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Topics for Autumn 2014
We have updated our info page with topics for our first semester. We will do our best to cover as many as we can, most of them through play in and outside of the game itself. Here they are:
- Experimenting with building and crafting on your own devices (offline)
- Safe Internet Practice, tech and health (preparing to play online in Realms, basic rules of how much time we should be spending online, healthy posture)
- Science and Minecraft (crystals, architecture, plants and animals, geography and map reading)
- Maths (multiplying, counting, planning constructions, using Minecraft to learn times tables)
- Literacy (journal writing, writing a Minecraft story, typing vs hand writing, writing crafting instructions)
- Arts and crafts (3D modelling, paper crafts, designing your avatars, Minecraft skins, Minecraft decorations)
- History (King Alfred and his times in Wantage, Minecraft resource packs)
Below you can find just a few examples of how Minecraft can be used for education – one-to-one lesson of maths, group work with physics and an offline experiment recreated in Minecraft. Enjoy!
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Mojang and Microsoft, Minecraft Realms
We are starting our club in rather interesting times for Mojang, company that developed Minecraft idea. It looks like Mojang are actually considering selling the game to Microsoft and many Minceraft fans are not too happy about it. We will see what impact the sales will have on us, but for now we can only hope that if the sales comes through the new owners will care for the game community and functionality as much as its original fathers did.
In the meantime we have subscribed to our second Realm to allow our kids play freely. Originally we have planned to use one Realm – safe, closed Minecraft environment to allow our club participants to build our town there.During our summer testing of Wantage Tales Realm we, parents, have learned, however, that kids also need space to play, destroy, experiment with their ideas without the limitations of ‘reality’. They don’t like to follow instructions all the time – and actually they are right! Following instructions limits creativity and we do not want that.
We hope to find the right balance between fun and free creative play and the actual building process of Wantage in Minecraft. And so we have now subscribed to two Realms – one for our club called ‘Wantage Minecraft Club’ and one for those, who wish to focus on building our town in ‘Wantage Tales’ Realms.
We will discuss it in our session in more detail, but for now we are keeping an eye on the industry to see if the game will change owners and how that might affect us.
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Register for our first semester
Starting today you might see our flyers in town. We are planning our first session for next Saturday and the Butler Centre are very excited about it too! We have been planning the club for over a year now with them and we really cannot wait to have fun! We already have four participants so please get in touch asap – places will be allocated based on first come, first serve basis. Just email me on sylwiapresley@gmail.com. Thank you!
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Welcome!
Welcome to our first semester. School starts tomorrow in Wantage so we are very excited to see this website up and running. We hope you like it. We have now confirmed that our first set of sessions will be hosted at the Butler Centre on Saturdays at 1.30 PM – first meeting due 20 September. Their great, kids-friendly facilities will allow us to work on our devices and inside Minecraft but also make the most of offline play. Central location of their venue will allow out participants easy access too.
We need to rent the venue but we are keen on keeping access to technology for kids free so we have decided to cover the costs ourselves, but we hope that it’s only temporary – we will review it after our first series of sessions. If we do charge in the future, we will do our best to keep the costs down and work towards gaining new sponsors so that our kids can enjoy the magic of Minecraft for education this semester and in the future.
We do have a limited amount of spaces though so to register please email sylwiapresley@gmail.com.
Thank you for reading!
UPDATE: please note that all posts in this category were archived on the original website and moved to my central blog. Wantage Pixel Club is now closed.
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Welcome back
It has been a while. I look back at my Instagram photos and I wonder – where is all the coffee gone? I still drink it. I still use the time above my morning coffee cup to meditate and prepare for the day. But I have missed this blog as it recorded the journey of discovery, learning more about coffee…and quite frankly its readers missed it too.
Blog is back now.
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Oak trees
I spent a few days in Gilwell Camp for scouting admiring the famous (for scouts) 500-year-old oak tree and its many younger brothers and sisters. In Poland, in the old village tradition, oak trees symbolise power and masculinity. I am amazed by those magnificent trees until today.
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On Zen Buddhism
I have just finished Steve Hagen’s ‘Buddhism is not what you think’ – my first book this summer. And it is one challenging summer indeed – I have been ill for a month now, my puppy was operated and injured – needs constant attention, my son was also poorly and now my husband suffers too. Somehow the physical pain and limitations in this lovely, sunny weather test my patience less than usual. I think it is because I have finally made peace with my values and outlook on life. To understand that though I had to spot and read Hagen’s book in our local library (yes, I am one of those crazy ones who, despite Amazon shopping, still go there;)).
At the university, I had my time of experimentation and so I have also tried and tested Zen Buddhism, but somehow I needed to test many more beliefs and convictions. Today I feel that I have arrived at the point when I am at peace with myself and the world in the views represented and explained by Zen Buddhist, so I think I will embrace it even more in the near future.
Ego, attachment to matter, the suffering of guilt and longing, blindness and numbness of senses – all due to the lack of clear seeing and because of our great need to overthink everything. Yes, I know, we are those educated, sophisticated feeling mechanisms but there is so much more beyond just us – with pretty undefined boundaries of the outer and inner world. Even scientifically speaking we cannot really break down the boundaries of our bodies, surroundings, and nature easily. All those atoms, energy and change pose a challenge for our mind which cannot even be defined or confronted. Yet, if we look and see the world as it is RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, I am sure we can be contempt, at peace, happy. Actually very often we already are!
If I look back at the last 4 weeks I cannot really complain. Yes, I have been stuck at home. Yes, I had limited access to sun and adventure – but spending time with my family, caring for them and talking about those limitations made us better, fuller, more at peace. We had quiet times, but those served us with time to think, to rest, to see our lives as they are. Right now and here perfectly fine.
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Wantage Tales Art recordings start
I am not sure if I will be able to spend as much time on those recordings as initially anticipated but I am enjoying every second of it. People’s stories about our town are so intense, so captivating and so…universal. Sometimes it feels like they could only happen in here, in Wantage, and sometimes it feels as if they could belong to any town, anywhere in the world. It feels like I am starting a journey around our town, maybe even around the world – I cannot wait to see where and when I am going to arrive home and what home will feel like, but I know that – as always – the journey itself will be full of discoveries.
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Skies Interrupted
I am spending a lot of time on my own nowadays. Finally at peace with my loneliness. These images actually represent that peace – though there are secret powers at war inside of me, I am yet to learn to accept them.
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Gardens
…endless joy of mine!
