Thinking Hats.

Well I have spent about 2-3 hours map making, and have just finished a brand new map. I was sitting around today writing courses for my Year 7 Science class, and I came across de Bono's 'thinking hats' and thought to myself, that is normally pretty dry and boring, and the kids seem to forget it as soon as the lesson finishes, maybe I should try making a Minecraft map to teach them instead.

So a few hours later, wham, one appeared before my eyes.

Nope, not really but without the advanced build tools of MinecraftEdu it would have taken significantly longer to create this map. I am not completely sold on the map as yet, it is not 'fun' yet, I am going to have to think of some ways to spice it up a bit, but the majority of information is laid out in a nice linear path going through various areas of the map.

I am thinking that it might be also be worthwhile creating a map for the 'multiple intelligences' and getting the students to fill out a MI survey whilst running around a Minecraft world, but at this stage the survey is over 30 questions long, and getting a 'final score' at the end stating which intelligence is the strongest is going to be very tricky too. I will ponder this some more over the coming weeks and see what I can come up with.

I recorded about 2 hours of map making, and I would like to edit and speed up the video down to around 15 minutes if I can, if not I will have to upload it to youtube in parts, which is fine, but it is always good to have a goal.

Now here are some screenshots of the map, if you think you might like to use it, or you just want it to have a look, let me know through the comments and I will sort something out.

An overall picture of the map, the spawn is up the top, a little higher than the red platform. I was originally going to make each colour an actual hat, but decided I was not artistic or talented enough to pull it off with any flair. So I just went for different looking areas.

 The spawn point.

 The sort of information/questions for discussion as we travel around the map.

 Ditto.

 And again.

The white area is the only place I used the information blocks as 'teleporters' and information delivery.

 The green spiral, I am hoping it doesn't make the kids too dizzy.

I thought it would be cool if the blue hat was under water, so I used glass panes. I am very happy with how it turned out.

And the freedom at the end, if time permits, but if I can make the map more fun throughout, I might remove the 'freedom' from the end, will have to kid test it to find out for sure. I will most definitely be updating you, and the map once I have tested it on students, should that read 'on' students or 'with' students??  ;)

Thanks for taking the time to read, hope your enjoyed, and again, if you think you could use this, or have ideas on how it could be improved, please let me know in the comments.