
  • Bryan Sanders
    Bug Zapper Beacon of Knowledge Super Star Moderator

    Presuming you have student accounts setup correctly in the admin dashboard for Microsoft, you should be able to host a world, keep all students as members, and then use /gamerule allowdestructiveobjects false

    And

    /gamerule doFireDamage false
    /gamerule doFireTick false

    0
  • Shannon McNeice

    Is there a way for us to view a log? When I ran Minecraft Education by mojang, I could always see a log, but the players were not identified. Now, the players are identified and I would like to be able to see who is doing what, for example griefing in my world. Thanks!

    0
  • Alex S

    A reminder of this video showing the old teacher controls which existed almost a decade ago! Even that tutorial world was awesome. 

    How I miss those simple yet effective, easy to access and dedicated teacher controls such as

    • spectate mode,
    • freezing individual students, 
    • freezing all students (without freezing yourself),
    • disabling chat for individual students,
    • easy give command menu,
    • building tools...

    and to think it was all built into the MC program too. 

    The old MC by Mojang was more supportive to teachers in terms of providing controls, an array of tutorials and responsive and personalised online support. 

    It is obvious that Microsoft have given up on its classroom mode. Therefore, I wonder if a new version could be created on by an independent programmer. I've thought about starting up a GoFundMe page. I'm sure many teachers around the world would be happy to support this. 

    0
  • Aleece Landis
    Bug Zapper Beacon of Knowledge Super Star

    Shannon McNeice
    Minecraft Bedrock has very limited to no "logging" capabilities build in the way Java had.
    That being said, you can get a chat log if you use the classroom mode, it will save the log.  Unfortunately, it will ONLY save the chat.  It doesn't log the command feedback or anything like that.  And I don't know of anything that would be able to tell the teacher who was doing exactly what/where/when within a world.

    I know EduElfie has created a wonderful Classroom Management pack that can provide MANY tools for teachers.
    But Alas, my students view these sorts of things as a problem solving challenge of how can they beat it.

    There are packs out there that can allow you to have a student "claim" an area to build in that won't let anyone else grief the area or indeed even let anyone else in.

    creative use of Game modes and or allow/deny blocks can also help.  Unfortunately, trying to set up video surveillance on all players may well be far beyond the scope of Minecraft and I expect many of the devices wouldn't be able to handle doing it via 3rd party video recording software.

    Alex S
    The use of WSS to create a logging program can be done, that is really what Classroom mode is, just a wss connection program.  They have changed the way wss works a bit lately but it still works.  I haven't had much time to look into how to log more detailed information or if there is some way to subscribe to command feedback without broadcasting the command feedback to everyone's chats.  I have been able to set up a logging program that would track all player join notices, player leave notices, and chat messages.  I was able to track when students opened the NPCs and what part of the npc dialogue they chose by having a /tell command in the npc open/close commands.

    I'm sure some one with more time on their hands and experience with coding this sort of thing could write an even better logging program to use wss in education edition.  Heck, I'm sure some 3rd party could probably make a vastly improved version of classroom mode.  Biggest problem being that the Hosting player needs to be an operator for it to work so it is probably only really effective IF the teacher is hosting.

    0
  • Ethan Cooper

    We just ran two weeks of Minecraft camp here using Minecraft Education. Classroom Mode's main use was for pausing the game, which is valuable in these sorts of camps (get the kids' attention, bio breaks, etc.). Since it gets bogged down and stops being responsive after some time, I'd keep it shut down and only load it when I needed to pause the game. Not sure if this is a bug or if it's an underlying design flaw, but this tool would have a lot more potential if it were usable in our environment. We usually run around 25 students and anywhere from 4-5 others (counselors/instructors). Also, the server account itself has to be logged in. Classroom Mode goes to a crawl and becomes unusable after only a few minutes.

    0
  • Human Being

    Personally, I don't think that there needs to be more options and controls. There are already ways to prevent students from messing around and such, some of which include:

    1) A daily amount of points in a gradebook, points are added for following along with the lesson and points are deducted for messing around or not following the lesson.

    2) Grade every lesson, so that way those who are wasting time and messing around will end up getting a lousy grade until they can refocus.

    3) Give an incentive to not play around.

    4) As for individual student-created servers, you could do daily/weekly/monthly checks where you ask the students to screenshot all their servers and send them to you in an e-mail or message. Either reward anyone who only has servers from their classes, or punish anyone who doesn't.

    Then again, there are just my ideas, feel free to use some of them if you'd like.

    -3

Please sign in to leave a comment.