Microsoft heralds new era of immersive learning experiences with general availability of Minecraft: Education Edition in Asia Pacific

SINGAPORE – 2
November 2016 – Microsoft
today announced the general availability of Minecraft: Education Edition, an open world game specifically designed for
the classroom to promote creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving for 10
markets in Asia Pacific, including Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan,
Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The full-release of
the Education Edition includes a companion application called Classroom Mode
enabling educators to manage world settings, communicate with students, give
items, and teleport students in the Minecraft world. It displays a map view of
the Minecraft world, a list of all the students in the world, a set of world
management settings and a chat window. There is even a Minecraft clock to show
time of day in the world. Classroom Mode offers educators the ability to
interact with students and manage settings from a central user interface. It
also offers a range of new, built-in lesson plans for educators to use across
subjects and age levels and easy collaboration with up to 30 students to work
together to build projects and solve problems.

The release comes
after months of feedback from over 50,000 educators and students worldwide who
gained early Beta access in June 2016.

According to the
recently released Microsoft Asia EduTech Survey 2016, one in two educators wanted to make classroom learning
experiences both immersive and fun through gamification and personalized
learning. The use of Minecraft in the classroom enables
educators to inspire their students in new ways, while mapping student
activities to specific learning outcomes and curriculum standards.

Minecraft is one tool
that has the power to transform learning on a global scale. By creating a
virtual world and then exploring in it, students can simulate the real world.
Younger students can learn digital citizenship, empathy, social skills and even
improve their literacy. Older students can explore more complicated humanities
questions, while also learning basic engineering and programming skills.

Don Carlson, education
lead, Microsoft Asia Pacific, said, “Visit a classroom that’s using Minecraft,
and you may be surprised to witness a focused kind of enthusiasm — students who
are motivated to learn, who are engaged, confident, and working collaboratively
to solve a problem. We want to empower educators and students to teach and
learn through doing and exploring. While great technology can never replace
great teaching, it is essential that schools have access to the right tools
that will help drive the most effective learning, and prepare students for the
workforce of the future.”

Minecraft: Education
Edition will include new
game features and the latest updates to Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition beta
which will include user interface, leads and horses, additional player skins,
pistons and the remainder of Redstone functionality.

The full version of Minecraft:
Education Edition is now available for purchase by schools, colleges
and universities for US$5 per user, per year.

For more information
and resources on Minecraft: Education Edition, including lesson
plans and a new Minecraft Mentors program, please visit education.minecraft.net.