Re: The Land of Turtles (ComputerCraftEdu World)

[Joel Solomon]

Hi Michael,

I tried out your "World of Turtles" and had some questions:

1. How do you use the first two sections with students?

I see that they can't open any gates, only view from a distance. How do you get everyone to observe in these two areas. Do they just watch you activate the turtles? Or can they do it themselves? Am I missing a gate somewhere?

2. Same goes for the next section that shows the mining and block placing turtles. 

What are your expectations for students in these two areas?

3. Did you use the "give item" pressure plate to give students their turtles and discs in the 3rd part? How did you do that?

4. How has it gone when you've tried this with students? How did you manage large groups through this world?

5. I'm a little concerned that this might be too difficult for 4th and 5th graders. What do you think? I've done 

"Hour of Code" with most classes, so students should already have some background about programming, move forward blocks, etc. I just wonder what happens if kids get stuck or give up.

6. Finally, what is the purpose of the bow? Your NPC said a bow is necessary, but what is its purpose in CCEdu?

Thanks for you help,

Joel S.

[MisterA]

Hey Joel,

I might be able to answer some of these questions for you...

1 and 2: These sections are more a demonstration and learning area for the students. So, the turtles will be actually turned on by the teacher before the students come in. There is a glitch where if you have a turtle running when you save the map or leave, the disk sometimes will disappear. So to prevent that I think Mike has just turned them all off until you are ready to play the map. The CustomNPCs are suppose to be explaining to the students how these programs or specific commands will help them and how they are used.

3: Using command blocks and some way (pressure plate) to activate them. Right click on the command block and type; give @p 257 and that command when activated, will give the closest player an iron pickaxe (I think it is 257).

4. I don't know much, I have seen a short play video of the bridge building section.

5. Mike and I did have some conversations about this too...and I think that is why he is expanding his map more...as with any map, you HOPE it will work with your kids, but reality is Joel...it never works out as planned. :) I read your comment on my CCEdu world and I think you are right, it is challenging...I will say that for Hour of Code my 5th and 6th graders worked on that map. Fifth grade got to about the 2 area on average...and the 6th grade students got to 4 and some 5. So i will definitely be reworking my challenges and I have some good ideas on how to do that...just need someone to loan me about 48 hours in a day... :)

6. The bow is to overcome a bug at the moment. If you put an intractable block down...sometimes students will not be able to interact with it. Mostly this happens when the world is Student Build Not Allows and Mod Items on Build Allow Blocks. So one easy way to get around it is to have a bow in your hand, then you can interact with everything you are suppose to be able to interact.

Hope that helps...and I am sure Mike will add more.

[Eric]

You can be holding many other items in your hand (as a student) that will work besides bows. So if the bows are a distraction to students, you can give them some other item. For example, in the upcoming version of WoH, there are mailboxes around the world that I want students to be able to use. I made invisible "item giver" NPCs next to them that check students' inventory, and if they don't already have one, give them an envelope item from Custom NPCs renamed to "Hold This to Check Mail". If students then hold that item in their hand, they will be able to check the mailboxes (same as a ComputerCraft terminal / turtle).

[Michael Harvey]

Shane - Wow, you answered some of those better than I could have! Thanks.
Joel, I'll elaborate on your questions below.
Eric! I have to talk to you ASAP about your envelope trick. If I could replace the bows with another less ridiculous item, I'd be thrilled. Let me know how that works please!

1. The students cannot activate the turtles in the museum, due to the "bow glitch." This works out because I do not want them to quite yet. In this area I just want them to be inspired by possibilities, so before the kids log in, or immediately after, I fly around and start them. You are not missing any gates or anything. Unfortunately if a student were to somehow stop one of the turtles and start it again, the program would likely crash in a very literal way. This means that once the turtles are started they should be left running.
2. My expectations in this area are that they will spend a given amount of time exploring the two floors watching the robots. It serves as an area to catch students who first log in so there a few extra things just to grab the attention of the busy-bodies - things like the help desk and the programmer who is slacking off above the stair builders. :) In this area it is easy to freeze the students in place and ask them questions about how a specific turtle is accomplishing its task. For example, I could ask everyone to study the maze turtle and ask for what steps they think it follows and what kinds of decisions it is making.

3. When students are automatically given items in this world, it is likely by the NPCs, not command blocks. The tech support crystals give out things like bows and program disks. This change is actually to the teacher's benefit. If Shane were to use my map with kids, I'm sure he would consider leaving Student Can Build checked (his students use MCE much more than mine and they are experts with regarding to griefing, both deliberate and accidental). In that case the bows would be entirely unnecessary. All Shane would have to do is edit the NPCs to take away that item and dialog choice. This I think is easier than editing dozens of command blocks scattered throughout the puzzles hidden under pressure plates.

2. I've had four fifth grade classes of 20-24 students go through the world 3-4 times and they've seen the world evolve each time I change it. They are super engaged and I'm usually able to spend the bulk of class walking around the room to have 1on1 conversations with the students who are struggling. Sometimes I have to give them the first steps exactly but there is usual an ah-ha moment where they start to understand thing and I can move to the next student. Each class the students have been starting at the beginning again and I've recently started giving them choice about which activity to try, since we all learn in different ways. They encouraged to stick it out with their choice but they can return to the museum spawn by pressing M if they like. Having the museum area and lots of choices has really helped to spread the kids out too. For example, I did find that placing two dozen students in the Group Maze and expecting universal success in the first lesson was pretty far fetched. They walked all over each other.

5. I will pilot the map with fourth grade soon, but it has not been too difficult for my fifth graders yet. That said, there are two places where the challenge level ramps up quite a bit. Once a student makes it to level 5 I talk them through it so they understand how the WHILE loop works. Only my strongest programmers have made it this far but they all grow really excited as soon as they see their turtle break down the huge wall of sand.
This world is also meant to supplement other programming instruction and hopefully won't be used as a canned lesson. For example, these fifth graders had been spending an hour a week programming Lego robots. The Hour of Code is a great activity to lead with too. I plan to do five or six weeks of Code.org's extended k-8 online curriculum before bring my fourth graders into this world. Ultimately though it comes down to your comforts as a teacher. If there are puzzles that you don't feel work for your students you can world edit them out or replace them with one of your own ideas. Keep in mind we call these World Templates. I uploaded Land of Turtles because I think many teachers could use it as a starting point, but you certainly know your students' capabilities and background better than me. My big worry when designing the world is that it would never get hard enough for my brightest programmers, so having tough problems was important to me. Don't forget that the lesson plan document has solutions for each puzzle in it. Also keep in mind that if students hit a breaking point you can always send any you want to the Group Maze or challenge them to explore Faultline Island and find a way to escape.

6. Shane covered this one perfectly. It makes no sense but it just had to be done. Try logging in as a student and play through the puzzles without a bow. You'll see how the bug works.

Joel, it's fantastic for me that you and some others are interested in trying my lesson. Keep questions coming and let me know if you have ideas on how I can improve things.

[Eric]

What else did you want to know? 

Does your world use Custom NPCs? Look in the "Misc" tab of items, and choose one that you like. If it's an item that does nothing (not a weapon etc) then they should be able to use it for activating the terminals. It works for mine.

[Michael Harvey]

Huh! I had no idea it was that simple. Thanks, Eric.

[Joel Solomon]

Thanks, everyone, for your help. I'm going to explore some of your ideas and suggestions. I feel like I'm in a bit over my head, though, with some of your recommendations, since it seems so easy and yet I don't always understand the terminology and how to accomplish what you're suggesting.

First off, what do you mean by "command block"? I searched my inventory (with Custom NPC and ComputerCraft mods turned on) and didn't see any "command blocks" to choose from. I love the technique of walking through a doorway that has a pressure plate which automatically gives items to students. I get the coding necessary to do this, I just don't see which block to use to start it. Can you walk me through the steps, or is there a video tutorial somewhere I can view to learn?

Shane, I loaded your CCEdu Challenge, and see the button that gives items, but I still have no idea how you did this.  You said to right click on the block, which I did, and nothing happened. When I right-clicked on the button, I kept receiving items in my inventory. I want to pull back the curtain and see how you did this trick, Mr. Oz, and I can't figure it out!

Michael, where did you find those little "tech support" crystals to give items to students? And how did you set them up to give items to students? I only found one crystal in my inventory, and I was unable to place it and make it give items.

I'm feeling like it's going to take me HOURS to learn all this stuff, when I know you guys can do the same thing in a matter of minutes. I keep trying to "work smarter, not harder" but when it comes to Minecraft, that's not always possible.

Thanks

[Halligator1]

Hey. To get the command block you have to write the following in the "chat". Only works for the teacher.
/give @p 137

That gives the nearest player (@p) a command block (item nr 137)

At least that will get you started.

[Michael Harvey]

Hi Joel,

The Tech Support crystals are NPCs. If you want to know more about them, hop over to the Custom NPCs thread.

The second thing I do in one of Shane's new worlds (after playing it) is go into creative mode. Then I start breaking any blocks that I think are hiding the guts of the map.  You can safely dig up the area around his trapped chests to find the command blocks underground.  There are lots of Youtube videos that explain how command blocks work.

[Michael Harvey]

I just updated my world to version 5.4 (hooray for snow days!).  Awkward bows have been replaced by slightly less awkward iPhones which have been renamed to "Turtle Remote."  Quite a few other updates.  Thanks again Eric for shedding some light on that issue.

[Joel Solomon]

Okay, I'm getting the hang of it. Now that I know how to give myself a command block, and that Shane has buried those blocks, I see how it works now. THANKS! 

I was able to give turtles and discs to students, and make a pressure plate to clear inventory. Shane, what does the "/clear @p 1230" command do? I am looking for the ID#s of the CCEdu items (i.e. digging turtle). What's the key command to find out block IDs for items again?

[Michael Harvey]

If you want a block's ID number to show up, press F3 and H together. If you want to find out what 1230 is quickly, try "/give @p 1230" :)

[Joel Solomon]

I tried F3 + H and see that both the mining turtle and basic turtle both have the same ID (#3420/0). Am I missing something here? Is it possible to give students a beginner's turtle with one command block, and a beginner's mining turtle with another command block?

[Michael Harvey]

Yes, you can.  You can use 3420/5 for the mining turtle. That's an error that should be fixed soon.

[MisterA]

Hey Joel,

Yes the whole system that you are looking at is setup to overcome a bug in the mods. So it is a temporary fix.

So here is what they do....

1. Student makes a mistake, or wants to reset the turtle. The break it with a pick axe, but it gives them an advanced turtle.

2. Student takes advanced turtle to the pressure plate..steps on it.

3. Pressure plate clears all turtles from their inventory...advanced and basic

4. Replaces the removed turtle with one new basic turtle.

So that was just my way of fixing it. I am sure that in the near future...it will be fixed, now that the dev team is back on the mod.

Oh and yea, sorry...I like to make things nice neat and clean...so I forgot to mention that I buried the command blocks in the ground. :)

[Joel Solomon]

Greetings once again,

I'm starting to create my own CCEdu activities, and am (lovingly) borrowing ideas from Shane and Michael's worlds. What I' like to do is have students program their turtle to perform a task, and when they are done, the turtle will trigger an item (gold? or maybe a # block for each area that shows they completed it) that they'll automatically receive to verify that they completed the task. The trick is to create a space that only a turtle can fit into (a 1x1 area surrounded by bedrock). When I tried using a pressure plate, the turtle gave me an obstruction error. So maybe running into a button that will trigger the item being dispensed? What do you think is the best way to accomplish this?

So, any suggestions for how to make a turtle go over an area that will give students an item as a "reward" for completing each task?

Thanks,

Joel S.

[Michael Harvey]

Joel,

Since Turtles can't yet interact with any redstone triggers, I would try one of two approaches:

-  Have a gold block away from reach that a mining turtle has to dig/collect and bring back to the student.

- Require the turtle to place a block of redstone next to a command block. Conveniently, turtles can't break command blocks.

[Matt Coia]

Your command blocks are probably going into your "survival" inventory. Press 'i' instead of 'e' to access this or select the bottom right tab (chest icon) in your creative menu. Are you doing things in creative mode Joel?  You should not be losing any of your blocks if you are. 

Matt

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[Joel Solomon]

Thanks, Michael. I'll give these a try. 

I envision students landing their turtle in over an empty space, with a command block below, and include the reward solution on item frames just above the "turtle cubby" that's built into one of the walls.  Then they can get an item when finished. Not sure if gold ingot or a number block would entice the kids more. 

Say, how did you make item frames with the arrows from CCEdu included? I don't see these in my inventory.

As always, thanks....

[Matt Coia]

You can give them to yourself through the same process as command blocks.  Use the item id's: 3677 through 3682 for the arrows.  i.e. /give @p 3678

good luck!

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[Joel Solomon]

Michael,

Is your updated world available for download?

[Michael Harvey]

Yes, the most up to date version is on the world templates site.  It hasn't been tested yet with Noppes' cNPC build from the other day yet, but should work just fine.

Also: I've noticed a glitch where it won't automatically update the files even if you force a redownload with the servertool in Build 7.

My world seems to download to worlds/tmptransfers/42 but never copies to /worlds/localworlds/42.

[Andrius P.]

Hey Mike, one question: up in the Sky Turtle Island, exercise 11 and 12, where students have to cross lava cage by building support below and above with glass blocks, students get a Beginner's Turtle, which cannot dig blocks. In exercise 12 students have to dig the bricks and place support at the same time, but it is not possible with Beginners Turtle. Shouldn't they get a Beginner Mining Turtle instead?

Or maybe I am doing something wrong here..

[Andrius P.]

Ah, sorry, students get a mining turtle when they cross the first obstacle. That's ok, sorry for the false alarm.

But still I have a note here: if a student messes his first try at exercise 11 by placing glass blocks not the way they should be, they cannot break them with another turtle and essentially they are stuck. So, in this case, teacher should help them by cleaning their wrongly placed blocks to give them another try. If many students get stuck, it might take quite a lot of time to help everybody.

Maybe it would be easier by giving them a mining turtle at station 11 in case they mess their way out through lava. They could try fixing that by breaking their wrongly placed blocks.

[Michael Harvey]

Definitely a valid point, and one that I've put some thought into.

Theoretically, both should be possible as long as you don't make any mistakes. The reason I didn't give a mining turtle was because I don't want the player to assume they are supposed to dig through some other spot to move on (e.g. the wood, or especially the glass). Breaking other blocks by mistake could be harder to fix that unclogging the area if they place one incorrectly. That being said, an easy way to help a student who does that would be to use "/give player 3420 5". That will give them a mining turtle without requiring you to step in physically and all them to keep working.  Hopefully at that point they'll have the objective in mind and we won't have to worry about the glass/wood issue as much. If that doesn't make sense, you can definitely change the command block at the start of Puzzle 11 so that it gives them a mining turtle instead.

[Andrius P.]

Thanks for the explanation, it really does make sense to work this way as you thought it out.

All in all, great map. I will test it next week on a group of 15 students.

[Joel Solomon]

How do I know if I've downloaded the correct version of your updated world? Do I just delete the folder "42" from server and client and try downloading again? 

When I re-downloaded the Land of Turtles, I quickly checked to see if it worked, and I can't tell if I'm looking at the NEW version you just added or the OLD version. How can I tell? From a quick interaction with an NPC in the first museum, I was asked about why don't I have a bow. Wasn't the bow replaced with another tool?

[Michael Harvey]

If the NPCs are carrying bows, you do not have the newest version. 

[Joel Solomon]

Hmmm. I downloaded the Land of Turtles using the "Choose World Template" option in the launcher, which I thought would override the older copy I had from a few weeks ago. What do you recommend is the best way to re-install and delete the old world files? Where are they located?

[EduElfie]

Shane did some testing on this bug last night with the dev 8 build, (which is not available publicly yet) and it does not happen there. So hopefully it is fixed. In the mean time I think you will find the templates stored in /minecraftedu/servertool/worlds/localworlds directory. I cannot test right now, but I am pretty sure that is where they are…. Delete the one and redownload, of course you could manually download off the world sharing site http://minecraftedu.com/worlds/ and place in your savedworlds folder also.

Elfie.

[Joel Solomon]

THANKS, Elfie!

I deleted the folder "42" and redownloaded it. Thanks for the help, everyone! I think I might just tweak Michael's world instead of trying to make one myself. It's taking me a LONG time, I spent 3 hours just making two little sections, and I still haven't done anything advanced yet, or try to successfully copy/paste what I've done for each student. Michael, you've done GREAT work with CCEdu, thanks!

[Michael Harvey]

Thanks Joel. I think I speak for others when I say that the goal of world sharing is to inspire each other and save each other some time. I'm glad you like the world. If it makes you feel better, 3 hours sound like a totally reasonable amount of time for what you accomplished. The time I've spent on this map already would probably be in the "dozens of hours" category at this point.

[Andrius P.]

So, today we had very intensive 3 hour lesson with CCedu in this world. Everything went fairly well. Before starting this world, I made a couple of tweaks in places where I thought students might try to cheat. And in reality, yes, they tried to cheat a lot. Even though I told them beforehand this is not a competition, everyone tried to solve everything as fast as possible. I had to freeze a couple of students individually in order for others to keep up. I found that the best way to start each next level of puzzles is together as a group, because then you can explain the rules and the obstacles for all of them at once because most of them do not read the signs!

The Maze puzzle was quite easy for some students, but difficult for others. Many tried to cheat by using others' turtles to jump over obstacles, so I had to keep an eye on who is doing what. But because of different students' abilities to solve problems, it was difficult to keep track on who is where - who have reached to end of the puzzle, and who has not. Maybe a some kind of messaging system for the teacher is needed, signaling when a student reaches a certain "checkpoint", because you do not have an overlay of the map to see everyone.

The SkyTurtle Island puzzle level was the most fun. Because of individual rooms each student had to do the puzzles on his own and I found that this way is better because it is easier for them to concentrate as there are fever distractions from other students. And also they do not feel so intimidated because they do not know at which stage of puzzle solving other students are as they do not see others so often. The level of complexity of the puzzles was quite adequate. Even the smarter ones had to think for a little bit. The fun began when they reached the puzzle part with the while loops. It was quite a leap forward to explain to them the idea of using loops and applying them by solving puzzles with the turtles. I think at this part we should need a couple more puzzles employing the need to use while loops, because as soon as the puzzles, which really need to use while loops ended, students reverted to using simple commands by repeatedly running the same program again and again (for example, placing ladders puzzle). The most difficult part, of course, was getting through the lava cages. Only a couple of students made through them in first tries. Many got stuck in quite weird ways, not even possible to repair. I had even to teleport them out of there. We should find ways of improving the design of those puzzles in order to make them more foolproof, if possible.

The Faultline Island was easiest part for the students. Many tried collecting block using turtles only later realizing they can mine themselves. They got out pretty quickly, but again, many tried to cheat by using each others paths out of the island. At first I tried destroying their paths myself, but later I asked students to improve their turtles' programs by destroying the paths as they leave the island.

All in all, it was a great experience, the students really liked the map, and it got us through it 3 hours total. I am just amazed how concentrated and involved students were in solving the puzzles.

Now for the next weeks' lesson I am thinking about using these turtles in a constructive way by giving students tasks in building certain shapes and structures. What are your ideas Micheal?

[Michael Harvey]

Andrius, Great feedback. I'm glad it went so well. Just curious, how old were your students?  Did you play for 3 hours straight or was it several shorter sessions?

The checkpoints are a good idea. How about command blocks they can trigger that send a message to the chat that includes the player's name?  Would that be too much text?

Not reading seems to be a big issue with all of my kids too.  This is why I wanted the NPC to hand out a guide book at the start of STI that would tell what to do in each puzzle. 

You are right that using While loops is a huge leap forward. I would definitely like to have more puzzles. None of my 5th graders made it to the lava cages, although they were only able to play for about an hour total.  I can foresee lots of ways those puzzles can go wrong.  One solution I've though about would involve a series of schematics that a teacher could use to reset a puzzle.  Each of the numbered areas would have a designated spot where a teacher could go and paste in the appropriate schematic. There could be signs nearby, but it would likely take two lines of code. 

"//schematic load sti#" and "//paste".  Sadly there is no way for Command Blocks to use worldedit commands or I could give the students an automatic reset button in each challenge.

Faultline Island is definitely the easiest area, especially since I allowed building on it. (My kids were falling into holes and getting stuck.)  I wanted something there as a place to catch students who finish all the other challenges, but it actually might serve better as a place to start out.

All in all, I'm thrilled to hear that your class got 3 hours out of the map and that they enjoyed the world.  It's taken a lot of time to make so I'm glad it's getting use. I think I spent 3 months or more getting it roughly to its current state.  I'd love to hear what you decide to do with the CCEdu next. 

I think the key moving forward is to create challenges that a student could not solve without a turtle (or at least wouldn't want to). Robots are great for menial tasks and for going into places we can't. Instead of having the kids program it to build a house (easy to do by hand) have them program it to get something out of reach, or build something huge and repetitive.  

[Andrius P.]

My kids are from grades 5 through 7, as this is an after school club which takes place on Saturdays. Today we worked in one 3 hour session with a 15 minute break halfway through. The curriculum is a little more relaxed than that at schools. Anyway, my goal is to teach them basic programming paradigms, as in what it is and how to use loops, conditionals, logic, variables etc. And with CCEdu it is easy to get visual results quickly.

The idea on checkpoints with command blocks sending a chat message is great. Is it possible to send a private chat message that only the teacher can see?

Regarding challenges with while loops, yes, we definitely need more puzzles. Now that they are acquainted with the idea of loops, we need to reinforce it, so they would not be afraid to use it. Now they fear that the turtle will go out of their reach, so they hesitate to use those loops.

Before I knew about CCEdu, I was building a world with a regular CC, so now I am thinking in converting it to use CCEdu turtles and then gradually moving to CC turtles with more advanced functions and capabilities. When the world will be ready, I will definitely upload it so everyone could benefit from it. But it is still in the making and you know how long it takes to make one. Or maybe I just could extend your world as it would be easier for students to go back and repeat what they had forgotten. What do you think I should do? Do you intend to use CCEdu only or will you consider including regular CC also?

Next week I think we will try the other CCEdu map in online template database.

[MisterA]

Hey Mike and Andrius,

The command block checkpoint is good, but remember when making maps and depending on the size of the class...that could mean a lot of checking for the teacher, which I find takes me away from those awesome teachable moments during the class. Watching the kids learning is far more important to me than watching the chat line to see if they did something correctly.

If I am not mistaken, you are saying they are "cheating" and you want some sort of checkpoint system in the maze. Could you not have the turtle "collect" something from the maze. So if you used a mining turtle for it, you could have it collect a different type of block for each checkpoint. Or...you could have a regular turtle place a redstone torch that opens the "gate" so they can move past the checkpoint. These would be simple glance and check for completion mechanisms instead of the text. Just my two cents.

I love the feedback Andrius...although this is specifically on Mike's map, I am sure any of us can apply it to our maps.

[Andrius P.]

Hey guys, how do you solve structure copying problem when command blocks' texts, signs' texts, chests' contents, information signs' texts are not copied using either wordedit or mcedit? It's unfortunate when you have then manually enter all commands manually for more than 20 identical lines of puzzles.

Thanks!

[Matt Coia]

MCEdit should copy the sign info etc.  

But other wise you can use a couple of different methods.  If it is strictly sign data, you can use the "copy" button inside the sign gui then go and place all the signs that need to say the same thing, using the "paste" button inside the sign gui as you go.  Otherwise you can copy and paste text from an outside document (like a .txt or .doc file) into the appropriate places.

On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Andrius P. <platakis...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey guys, how do you solve structure copying problem when command blocks' texts, signs' texts, chests' contents, information signs' texts are not copied using either wordedit or mcedit? It's unfortunate when you have then manually enter all commands manually for more than 20 identical lines of puzzles.

Thanks!

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[Michael Harvey]

Andrius, I've never had any problem copying Command Block text with MCEdit.  Make sure you're loading the world directly. If you save a schematic in-game (ie. with World Edit), it won't work.

Matt, MCEdit does not copy sign data from MCEdu worlds because the Edu mod saves it differently.

There's no easy answer for signs Andrius, which is why many of the versions of my world that I had uploaded had blank signs everywhere. It's unlikely that MCEdit/WorldEdit will ever support the special Edu blocks, so you'll have to take care of those the hard way. Command blocks are standard to vanilla Minecraft though, and should work fine.

On Sunday, February 16, 2014 2:39:11 PM UTC-5, CoiaScience wrote:

MCEdit should copy the sign info etc.  

But other wise you can use a couple of different methods.  If it is strictly sign data, you can use the "copy" button inside the sign gui then go and place all the signs that need to say the same thing, using the "paste" button inside the sign gui as you go.  Otherwise you can copy and paste text from an outside document (like a .txt or .doc file) into the appropriate places.

On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Andrius P. <platakis...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey guys, how do you solve structure copying problem when command blocks' texts, signs' texts, chests' contents, information signs' texts are not copied using either wordedit or mcedit? It's unfortunate when you have then manually enter all commands manually for more than 20 identical lines of puzzles.

Thanks!

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[Matt Coia]

Oops, my bad. Thought they did.  Oh well, good catch Mike!

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[MisterA]

Hey All,

In the end, I make maps for 29-33 kids...and the addition of copy and paste signs...combined with long range build..makes that stuff easy...

It also is just fine for the command blocks too.

I just copy everything where I want it..and I fly around at 100% speed...and click copy and paste...move on.

Considering the power of a virtual world and MCEdu...its a small price to pay. MCEdit is a great solution, if you want to go that way as well.

[Brian]

My game crashes if I fly around at anything more than 40%.  I think I need a more powerful computer. 

[Andrius P.]

As Saturday is coming (that's when we have our supplementary course) I was thinking in how could I combine different level students on the same server. Because last Saturday not all of my students finished Land of Turtles map, some of the students were absent, and I really wanted all of them finish this map (because it is so awesome!), and also I wanted to do something new with those, who finished the map. There is another map made by MisterA, so I thought it would be nice to do that. But how could I run them on the same server.. So I decided to combine those two maps in order to have only one server running where all students played together.

Now I have a hybrid map made out of Michael's Land of Turtles and MisterA's CCEdu Challenge map, with some minor modifications. Now all students will be able to finish all the challenges with CCEdu.

So, the students finish at the Faultline Island and then they have to find the entrance to the next challenge (based on MisterA's map). The hunt for the entrance idea is borrowed from EduElfie's idea on Treasure Maps (Thanks!). I put some pointers on the map so the will be able to practice their character movement control skills, which involves navigating according to some landmarks, going over water, climbing a hill and climbing a tree via vines. I hope it will be fun!

The main difference from MisterA's map is that I removed all the hints and help text for the puzzles, only the description and the task of the puzzle. To my mind at this stage most of them should already have the basic understanding of how to do what. In case they forget, I can easily send them back to the SkyTurtle Island to practice some more. What do you think of this approach?

We'll see how it goes this Saturday!

If anybody wants, I can upload this map somewhere so anyone could use it. Just let me know.


Some pics:

 

[Michael Harvey]

Let us know how it goes Andrius. Shane and I have talked in the past about creating one definitive CCEdu experience map. Your kids may notice a bit or redundancy but let us know how it goes. After the mod is updated and released, I think it would be great for us to put our minds together and figure out how we can merge and improve the existing ideas.

On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 11:06:52 AM UTC-5, Michael Harvey wrote:

In an effort to embrace the new structure of the Google Group, I want to start this thread for all discussions of my world. I'm glad people are excited to use it, even though it's of course a work in progress.  If you're trying to get it working in your classroom or you have feedback for me, please use this thread.

Here is a link to the world file, which also includes other details such as the mods required and a lesson plan.

http://minecraftedu.com/worlds/node/42

Thanks,

Mike Harvey

[MisterA]

Hey Andrius,

As Mike mentioned, we have talked about coming at one great map with both our experiences and expertise...and yes, one of the things we discussed was a "level" system, where the tasks are leveled....and students can go as fast or as slow as needed to get through things.

Almost like they would earn their way to the next level...much like...well...like a video game...haha...imagine.

I am excited to work on the project...and I am sure eventually Mike and I can get it together...being on opposite coasts.

I would love some feedback on the map and such...I read all the feedback in here too just to make things better.

[Andrius P.]

Yesterday we had another lesson with CCEdu. They are learning fast! The added part was finished in just under an hour, and that's including the search for the entrance.

The exercises were a little redundant, but I asked them to find ways to implement those programs as efficiently as possible, reducing the number of clicks needed to start them. That worked well. But I noticed a great hesitation in using loops for building programs. They were far more comfortable in building programs without loops. There is definitely a need to do more programing using loops.

It's sad that there is no way of creating loops with fixed number of repetitions. So, next week I will probably move to puzzles involving mixed use of CCEdu turtles and standard CC turtles for those advanced students.

The difficult part in a class like mine with different level students is to find exercises for all them, because some of them solve them very quickly, and others struggle. Shane suggested to employ those with advanced skills in helping others who are not very well versed in Minecraft. Because most of my time is spent trying to control those advanced students so that do not make any trouble for others. And because everybody is on a different level I cannot simply teach and present the same thing for everybody. I am still struggling in finding the most suitable way to teach. 

[Michael Harvey]

Loops are challenging with ComputerCraft. It's honestly difficult to think of situations that would require them.

While Loops are good in some situations, but we really need are For Loops. Those will allow us to program something to happen a certain number of times, which would be great for some well-planned building projects.

Differentiation is tough in any class, but that's why I wanted a wide open area for the student who finished all of the puzzles. I think we need to brainstorms challenges, not just puzzles, that will motivate students to write really good code and seek to improve it or make it more efficient.

[Michael Harvey]

What we need are tasks that would be happening indefinitely...

What if we could create a scenario where students need to stockpile a certain regenerating material?  For example, collecting cobblestone from a cobblestone generator.

Code:

WHILE TRUE DO

IF Detect Forward THEN Dig Forward END

END
This could also work for items that continually grow like reeds and cactus I think.
Students could be motivated to actually use a loop by somehow requiring them to do something else while the turtle does the farming. Anyone have ideas?

I've also been picturing a bridge building competition where students would have to work together to design a fancy and complex bridge, by hand first, and then program multiple turtles to build it simultaneously over a much longer space.  It would be something with a mathematical pattern.  Checkered floor, spaced out torches, vertical posts, etc...

I picture giving the students free building control and turtles in a wide open area.  Once they have coordinated their ideas, each student would take their program disk over to the final official test building area where they could demonstrate their project to the class.

[Andrius P.]

Those are very good points. On one hand it would be possible to give advanced students the task of building a cobblestone generator, the one they want. And for others to give a task to replicate one. It would be a good opportunity to explain the mechanics which govern cobblestone generation in Minecraft, or even dedicate the task of explaining to the advanced students.
And then it would be a task to program a turtle to mine the cobblestone.

I was also picturing some kind of iterative building exercise, like building a street with pavement, posts, lamps, sidewalk, etc. But as you say "For" loops are better suited for this task.

Maybe an automated turtle lumberjack, which places a sapling, bone meals it and then cuts it down..

[Michael Harvey]

For anyone interested, I just updated the map to 5.5. The big update is that teachers can now reset any puzzle, should a student get stuck.

Andrius, if you get any of your building ideas turned into maps, definitely share them with the group!

[Andrius P.]

So, for tomorrows lesson I decided to try regular ComputerCraft. Just to see how it goes I built a test world with a couple if introductory exercises for familiarizing with terminal and working with command lines. The map is based on CC creator's dan200 map where he showcased CC capabilities in teaching (https://github.com/squidsoup/computercraft-institute). Those involve in learning to navigate file system, looking at different files located on CC computers, viewing program code, editing and creating a Hello World program. Also the exercises include basic usage of main turtle functions (moving), also work with loops (while and for). Some advanced functions with turtles demonstrated (turtle lumberjack, stair-building). Also there is one particular puzzle where students have to enter a password to open a door. To find the password they have to find a hidden floppy disk where the source program is hidden. Then they have to take this disk and put it into disk reader and then use the skills they learned to navigate to the disk and view the source code of the password_protected_door program and find the password there. Students work individually in each series of rooms where all passwords are different (took a while editing and putting all those floppy disks, woof..). Then they find some additional materials which they take to the free building area. Also there is a tunnel which connects all the free building areas and the entrances to the different students' free building areas are protected with the same password which they had to find (which is different for each student). So, in theory, they could collaborate in their free building area by telling the entrance password for a particular friend they want to invite. We'll how it goes tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the map is in my native language (Lithuanian). I'll see how it goes tomorrow, and then based on the feedback from students I'll start improving this map. Maybe it will transform into something good.

[Michael Harvey]

This looks awesome, Andrius.  Let us know how it goes.

[Joel S.]

Hi Michael and Friends,

I did my first introduction to Land of Turtles today with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders. Mon-Wed we've been on Hour of Code to get them ready for coding their own turtles. So far we've only visited the two museum areas, and will start Mazes tomorrow. 

I've noticed, however, that my cursor continually disappears when I'm trying to access the Teacher Settings, making it difficult to freeze, teleport, and use Build Tools. I'm running 1.6.4 Build 8. Any ideas why this is happening? Is this a glitch in the version? It worked just fine last week when I was using Ecosystem Junction. 

Could mods be causing this? I have all mods turned on: Backpack, Biomes O'Plenty, NPCs, CCEdu, and XL Biomes. ExtraBiomes XL, and Zans Minimap. When I disconnected the server, all the client machines lost their cursors, too. Any idea what might be causing this?

Thanks,

Joel S.

[Michael Harvey]

It's a known bug in this build of CCEdu.  The developers are aware and it should be fixed when CCEdu is actually released.  In the meantime, going out of full screen mode seems to bring the cursor back.

Mike

[Joel S.]

Thanks, Michael. One more question: In the Maze section, when students have to program their turtle to go UNDER the bridge, how do the students get around this obstacle? The NPC says it's too low, do they jump in the turtle to get over it? I didn't see the solution in the PDF sheet. 

Thanks,

Joel S.

[Michael Harvey]

They can jump over the turtle if they maneuver it right. That was my original intent. The easier way I added earlier is to just walk around the bar. Look to the side and you'll see a path.

[Joel S.]

Any word on when the updated version of CCEdu is due to be released?

[MisterA]

No word on a release date, but they are working on it...some really good things coming though the pipes for CCEdu.

[Linda Gielen]

Michael,

I just wanted to thank for doing such an awesome job on this map!  We just introduced the map to our 6th grade students yesterday and it was a big hit.  They adapted to the map easily (all our students have Minecraft playing experience) and your instructions for running the map were spot on.

Linda

[Michael Harvey]

Thank you Linda!

Assuming you got the map from the worlds site and/or server launcher, I've done a ton of work on it since then.  I've built the updates around the new development builds of the mod, so I don't want to release it in case there are compatibility issues.  As soon as ComputerCraftEdu is officially out I'll put up version 6, which will have tons of new activities and lot of a cleaning up of weak/confusing areas.  Let me know if you have any feedback/suggestions/ideas!  I'm hoping to have a solid coding world available for teachers before the next school year and any testing that happens right now can only help. Thanks again.

[Linda Gielen]

I did get the map from the launcher, so I hope I am using the most current.  So far, the main issue we have had with the students is failing to name their disks.  No matter how many times we repeat the importance it, they are not doing so, and of course causing confusion amongst themselves.  Our other problem is that students are trying to rush through the tasks.  They are not taking their time to judge their environment, read the instructions and reflect on their programming steps.  Joel Solomon had a great idea about having the students reflect on what they did and learned that day, by having them complete a google survey reflection form.  They have to submit satisfactory answers before they can get back into the map (see topic: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/minecraft-teachers/5skH3vjC5uU)/  We have decided to implement that as well.  We are also sending them back to the beginning of the track, if  they try to cheat the system or if they are making careless attempts at completing the project.  We are an all-boys school with very competitive students.  Even though we emphasize that this is not a race, it's hard to keep them from competing with one another.  I will continue to give you feedback as we continue with the project.

[Michael Harvey]

Thanks Linda,

The version from the launcher is NOT the most current one. However, the new versions of the map are not compatible with the version of ComputerCraftEdu that is available online.  Once the mod is finished and released, I'll add the new version to the launcher/site.  One nice thing is that it solves the problem of students not naming disks, but that's just scratching the surface.  There is some pretty active development going on with the mod right and you will love the changes that are coming.

Reading/planning are big issues. Many of my students are getting stuck too.  One feature that's coming with the mod is a remote that lets you control your turtle from a distance.  I've experimented with letting students use it in some sticky situations, but when possible, I'd almost rather them just deal with the natural consequences if they put themselves into one.  Some of the frantic cries for help have been getting to me... Maybe require a bit more reflection before they get my help would slow them down a little.  I like the idea!

[Mr. Isaacs]

Hi Mike,

The link http://minecraftedu.com/worlds/node/42  is not working - page cannot be found.  I am wondering how to revert things back if changes were made.  I am working on a hosted minecraftedu server for a camp with the neighborhood schools in Texas.  I believe the first turtle code may have been altered.  RIght now it just has the turtle going down 6 (which of course it cannot do).  What should the code be for that one?

Steve

[Mr. Isaacs]

I think I figured the one question out.  I think he was just supposed to be 10 high.  However, is the idea that the kids should just see that, but can't change it?  The directions say not to alter the code.  As they explore the museum will more be revealed?  It seems to me like the inclination would be to fix the code on that turtle and I just want to ensure that I guide the students as intended.

Steve

[Matt Coia]

Would our group recording of this world help?

http://www.twitch.tv/neshanic/c/4158381

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[Mr. Isaacs]

OK - figured my way around the museum and see how the turtles do and undo their work to demo the programming possibilities.  Very cool.  I did run into an issue.  I am up to the color scanner and the code doesn't run.  Here's a screenshot:

[Mr. Isaacs]

I'm sure it will!  Thanks.

Steve

On Tuesday, July 29, 2014 1:08:05 PM UTC-4, Matt Coia wrote:

Would our group recording of this world help?

http://www.twitch.tv/neshanic/c/4158381

On Tuesday, July 29, 2014, Mr. Isaacs <steve...@gmail.com> wrote:

I think I figured the one question out.  I think he was just supposed to be 10 high.  However, is the idea that the kids should just see that, but can't change it?  The directions say not to alter the code.  As they explore the museum will more be revealed?  It seems to me like the inclination would be to fix the code on that turtle and I just want to ensure that I guide the students as intended.

Steve

On Tuesday, July 29, 2014 12:57:57 PM UTC-4, Mr. Isaacs wrote:

Hi Mike,

The link http://minecraftedu.com/worlds/node/42  is not working - page cannot be found.  I am wondering how to revert things back if changes were made.  I am working on a hosted minecraftedu server for a camp with the neighborhood schools in Texas.  I believe the first turtle code may have been altered.  RIght now it just has the turtle going down 6 (which of course it cannot do).  What should the code be for that one?

Steve

On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 11:06:52 AM UTC-5, Michael Harvey wrote:

In an effort to embrace the new structure of the Google Group, I want to start this thread for all discussions of my world. I'm glad people are excited to use it, even though it's of course a work in progress.  If you're trying to get it working in your classroom or you have feedback for me, please use this thread.

Here is a link to the world file, which also includes other details such as the mods required and a lesson plan.

http://minecraftedu.com/worlds/node/42

Thanks,

Mike Harvey

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[Michael Harvey]

Steve and I already spoke today, but I'll summarize the a few tips here:

1. The current url for the world is http://services.minecraftedu.com/worlds/node/74 . Please let me know if you see the wrong one listed somewhere in case I can update it!

2. The current version fixes a bug in the code of the "color scanner." Reloading the world from Server Launcher / MCEdu World Library should revert the map to a working state.

3. On the top floor of the museum, there is a chest (only accessible in creative) that has backup copies of each disk and program used throughout the museum. If a student mistakenly changes the code, this is the quickest way to get it back.

[Halligator1]

First of all. Michael and the rest of you lovely people working on this project and ComputercraftEdu... You rock.

I am a complete newbie to programming all together. But through playing "the land of turtles" on my own, my curiosity has skyrocketed. 

However after a couple of hours in the museum and the rest of your world I still feel to inadequate  to teach this in my class. I have looked through the lesson plan, and I think this would work great, but I feel for doing a PROGRAMMING introduction before this. Is this a wrong approach. Can I take my students into this without actually knowing more about the art of programming myself? Or do you have some sort of lesson plan, or websites to point me to, to be able to very easily introduce my 10-12 years old to this?

[Michael Harvey]

You passed the test, Hal! Well done!

Kidding aside, those are the exact questions a teacher should be asking at this point. I get nervous having this work up there that people will assume it's a self-sufficient curriculum that can just run itself and yield great results. I've used this with 9-11 year olds, but never as their first and only introduction to programming. Don't take your students into my world (or any world) until you feel like you are capable of teaching it and you're students are at a point where they are likely to benefit from it. Yes, I do have some sites and lessons I can recommend for that age group:

• Code.org : This is the non-profit group that pushed the Hour of Code last December. They have their own K-5 curriculum that is just about to be launched. It's in beta but everything works. I used their K-8 program last year. My students spent 3+ hours with it before doing anything with CCEdu. The link may change soon, but for now check out: http://learn.code.org/beta
• LightBot: My kids LOVE this game and it teaches some of the basic programming skills that translate to basic turtle movement in CCEdu. This would be a good choice if you only have a single class to spend in preparation. Here's a link: http://light-bot.com/hocflash.html

There is plenty more out there. I like to mix it up too - You never know which lesson is going to click for different learners. Feel free to shoot me questions any time! Thanks for checking out my world.

[Diane Main]

I work with high school students, minimum grade 10 (mostly grade 10, a dew grade 11 and 12), and I am planning to use this with them without much else in the way of programming prep, and I am only a little ahead of them in that.

But in my case, that is kind of the point.  I want them to explore and create.  At least half of this semester's 14 kids have never seen or played Minecraft (and some have not even heard of it until now!), so we will be doing more prep in Minecraft than in programming.  But once they get in there and start messing around, I think they will have a good idea of things they'd want to program a turtle to do for them.  I am almost depending on their lack of programming experience in a way.

[Diane Main]

That should say a FEW grade 11 and 12....

[Michael Harvey]

Diane, I think that will work just fine in your case. I think CCEdu is pretty intuitive, to a point. I just know that in elementary school, some of my students would feel overwhelmed if I give that much "new" stuff all at once. By the way, once they finish the "Intro to Turtles" area, they will be sent to "Faultline Island" which is all about exploring. They can stay there as long as you like before sending them on to Sky Turtle Island (the puzzles).

[Andrius P.]

Hi Michael,

Love your updates to the world, I have already tested them on couple groups of students, everything went well, the Redstone challenge took a bit longer to solve but we made it :)

I just wanted to ask where did the Group Maze exercise go? It was replaced by the Intro to Turtles, but still I liked the Group Maze section. Are thinking about bringing it back at some point?

Also I can't wait for the updates in Teacher Notes for the Bridge Building section, I know they will be awesome! 

[Michael Harvey]

Hey Andrius,

Glad to hear you've been able to make the new updates work for your classes!

My own experience with the group maze was that it was the most chaotic and most tedious challenge so I hadn't been planning to reincorporate it. That being said, you're the second teacher today to request it, so I'll make to put something like it back in for the next update. Things are pretty crazy around here, so I can't predict exactly when that will be. The Bridge Build activity was an absolute blast but it's definitely the most complicated too. I assume you saw this video? My advice for now is to try the demo turtles right at the teleport block yourself. See if you understand the algorithm and program. Then try to go through the other stages of the area on your own. I'm happy to discuss things here in the meanwhile until I find the time to get a full set of notes written. Thanks for the continued feedback!

[Rick Henderson]

Your map sounds great Andrius, and something I'd be interested in. I'd love to have a copy of it if you are making it available, even if I have to translate all the signs myself :)

Good luck! I'm just catching up on old messages from February.

[Andrius P.]

No problem, Rick. The map was not too successful because I think the kids were too young for this. The usual line-by-line programming was too soon for them. So in this regard I did not develop the map any further. But if you want, you can download it below. Just tested it with 1.6.4 build 20, with the "ComputerCraft+ComputerCraftEdu1.631pr9.jar" mod and "customnpcs_1.6.4.zip" (not really necessary) and it works fine. Please find below single student and 20 students versions of the map. 

CC_Institute_01_single.zip -> http://goo.gl/38MYEb

CC_Institute_01_for_20_students.zip -> http://goo.gl/XIOmbZ

[Michael Harvey]

Andrius,

Thanks for sharing the world files. I'm curious if you could describe your process of converting the map to the 20-student version. In my experience, coping CC components with MCEdit can sometimes be troublesome because there are additional files associated with the blocks that it can't handle. Have you found a good system for cloning a set of computers and monitors?

[Karl Ögland]

This is a long distance shot.

Long story short: today I got the "great news" (not) that I'm going to be a replacement in a course teaching the basics of object-oriented programming. No knowledge, no experience but I, as the students, loves minecraft. I happen to run a MCEdu project at my school and I also happen to have the Land of Turtles map on the server: there's my solution.

But, as my students are 18-22 yo I have to challenge them from the start.
My idea is to give them code, not a printscreen of design mode, plain text code.
With the code in their hands they have to search the right turtle, analysis what the code does and tell all.

Do you happen to have all code in text, ready to copy paste here?

Just a shot, otherwise I have to copy all turtles the hard way... :-S

[Michael Harvey]

Hey Karl,

Thanks for getting in touch. Congratulations on the new opportunity! I'll try to address each part of your post separately.

The Land of Turtles was designed as a fun way for younger students to explore basic programming concepts while playing Minecraft. I've used it with 9-12 year olds but I know it has been successful at the middle school level. With some thoughtful adaptations, you could certainly make it into a worthwhile experience for older learners as well.

However, that map is not a complete solution for any programming course. Moreover, Lua, the language used in ComputerCraft/Edu is not an object-oriented language. You can create your own class system in Lua that works like a typical object-oriented language however. You would need the more powerful ComputerCraft computers and turtles to even attempt something like this as the Beginner's Turtles from CCEdu are really just that. 

As to your specific question, I unfortunately do not have a text version of the code saved anywhere. I'm not sure if you are referring to the solutions to the puzzles or the turtles in the museum, but the answer would be the same. (I wonder if it's possible to select text and copy it from the text version of the programming GUI?)

You are more than welcome to transcribe any of the code that is part of my world; feel free to post it if you do. However, please keep in mind that solving puzzles based on simple movement alogorithms will not teach anyone object-oriented programming.

I wish I could tell you that you've found the perfect solution for your new course, but I just can't. If you're going to be successful, I think your next step should be doing some background research. I'm posting two links about OOP, one specifically about how it can work in Lua. Once you're able to grasp the basics, see if you can determine what your objectives would be for the course. Once you know that, I'd be happy to brainstorm some MinecraftEdu lessons that would either teach or reinforce the concepts.

I hope that this is helpful or at least not too discouraging. Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions.

Best,

Mike

[Michael Harvey]

Of course I forgot the links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming

http://lua-users.org/wiki/ObjectOrientationTutorial

[Karl Ögland]

Okay Mike :D

Here's the long story: Imagine Friday lunchtime and you start to understand that you're a bit in the shit, on Monday you're about to be a replacement for a colleague teaching the basics in python. Welcome to my world...

First, what comes to parental leaving and kids it's difference in the world. In the nordic countries you are allowed to be home 1-1,5 year, and as a father and to prove you're not a male chauvinist, you should stay home at least three months or more likely 50%. And when the baby is born, you as a father are allowed to directly take three (3) weeks. I was home with my daughter Vera (minecraft nick AquaVera) for 14 months. Because I could.

Two colleagues could also.
One became dad three weeks ago and the other two days ago. The first one shared material 12 hours before lessons starts and the second one doesn't share at all. I'm the replacement, so welcome to my world... 12 hours before start? I got the message 22:18 Monday evening and the course, a new one, started the following day 10:15. What piss me off is that they have known for weeks and months when the baby will come and they have had all time in the world to prepare us who is about to replace them, but no...

I've been stressing a lot and have been begging on my knees to get material from the second colleague but no chance. When I look at my next three weeks schedule I have two more courses without material or, actually knowledge. As a remedial teacher I know the basics, I'm not an expert, this course is way over my top.

The course in the fundamentals of object-oriented programming we will be three parts (3 teachers as replacements) to share, the other two has experience from Java and C++ and we should run Python. I have some experience of Java, but the problem usually is you need a lot and lot of code to see something really happening, and students usually need the kick earlier than that to get caught of the subject. The age doesn't matter.

What do I have?
Experience from MinecraftEDU... ROFL
But hey!
I can use it!
I really can solve my three weeks of problems with MinecraftEDU, ComputerCraftEDU and the awesome world "the Land of Turtles".

I actually do know that you have made it for younger kids/pupils/students and I also know Lua ain't object oriented.
Part of my problem I've described above. Some other parts: some students do a game in Craftstud.io as a final project and that program also uses Lua. Lua is also used to macros in World of Warcraft. So they can connect to Lua anyhow. Also, more important, as they behave in another way when they're gaming (not that easily giving up) I hope I could use your truly awesome map to catch their interest. If they even get some knowledge and interest of programming in general it's a huge success.

So what comes to age, mine students are 18-22, yours half that age.
If you start teach programming basics when the pupils are in the age you teach, they will be on another level that mine are. My daughter will be on an higher level. But the students I have, they rather play than learn. Everytime they knock the wall and the solution not drop in their hands, they give up and starts to play games (Internet is full of them). If I don't make my lessons interesting enough, they stop listen and starts to play video games, during class, lessons in school. Or watch YouTube :( the main reason why they are on this program/education is because they love to play computer games.

Same question I've been starting to ask myself lately:
What happen if I allow a game and xhallenge them within that game?
Will they learn more or less?

Most of the students play Minecraft anyway and with MinecraftEDU and computecraftEDU I maybe hopefully can give them a positive learning experience.

The design view of coding in your map is the same as in our iPad apps, drag and drop. With one difference, you can choose the see the code. That option I have to use more often than if the students are younger. I have to make them have a second thought about the code, what they actually are doing.

Last, but not less.
I've already in another group tested the map /world.
The usually weaker students (dyslexia, dyscalculia and more) was the stronger ones and also was faster learning how to code (to make the turtle doing stuff). They could see, or testrun, what was happening in another way than ordinary coding. The challenge is to remind them what they are doing, why and what is happening: reflect and analyze.

[Karl Ögland]

Sorry Mike, I forgot.

I would love to do the research first, but as I wrote in the long answer above, I have (or had) like 56 hours to prepare. And that's one of the things that piss me off, because I have both own courses to prepare, a weekend with my family so there's not time enough or at all :(

And I hate it.
I want to be prepared, your map is actually my perfect solution to get rid of the stress and actually have a chance to learn them something.

As we're three (3) teachers as replacements and the other two HATES games I believe the students will have enough of object oriented theory and I hope my part of it will be fun and challenging enough to get them some knowledge ;)

[Mirek Hancl (infchem)]

Hey Karl,

I hope my post isn't too late...

I always start OOP in all courses with CRC-cards. You write scenarios (or let the students create them collaboratively) and let your students analyze and design the problem in an object-oriented approach with the help of CRC-cards. It's easy, fun and motivating! And it's IMHO the best way to teach objects first and to train the students to think about the problem and the design of the solution first before starting to code.

Mirek 

[Karl Ögland]

First report.

I had the group for 90 min and they hadn't a clue of OOP and hadn't understood a thing. Unfortunately I had some issues with my server so I couldn't start them yesterday and in the afternoon my colleague had them for 3x45 min and he was confused, 3rd years students and only play? Yep, the only time the students has learned something were when the teacher learned how to set up a Minecraft server and when they (the teachers) connect learning to their interest...

So, when I told them about the masterplan I actually got their interest and they wanted to start asap. Therefor I hope I'm right on track to get some learning doing.

But I do need some help with the code :)

When I've been writing down all the code and have watch the turtle run around doing stuff I start to learn myself, but I do have some questions. All code btw is in the zip if someone else needs it =)

WaterAndFire

for n = 1, 11 do

turtle.forward()

end

for n = 1, 2 do

turtle.turnLeft()

end

for n = 1, 11 do

turtle.forward()

end

for n = 1, 2 do

turtle.turnRight()

end

Please explain the value "n" and why "1, 2" or "1, 11"

The program is simple, I guess it has something with the moving, but I'm not sure :S

ColorScanner

turtle.select( 16 )

turtle.place()

turtle.turnRight()

for N = 1, 8 do

for n = 1, 5 do 

turtle.forward()

end

turtle.select( 1 )

if not turtle.compare() then 

turtle.select( 2 )

if not turtle.compare() then

turtle.select( 3 )

if not turtle.compare() then

turtle.select( 4 )

end

end

end

for n = 1, 2 do

turtle.turnRight()

end

for n = 1, 5 do

turtle.forward()

end

turtle.place()

turtle.turnLeft()

turtle.forward()

turtle.turnLeft()

end

for n = 1, 2 do

turtle.turnRight()

end

turtle.forward()

turtle.turnRight()

turtle.select( 16 )

while not turtle.compare() do

turtle.dig()

turtle.forward()

end

turtle.turnRight()

turtle.forward()

turtle.turnLeft()

turtle.dig()

Again, my issue is about the n value. 

Line 4 and 5, "N" and "n", just a typo or is it case sensitive?

turtle.select( 16 ) - do we have to have space between brackets and value?

Sorry, probably real n00b questions, but I'm a bit in the stress and rather ask to save times.

[Mirek Hancl]

Hi Kalle,

n is the counter variable for the loop between do and end. n starts from 1 and increments after every loop until its value equals 11.
The step 1 can be changed with a third parameter:
for n=1,10,2 loops only 5 times.
 

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[Mirek Hancl]

With step 1 and increment I mean:
Increment/Add 1 to the value of n after every loop.

[Michael Harvey]

Karl,

re: For loops:

The values listed are the start and end values for the loop counter variable, n. Each time the iteration completes, n is incremented. So those loops will either run twice or eleven times. You should be able to see that the turtle moves forward eleven spaces and turns twice to effect a 180º turn.

re: n/N:

For loops use a special variable that allows the loop itself to keep track of its progress repeating. There are loops within a loop in the Color sorter program which requires that two different variables are used (one for each level of nesting). The N loop counts to 8, one for each wool block along the wall. The n loops control the movement, like in the above program. n can be safely used three times because these smaller loops happen independently of each other.

re: turtle.select:

Lua does not require spaces around a function's parameters as far I know.

Keep in mind that the text code is automatically generated by the edu mod. It would look different and perhaps be much more efficient if written by hand from scratch. 

Hope that helps!

[Mirek Hancl]

N and n are different identifiers. So Lua is case-sensitive, right :)
You have one loop in another there.  

[Karl Ögland]

 

Here's the report --> http://gamification-learning.blogspot.fi/2014/10/we-have-learned-while-loop.html

And of course I need some help. I guess I'm going to be an expert one day but I have some issues :D

• The faultline Island, when escaping from the Island where do we go? In one corner there looks like there's a maze (next to the intro to turtles house but I have no clue where I should start if I use that?
• I can teleport med everywhere but after the Faultline Island and the Sky Turtle Island, where to go? I know there's a lots of other places but I don't know exacty where I should start. 
  

[Michael Harvey]

Faultline Island is completely unstructured. It's good for young kids who learn by just experimenting. No puzzles, no goals. I have kids wait there after finishing Intro to Turtles and I make up challenges for them. 

• See if you can figure out how to use that shovel!
• Do you think you could build something just using your turtle?
• Is there any way off the island?

Once everyone has finished the Intro to Turtles course, I explain Sky Turtle Island.

Where to go from there...? It's open-ended, but my younger students typically spend a long time getting to that point. There is another area that asks the students to work in groups. The challenge is to design a bridge with a repeating pattern and then write a program to have 6 turtles simultaneous build a larger version of it over a large body of water. The results look like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlRgx8cMSRU

Unfortunately, I haven't found time to write lesson plans for it, but there is a demo of the finished result at the teleport station. There are some other unfinished areas that aren't totally ready for kids - The maze you found is one.

Personally, I think the next most logical step is to explore the non-Edu ComputerCraft. There are a couple of good maps that I've seen that use it. This one seems particularly good but I haven't tested with my own students yet: http://services.minecraftedu.com/worlds/node/65

Even better than any of those ideas would be to experiment with the mod on your own time and see if you can envision other projects and challenges. I'd be happy to help you put something together if we could figure out the objectives. Perhaps it could become an addition to Land of Turtles!

[Karl Ögland]

Sorry Mike, another map is not yet an option. If I go from your awesome map to explore ComputerCraft on it's own I will loose 75% of my students. I just caught them with the drag and drop code design view and to go directly to code, even if it's a turtle will be a disaster. To make own code, even with Lua, is still over the top. Sorry.

If I now go from your map to my server, we have actually one with CC (more about it later), the step will be too big. And another thing, those with diagnoses (sorry, I don't have a better word) have problems with text code. Therefor the design view is much better where you afterwards can check the text code.

I don't believe making another map, it's way better to use your existing one, partly of your already amazing work, partly because i (we) need to make a new tutorial area where to practice and partly because they are on different levels. The last part i can explain this way: they are 15 in the class, but because they have never learnt how to code properly and because they now have three (3) replacements for the first (1) teacher and the other ones just talking jadda jadda jadda they didn.t turned up yesterday. Honestly, not even yesterday, all in the class believed me when I told them we're going to use Minecraft as an educational tool. C'mon, games in school!?

So next week I will have one group in the intro area and the othe one in the end of Sky Turtle. As you understand, you can't have two classrooms (servers) now.

I saw there was a lots of teleporting places as a teacher, to the unfinnished areas. Any chance you can list them and what your plans are. It's so much easier to come up woth challenges if you have some guidence :)

BECAUSE it's such a awesome map I will use it again in a month but to our first years students, the ones who still hasn't started with any programming. I would like a small update to the map (feels like you have better conditions to do that than me) ;)

1) info boxes at every unfinnished areas with your thoughts and/or plans. I don't need a lessons plan or anything like that, but just an info, start here, this is my thoughts, improvise. The unfinnished areas is, together with the CCEdu still awesome places to practice. Actually the same with Faultline Island, a NPC tells you to hold your horses, be creative!

2) if you happen to have some more time. Trees in Faultline Island. My students wanted to make houses and stuff, and with limited resources you have to start think organic, ecology and that's something good both for my students as for yours. The earth resources is not going to last forever.

3) another area with build rights to be able to do that in (2): organic thinking in the future. We most probably will have robots doing our work and we will have limited resources. It will trigger the keycompetences for lifelong learning.

I would love to collaborate with you and if I would have the knowledge I could have done most of it above myself most probaböy, but I'm still kind of new to Minecraft (my 6 yo daughter gets the game quicker than me and give me hints...) (yes, makes me feel old)

OK, SO I SAID SOMETHING ABOUT OUR SERVER.
Here's some other issues. Last year when I finally took the step to give Minecraft a chance I also pretty fast changed my mind of my number one hate object (I had same opinion as my colleagues, games are evil). To my first project I rented a server (still has that, plain vanilla) but the thing with Minecraft is that it covers so many subjects. The same class I had yesterday programming had to set up the server in a server course. Instead of making it virtually they made one server for real, ofc a lots of learning occurred. That was before I could even think of MinecraftEDU. And actually, the one teacher who now became dad was the one who had the server course as well...

But suddenly only maybe 1/3 of the class wanted to participate in the project to build their school. You need the MinecraftEDU and classroom to be effective.
Samr eith ComputerCraft, there's no challenge in a creative server and a flat world. The interested ones want to make codes how to get turtles search for ore but if the ground is only 2 blocks down you fall out darn quick.

[Michael Harvey]

Karl,

Thanks for writing again. Sorry for my delay in replying.

I understand that the jump to regular CC is a big one. There is certainly more you can do with CCEdu. I should have mentioned that another activity that is ready to go is HikariKishi/Shane's CCEdu challenge. http://services.minecraftedu.com/worlds/node/33 However, Shane and I have discussed that it's a bit redundant to some of the challenges in my map. Might be worth a go anyway?

Signs - I can work on adding some of these to the existing areas, like Faultline Island. However, the purpose there is really just to catch kids who speed on ahead. Give them whatever directions you want. I probably won't add signs to the unfinished areas, but you're welcome to ask me about anything there. I honestly don't even think I could name all of the unfinished areas that I started. Some of them were just built on a whim by me and never used in class.

Trees - I have no plans to add trees. Once you add trees, the veterans will realize they can craft tools and will likely revert to traditional Minecraft play. To encourage them to use the turtles, I deliberately removed all the trees. That being said, if you want to add some yourself, just grab a stick item, then type /tree into the chat. Voila! I know that the earth resources are limited there, but I also don't have students spend much time there.  

Let me know if you have any other ideas!

[Michael Harvey]

I thought I'd share this write-up from another teacher named John Harrington who used Land of Turtles successfully in his program. It might give good ideas about pacing for people looking to try the map. Thanks John!

Hi Michael,

I'm a teacher and counselor for Tech Kids Unlimited, which is a non-profit that teaches technology tools and computer programming to middle and high schools students with special needs.

A few weeks ago I taught a class to the students in this program using your Land of Turtles world for MineCraftEDU and I just wanted to send a quick note to thank you for all the time and effort you put into making that world. The kids had an absolute blast going through it and left the sessions with a real understanding of some basic programming principles (if/else statements, loops, etc.) which was amazing. 

Your teacher's guide was also super helpful as well. I have programming experience but had never spent much time in MineCraft before this class, and the guide really helped a ton. 

We had 2 sessions of classes, with each class being an hour and fifteen minutes. There were 23 students aged roughly 10-16 years, although there was a pretty broad range in terms of development and disabilities so it wasn't much of an equivalent to typical 4th-10th grade.

Class 1

• We did the Turtle Museum, Intro to Turtles, and then finished with free time on Faultline Island
  
• Turtle Museum got a little crazy because there were 20+ students in the class with most on the spectrum of having other learning disorders so a few times I had to freeze everyone and walk through some of the exhibits from my screen on the projector
• Intro to Turtles went really well and I shared the student walkthrough with everyone beforehand which helped a lot and allowed the faster students to go at their own pace
• It was also great to have Faultline Island as a catch-all for the faster students as it allowed them to experiment some. Not sure if you've ran into it with your students, but some in this class seemed to enjoy throwing themselves off the sides and having me spawn them back haha

Class 2

• We started at the beginning of Skyline Island and let students get as far as they could during the class period. One student was able to complete both sections (including the for/while loops part) but he had had previous experience with coding and was one of our better students
• Absolutely loved the way of teaching if/else and loops during this, and I'm actually definitely going to be using the analogies when teaching different programming languages. The idea of functions and loops has always been kind of hard to get across to students, so the idea of being able to apply it to automation to "grinding" activities in their favorite games (i.e. no one likes having to mine forever so why not let a turtle do it for you) worked really well
• Also during this course, I'm not sure how some of them did it, but they found a way to like skip over sections. I know there was the blockers in-between each of the hallways and when I went through the course myself I couldn't find a way to cheat it, but a couple of the students found a way to get past some of their obstacles without the user of their turtle and I ended up having to teleport them back and have a counselor check-in on their progress going through again. Unfortunately not much help since I don't know how they did it, but apparently kids will always find a way! 

We're looking to try to find a time where we could expand this into a weeklong course—possibly during the summer—that way we can build up to some of the later maps like the bridge building or pixel art coding which I'm really excited for the kids to get to because they were both really cool when I went through them myself.

On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 11:06:52 AM UTC-5, Michael Harvey wrote:

In an effort to embrace the new structure of the Google Group, I want to start this thread for all discussions of my world. I'm glad people are excited to use it, even though it's of course a work in progress.  If you're trying to get it working in your classroom or you have feedback for me, please use this thread.

Here is a link to the world file, which also includes other details such as the mods required and a lesson plan.

http://minecraftedu.com/worlds/node/42

Thanks,

Mike Harvey

[Karl Ögland]

What comes to the Faultline Island I did come up with a solution but I do have to work a bit further with it until next session that starts November 24th.

But first, it's a "funny" group that has no interest at all making code (main subject).
Until now.
Because I'm using a game as a tool.

My colleagues, both the other two replacements as well as the ordinary teacher, tries and tries but doesn't catch them. Instead most of the class plays other games during class or looking (study) at YouTube to be a better gamer...

This Monday the other half of the class came as well, so I had to stop the first half so the other ones had a chance to catch up. First I was going to actually add trees to Faultline Island, as I wrote in my wishlist, but luckily I had a second thought and didn't. Instead I gave them a scenario to solve:
"Your spaceship has crashed in a desert with very limited resources. You have to leave that place (Island) and create a civilization (survive) until rescue might come. There's only one catch, the gravity of this world prevent you to build anything by your own hands. Luckily you have your little helper with you that can do whatever you say (code) him to do.

Collect resources, build houses and roads and wait for the rescue..."

I had to add a couple of spots where they could put down or pick up their turtles. Some was doing great and made programs to chop down 2x2 trees with branches but unfortunately even this was a bit too creative.

Without using a game like Minecraft you have very hard to give this knowledge to the students, the key competences of life long learning (creative, problemsolving, math and science, languages, collaboration and more). Without a to-do-list they are helpless and needs guidence. Strange actually, because they are 18-22, not 8-10. When playing your chapters, intro worked great as well as the first floor in Skyturtle Island but when you stopped with the hints they got more and more problem. Not with the code, but "the meaning of life" = they suck with be creative!!

I will check the places I find and return what plans you had and what I could use them too. Thanks for your time Mike ;)

[Karl Ögland]

Michael,

What to do with

Group tutorial

Pixel art coding

The mazes

any hints???

Sorry, just looked at my schedule and saw I have more programming lessons this week :/ I thought it was over...

[Michael Harvey]

Hey Karl,

I answered your questions on Twitter, but here are a few videos that might be interesting to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w-I4xigUZw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m12aY2aJv1U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drOd-3lMltw