Critique Week 3-1
Critique: Edutopia- Using Minecraft as an Educational Tool
In this week’s critique I will be using three assessment/evaluation traits from Jason Ohler’s assessment traits. The three traits I have chosen for this digital story are as listed:
Story
Research
Sense of Audience
Story: 9/10
Having played Minecraft before I was interested in watching this video because I wanted to see how schools were using Minecraft in their classrooms. Overall, I think the story was well presented and had some good points. In the digital story they mentioned that their school took Minecraft because it was already proven to be fun to kids and other educational games “smelled like school”. I find this point interesting because the school is recognizing that kids need to be interested in order to learn from any kind of game.
Research: 7/10
Though I think it is awesome that this school is using Minecraft in their classrooms, I was more interested in the outcomes. They mentioned that they were using Minecraft to teach digital citizenship, but did not mention how they were using Minecraft for this and also if it was working. Also, they mentioned that at first they were thinking about what Minecraft could teach but instead found it more “interesting” to learn how Minecraft can teach. This statement to me felt a little bit iffy, in the end I would still like to know what is Minecraft teaching.
Sense of Audience: 10/10
I think the sense of audience was spot on and it definitely felt like it was trying to sell me the idea of using Minecraft or games in the classroom. Also, I liked how the commentator recommended educators to play Minecraft to better understand the possibilities of the game. I noticed in the video that some of the educators seemed doubtful of what Minecraft can teach and I think them playing is a good way to come up with original ideas.
What these traits fail to capture about this story and what other characteristics are noteworthy?
What is failed to be captured in this story is research and data. I believe many would like to see proof behind what the school is doing before even attempting to replicate the program in their environments. Without, any kind of research I am sure many are doubtful.
How could this digital story be improved?
This digital story could be improved by providing more examples of what they were doing and the outcomes from it. I believe individuals need to see outcome to become believers, in this video they seemed to only provide the potential.
