LAST week, I was lucky to be given the chance to participate in the orientation and kick-off program of the Minecraft Education Edition to be implemented in Zambales, one of the four schools division offices in the country to pilot the said app for students. Aside from it being a significant development in terms of the current teaching and learning situation, I was also excited to be part of the launch because of my son who really loves Minecraft.
I recall that when I was about his age, there were no games or apps that are similar to what they are playing now. The first computer game that I got addicted playing was Sims, and other than that, I was not really the type to be engrossed in such games and applications.
If we are to look at how our kids are faring now while they are under the distance learning modality, we can say that there are more challenges compared to the previous mode of education where they learn inside the classroom. While they are safe in their homes, most kids (not all) do face a lot of distractions that tend to affect the learning outcomes that are expected to be achieved given all the modalities available to them.
In the case of my son, I think that the use of such game-based learning apps will be helpful for him given the many gaps of the current teaching and learning set-up. MEE is a game-based learning platform that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment. This game allows the learner-players to play in a secure environment along with their classroom community, collaborate on projects with their classmates, document their works and share it in class, and ask helpful guides including digital resources from the town guide.
The said software, which is free of charge to both teachers and learners who will utilize their DepEd-given Microsoft O365 accounts, is part of the sustainable approaches to innovative teaching and learning processes as it made a partnership with Microsoft Philippines, Inc. (MPI).
Since I was in a work-from-home (WFH) set-up when I attended the virtual event, I asked my kids to listen with me, and to be honest, I saw how my kids got excited with the said application. My eldest son Marco even nagged to be download the app right away but since our personal laptop was outdated, we needed to make some software upgrades before we were able to run the app smoothly.
I remain equally optimistic and excited to the many ground-breaking developments and innovations geared towards the improvement of how our kids learn at this day and age. We have to accept the fact that times have changed (a lot) and we need to welcome the many advantages that technology can offer to our kids. However, we as parents still need to continuously guide them in all the things that our children do in the cyber world.