Collaboration
Teaching & Learning with Minecraft Education Edition Sharing Workshop with Austin Height International School
Our success in using Minecraft Education Edition (MCEE) to offer rich gamification learning experiences to our students has gained international recognition and attention. Austin Height International School (AHINT) Malaysia invited the Department of Operations, Technology, Events and Hospitality Management (OTEHM) to deliver a sharing workshop on how they can capitalise on this tool to enhance learning in their school.
On Feb 23rd 2021, Dr Pin Shen Teh, Dr Ella Cranmer and Alasdair Swenson delivered a 2 hour sharing workshop to 25 passionate teachers from AHINT. The workshop has two objectives. Firstly, to share the fantastic innovative teaching method used and created at our university at an international level, thus benefiting the global academic community. Second, to publicise the rich learning experience that we offer to our students in ManMet, facilitating our international student recruitment ambition.
The workshop consisted of two sections. In the first section, Dr Pin introduced MCEE and signposted available teacher’s resources, Dr Ella highlighted the teaching and social activities that we did with our students and Alasdair demonstrated our flagship Minecraft campus project and how we used MCEE to teach coding units. In the second section, teachers had a hands-on opportunity to experience for themselves a simulated class activity which can be adapted easily to any subject topic. All the staff were very engaged, had fun and enjoyed the activity with lots of moments of laughter. The workshop ended with an insightful Q&A discussion on the features available to facilitate class management and how MCEE can be used for assessment.
Here are some of the feedback we received:
“I think is is a great to get students to learn especially with online lessons. Furthermore I think it is a great way to get students to learn especially with online lessons. Furthermore it can be used in some of our school events and activities eg International day where students can build landmarks of those countries they are assigned too. It can be conducted as a CCA in school. The possibilities are many for us to explore.” – Suresh
“It is a great opportunity to learn about an educationally interactive platform~~MCEE. It is indeed fun and learner-centered. Thanks.” – Dr Yvoone Choong
“Oh my GOD, haha this sounds wonderful.” – Teoh
The school has already purchased site wide licenses for teachers and students to use MCEE in some of the subjects in the new semester this September. The session was beneficial and enjoyable for both sides and the workshop was made possible as a result of on-going partnership between OTEHM and AHINT. A sincere thank you to Ms Yi Zheng Goh for organising this workshop with us and we look forward to having future workshops and collaboration with your teachers and students.
Special thanks to fellow Business Technology students Andrew Lee (final year) and Maida Alamgir (second year) for facilitating the session.
Inspiring Young Children with our Minecraft Project
In summer 2021, the Minecraft project team collaborated with Dr Opeoluwa Aiyenitaju, to showcase our Minecraft project to her two lovely children Elijah Aiyenitaju (Age 7, Year 2) and Eliora Aiyenitaju (Age 6, Year 1) (as at the time of this project). They were so fascinated and inspired by the idea of using Minecraft as a learning tool and decided to recreate The Cathedral School of St Peter and John RC in Minecraft Education Edition (MCEE). The project took just approximately 15 days to complete with some days within the period with no activities. This is an exceptional achievement given that throughout the project they received minimum technical guidance and explored most of the features and knowledge required to complete the project on their own. Both children have received recognition from Manchester Metropolitan University for their excellent effort! Here’s a video they produced to showcase the project.
“The detail they have added to the school showing each classroom and little details that make a classroom a place to learn and grow. I loved the minibus parked next to the school, just like our school” – Mr Boardman (ICT teacher)
Elijah and Eliora have developed beneficial skills during their Minecraft project. The project is educational as it further enables the development of their imagination and creativity. It enhances problem-solving, self-direction research skills, teamwork, and other life skills. It is interesting how they intuitively enhanced their research approach towards achieving a task. For example, the challenge faced towards building the school bus. The ability to look up information, hints, and tricks, involving identifying, analysing, and listening to the most appropriate YouTube tutorials. The project further developed their social skills in areas of collaboration. Their ability to share responsibility, designating roles, negotiating designs based on their strength and especially completing the project are all valuable employability skills. Technical skills were developed as they were able to edit the original programming code to ensure the game behaved in specific ways as they desired. For example, altering the weather, creating invincible flying Elytra and enabling the command blocks.
“Watching the video (as the children's computing teacher) made me proud that they have used some of the skills we have learnt through the years building their creativity, problem solving , working collaboratively and an understanding of coding. This was a fantastic piece of work and the children were proud when we showed their class mates their work” – Mr Boardman
In addition to working on the technical side of the project, the children were tasked to write a daily reflection on their project progress. The reflective account was designed using the Gibb’s cycle. It included some questions within each cycle - Description, Feelings, Evaluation, Conclusion, and Action, allowing them to reflect what they have learnt each day from the project.
“I am looking forward to their next project and what wonderful ideas they will create”- Mr Boardman
“It is amazing how the work we are doing managed to inspire two young children to such a level. The benefit of the summer project brings to these two children is huge. Recreating the whole school from scratch in just 15 days is astonishing! ” - Dr Pin
A big congratulation to Elijah and Eliora, your effort and achievements inspires so many others. Well done Dr Opeoluwa Aiyenitaju for supervising two wonderful children throughout the project.
Business Technology Workshops at The Cathedral School of St Peter and St John Primary
On the 15th of March 2022, two Business Technology staff members and three final year students visited The Cathedral School of St Peter and St John Primary to run workshops for their students as part of OTEHM’s outreach, also encouraging women in technology initiatives.
These workshops are unique such that it is designed, developed and delivered mainly by our final year Business Technology degree female students, Maria, Maida and Rabia. This is a testament to how confident we are in our students and how they serve as role models for female students.
The day started off with a visit to Year 4 class. During the 1-hour session, Maida with the support of Dr Ope and Dr Pin delivered a block coding workshop using Minecraft Education Edition to more than 30 pupils. This education tool is also used within ManMet to deliver coding and non-coding unit activities. Maria ran a mini game with the pupils who answered questions correctly during the coding session. This mini game session added excitement to the lesson and the concept has also been trailed with a lot of success in one of our business technology degree units.
The day concluded with a visit to Year 6 class. During the 1-hour session, Rabia delivered a presentation on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality highlighting how businesses are capitalising on these modern technologies to improve business revenues. Maria ran a kahoot quiz as a recap of students' understanding of the presented topics. The students loved the quiz so much and engaged really well. Dr Ope and Dr Pin presented some AR/VR cardboard headsets as a gifts to the school. This would provide the students opportunity to experience virtual reality during their ICT lessons.
The workshops were a great success with positive feedback comments and excitement from the students. Plans are in place to arrange for pupils from The Cathedral School of St Peter and St John Primary to visit the University.
“I truly enjoyed our visit to the primary school, it was a great pleasure to meet such curious and enthusiastic children, I hope to meet them again very soon.” - Rabia
“It was such a rewarding experience delivering a small Minecraft activity to year 4, seeing them so enthusiastic about how coding can be used in Minecraft, engaged with a lot of interesting questions, and their cute faces expressing fascination that we recreated our Business School building in Minecraft in a few months was so rewarding. At the end of the activity, the teachers asked who wants to go to university, and the majority of the students raised their hands, it is so nice to inspire them.” - Maida
“I had the pleasure to deliver the kahoot quiz and dart game for students in year 4 and 6. Students were eager to learn new things and did not hesitate to ask questions, making us feel welcome along with staff members. What a fantastic day!” - Maria
“I am passionate about our departmental outreach projects. The highlight for me was the opportunity to empower these young minds from such a young age and providing pre-entry higher education aspirations which would remain with them for a lifetime” – Dr Ope, OTEHM Outreach Lead
“The year 4 and year 6 students were so excited, engaged, enthusiastic and very well behaved! One of the teachers was impressed and inspired that most of the members of our team who delivered the technology related workshops are females” - Dr Pin
Special thanks to Mrs Hanley (Headteacher), Mrs Campbell (Deputy Headteacher) and Miss Allen (ICT tutor) from the primary school for making these collaborations possible. We look forward to future collaborations with The Cathedral School of St Peter and St John Primary.
Minecraft Coding Workshops at The Oasis Academy MediaCityUK
On 29th of March 2022, two Business Technology degree staff and three final year students visited The Oasis Academy MediaCityUK in person to run workshops for the Year 8 and Year 9 students as part of OTEHM’s outreach and encouraging women in technology initiatives.
The day started off with a visit to Year 9 class followed by Year 8 class for a 1-hour workshop each. The format and content of the workshop for both classes are the same. The first part of the workshop covered Coding in Minecraft and the second part covered how Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) are engaged in businesses. It is worth noting that the workshops were entirely designed, developed and delivered by our final year Business Technology female students, Maida, Rabia and Maria. This shows how confident we are in our students and how much we entrust them to serve as role models for female students.
In the first half of the session, Maida delivered a coding session using Minecraft Education Edition. Students were shown how to build a simple structure using Python language. The students were impressed and fascinated by how their favorite game can be used to learn coding. This education tool is also used within ManMet to deliver coding and non-coding unit activities to our undergraduate and postgraduate students.
In the second half of the session, Rabia presented on AR/VR and how these state-of-the-art technologies are used to increase business revenues. Maria ran a kahoot quiz to recap the students' understanding of the presented topics. The students loved the quiz a lot and did really well. Dr Opeoluwa Aiyenitaju presented the winners of the quiz with VR cardboard headset as rewards for their engagement. Dr Pin also presented some of the headset to the school giving the students the opportunity to experience virtual reality during their ICT lessons.
The workshops were a great success with positive feedback comments and excitement from the students. Plans are in place to arrange for the school to visit the University.
“Our students really enjoyed the sessions that you and your team delivered to them. Seeing students who were only a few years older than them, who were passionate about computing and proud of what they had accomplished was a great motivator for some students who previously did not show interest. Having these sessions delivered by students not teachers and lecturers allows students to better put themselves in the speakers’ shoes and think “I can do this too”.” – Mr Michael Naylor, ICT Teacher
“This is an active demonstration on how we are committed to the long-term solution of closing the skills gap as Business Technology tutors. It was a great experience with the pupils of Oasis Academy as we not only taught them how to code, but encouraged their young minds on how to think like a coder” – Dr Opeoluwa Aiyenitaju, OTEHM Outreach Lead
Special thanks once again to Michael who is also one of our ManMet alumni for making this presentation possible and hosting us throughout the day. We look forward to future collaborations with the Oasis Academy MediaCityUK.
Business Technology Workshops for St Cuthbert's RC High School
When school pupils consider applying to university, they had to do research about the university experience online. Some may be hesitant to consider university at all because they have not had family members experience that before. We want to make that process simpler for them by sharing the experience with them in person.
To motivate and inspire pupils from diverse backgrounds to consider higher education, tutors and student mentors from the Business Technology programme collaborated with the University Widening Participation team to jointly hosted a visit for St Cuthbert's RC High School on the 7th of December 2022. The visit was led by Dr Pin Shen Teh as part of the Department of Operations, Technology and Events Management and Hospitality Management (OTEHM) outreach initiatives.
The day begins with the arrival of 40 pupils and 4 teachers followed by a coding workshop, campus tour, lunch, business technology workshop and student experience sharing session. The two student-led workshops were one of the main highlights of the visit. The workshops were entirely designed and delivered by our business technology mentors. It was also a great opportunity for our mentors to be able to deliver a workshop to the visitors, applying what they had learnt through our programme to help pupils understand how technology can be used to improve business processes.
In the coding workshop, pupils were given the opportunity to use Minecraft Education Edition to solve challenging scenarios using blocks of code. In the business technology workshop, pupils were exposed to various technology buzzwords and explored how they can be linked to businesses. These workshops enabled pupils to increase their awareness of how technology is changing the landscape of businesses.
The workshops, led by our senior mentor (Arisah-May Mughal) and a group of junior mentors (Omar Aya, Omolade Grace Salaam and Osei Fordwour) were creatively and delicately designed. Our mentors spent a considerable amount of effort and time rehearsing their delivery to make sure everything works well for the day.
The pupils and teachers were so impressed with how the workshops were delivered. Everyone including our visitors, tutors and mentors were so engaged and enjoyed the day. This was clearly reflected in the feedback received.
“Thank you for yesterday’s trip, I had really good feedback from the children. Main impact that I found very reassuring was students who had never considered university are now considering it.” – Teacher, St Cuthbert's RC High School
“All the pupils looked engaged and enjoying each session and your students were fantastic at delivering it.” – Catherine Marks (Widening Participation Manager, Manchester Metropolitan University)
“It is amazing to know how the small little things that we do have such a huge impact to our society.” – Dr Pin Shen Teh (Senior Lecturer, OTEHM Business Technology Programme)
Many thanks to Dr Pin Shen Teh, Catherine Marks, Ivan Hay for leading, organising and hosting the visit, special appreciation to Dr Raheem Sarwar for supervising the workshops, our mentors for running the workshops and student ambassadors for helping throughout the day.
Minecraft Coding Workshops at St Wilfrid's RC Primary School
On the 9th March 2023, a group of Business Technology students and staff braced for the snowy and wet weather to deliver an excellent, enjoyable and potentially life-changing workshop for the children at St Wilfrid's RC Primary School.
Our students have spent the last month planning, designing and rehearsing for the workshop. However, at the start of the session, their well-prepared plans were quickly thrown into disarray due to several expected technical and logistical issues, but they were all able to pull together and get back on track quickly using their improvisational skills with some guidance from the tutors and supportive school staff.
The workshop started with an introduction to coding and why it is important to businesses in this digital age. This was followed by a demonstration of how Microsoft Minecraft Education Edition can be used to make learning coding fun and effective. In the second half of the session, the children were given the opportunity to put what they learnt into practice by solving challenging tasks using block codes printed on laminated papers.
The children earn all of our praise for their good behaviour and burning desire to learn. We were also amazed by the creative ideas and computational thinking that the children demonstrated to solve the given task. Our mentors and tutors enjoyed so much interacting with the children.
For many of our students, this is their first time working with school children and they have done well in all aspects from design, preparation, rehearsal to delivery. The headteacher, teachers and students have nothing but all praise for them. We as tutors were so proud to stand by their side and watch them coach the students with full professionalism and most importantly with their truthful hearts. Asiedu Ronald Mensah, Arisah-May Mughal, Abdullah Ahsan, Hamida Fatmah, Osei Fordwour and Bucge Altunbek, you have made ManMet proud 👏.
Here’s what the headteacher said to us
“The children and staff thoroughly enjoyed the sessions, which I think you could see by their level of engagement and you have certainly inspired and encouraged so many of the children to further their interest in this area. Your team were polite, respectful and supportive throughout and I am pleased to hear that they enjoyed it too.” – Mr Ray Moloney
Here’s what our programme leader has to say to our students
“You are all a wonderful credit to yourselves, your programme, your tutors and Manchester Met.”- Mr Jonathan Kettleborough
The school’s Twitter page also accounted for our workshop
