Minecraft and Coding: What's The Connection?

There is a push to get students interested in coding. Companies like DevelopIntelligence are really talking about kids coding programs. It is being taught in many public schools, and new organizations are popping up everywhere that offer classes in coding to kids. Code.org is one of the frontrunners in the push to get coding in every public school in America. Coding is no longer just for geeks, but it’s not exactly mainstream coolness yet.

To help coding achieve that status, computer science professionals are using a very popular platform as a way to get kids to want to code: Minecraft. Students will want to take a coding class, sure, but they will line up around the block to take a class on how to master Minecraft.

Minecraft, from the Swedish game developer Mojang, looks like a 3-D fairy tale that was cranked through the Matrix and came out rendered in blocks. Players can use modifications or mods written in Java and can build mods of their own design. You can play in survival mode - battling creepers and zombies - or creative mode, in which you build anything from a house to a village to a fantasy world.

Kids naturally want to imagine and create, and Minecraft speaks to these inborn desires. Minecraft gets kids to code whether they believe they are into it or not. Minecraft teaches kids that they can collaborate to improve mods, share and build on each other’s ideas, design their own projects, and that they can solve problems by viewing them from a different angle. They persist when they encounter a difficulty because they are motivated intrinsically to do so. They like Minecraft, and they want to get good at it.