This, this may never see the light of the public eye, if it does, well, take this as the rantings of a very frustrated individual after 10+ days of issues, lacking communication, and changes to a whole platform for the sake of one map. I should also note, these are most definitely my own opinions, as they have always been on this blog, and are not the opinions of my employer. I am stating this at this time, because this is a very negative post, and I haven't had one this negative in a very long time, or ever.
Let's start with the issues, around 10 days ago Microsoft released 1.7.0 of Minecraft: Education Edition. Awesome, 1.7 means we have the same codebase as Bedrock 1.7, which means scoreboards are finally here, limited, but here in a useful capacity for most of what I used to do in MinecraftEdu and what I would want to do in my maps now. Great right? For anyone outside of a 'proxy' network, yep, fantastic. Unfortunately every single one of the schools, teachers and students I work with is behind a proxy network. So what does this mean?
Nobody can use it at school. Teachers who I have been working with, had put hours into developing lessons, and worlds to go alongside them, but can no longer use it in their classrooms. This highlights the massive issues of 'automatic updates' of software like this, but putting that aside, the first indication of an issue was from a mentor, in the mentor community asking others if they were seeing similar issues. It wasn't long before I started getting emails and calls from my own schools and teachers here asking what was going on.
The only update I could get was 'We know about the issue, we are working on 1.7.1 which will fix the issue and expect it to be 24-48 hours for a fix.' So this is what I told all my teachers, hopefully a fix will be available in a couple of days. Fast forward a week, and there is still no fix, so I ask around and get told that it is 'in certification' which apparently means it is 'ready' to go to the Microsoft Store, but is going through checks and such before it is available, this should take a couple of hours, but in the mean time it is available as a manual download on the MEE website.
Brilliant, I run off and tell all my teachers that the 'auto-fix' should be available in a couple of hours, but if they are desperate they can manually update. About a day or so later, it actually hits the Microsoft Store. I was waiting patiently for the same release on iOS, but it has never come. My request for timelines and updates fall on deaf ears. I found out a day or so ago that they have not released it for Mac either, which means, only Windows 10 devices are now able to be used for Minecraft: Education Edition in our school networks here. Sorry to those classes, and I know some, in fact I am supposed to be working in one next week, who have a mix of devices, you are fresh out of luck.
Now to the changes, there is one major one which I don't understand, and when asked for clarification I was told the change was made for the streamlining of one particular map. My frustrations were at boiling point already with the issues we are seeing here locally, dampening on the great traction and growth in use we were seeing, but this was astounding to me. Change the whole platform, for one map? Ludicrous!
Now, every individual starting or joining a world doesn't have 'world builder' permissions. Now, I am going to be honest here, we spent at least the first 6 months of this year trying to solve issues within the mentor community, and I would say that at least 60% of the issues were based on 'world builder' permission. We have tried to nail down who gets what permissions in what circumstances and there is no documentation, and no clear communication (yet again).
Now, I need to go through and test as many circumstances as I can, to try and figure out who can do what, and when. I managed to type /wb without issue in another teachers map, are students able to do this in a teacher hosted world, what about in student hosted worlds? All of these have serious impacts on the way I set up worlds for others to use, massive, and also a large impact on teachers 'processes' when working in classrooms with students, and how students work in groups.
Not only that, the map they are streamlining the whole product around, using one of my previous publicly available videos and instructions, would have taken someone less than 5 minutes to fix the issue that changing the whole platform is for. I even would have done it for them, but instead of using the expertise they have in the community they built, or even discussing the implications with the mentors, they just make a global permission change, which means that every single user, even in single player that wants to place a slate, board, poster or NPC needs to type /wb first. Can you see how this might impact if students are not able to do this in a teacher hosted (or fellow student hosted) world, and they are trying to put down boards so that they can demonstrate the learning they have done, or write about the build they created?
I don't want this all to be negative, so one of the brilliant things they did with this update was bring Code Connection (and rename it to Code Builder) into the game itself. Absolutely amazing, streamlines the whole process, works seamlessly from my experience. However, instead of (and this is relevant given they want people to type /wb) typing /code to start it, all you have to do now is press 'c'. In theory, a good move, but in practice a complete pain. Accidental 'c' presses are rife, I have done it multiple times since updating, and this brings the agent right into the game, where you are standing. So you cannot build where he is, or do anything in that block unless you remove him from the game.
So how do you get rid of him? Use a /kill @c command of course! See the inconsistency here? It is too hard to use some commands like /code, but /wb and /kill are commands all users are expected to be able to use, students and teachers.
I said this would be a rant, and I think I am definitely living up to that warning, however this is the reality of Minecraft: Education Edition right now. Changes for the sake of changes, without consultation of the community of experts in Minecraft and education that they created. I joined the global mentor program so that I could help shape the way the program develops and support growth of the global community, and I am not feeling any of that right now. Before I go off on that tangent, my full opinions on the global mentor community deserve their own post, so look forward to that in the next couple of days.
As always, if you managed to wade through that slab of text and negativity, thanks for reading, if you have any comments, or thoughts, please feel free to share them below.
EDIT: I have since been contacted by the M:EE Team, and they were not aware that devices other than Windows were having issues. This has highlighted the need for me to be clearer in my communications with the team as a mentor, and also that I need to get the teachers I work with to submit support requests of their own, rather than all of us expecting them to know there are issues. So, if you are still having log in issues, please file a support ticket here: https://minecrafteducation.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
Let's start with the issues, around 10 days ago Microsoft released 1.7.0 of Minecraft: Education Edition. Awesome, 1.7 means we have the same codebase as Bedrock 1.7, which means scoreboards are finally here, limited, but here in a useful capacity for most of what I used to do in MinecraftEdu and what I would want to do in my maps now. Great right? For anyone outside of a 'proxy' network, yep, fantastic. Unfortunately every single one of the schools, teachers and students I work with is behind a proxy network. So what does this mean?
Nobody can use it at school. Teachers who I have been working with, had put hours into developing lessons, and worlds to go alongside them, but can no longer use it in their classrooms. This highlights the massive issues of 'automatic updates' of software like this, but putting that aside, the first indication of an issue was from a mentor, in the mentor community asking others if they were seeing similar issues. It wasn't long before I started getting emails and calls from my own schools and teachers here asking what was going on.
The only update I could get was 'We know about the issue, we are working on 1.7.1 which will fix the issue and expect it to be 24-48 hours for a fix.' So this is what I told all my teachers, hopefully a fix will be available in a couple of days. Fast forward a week, and there is still no fix, so I ask around and get told that it is 'in certification' which apparently means it is 'ready' to go to the Microsoft Store, but is going through checks and such before it is available, this should take a couple of hours, but in the mean time it is available as a manual download on the MEE website.
Brilliant, I run off and tell all my teachers that the 'auto-fix' should be available in a couple of hours, but if they are desperate they can manually update. About a day or so later, it actually hits the Microsoft Store. I was waiting patiently for the same release on iOS, but it has never come. My request for timelines and updates fall on deaf ears. I found out a day or so ago that they have not released it for Mac either, which means, only Windows 10 devices are now able to be used for Minecraft: Education Edition in our school networks here. Sorry to those classes, and I know some, in fact I am supposed to be working in one next week, who have a mix of devices, you are fresh out of luck.
Now to the changes, there is one major one which I don't understand, and when asked for clarification I was told the change was made for the streamlining of one particular map. My frustrations were at boiling point already with the issues we are seeing here locally, dampening on the great traction and growth in use we were seeing, but this was astounding to me. Change the whole platform, for one map? Ludicrous!
Now, every individual starting or joining a world doesn't have 'world builder' permissions. Now, I am going to be honest here, we spent at least the first 6 months of this year trying to solve issues within the mentor community, and I would say that at least 60% of the issues were based on 'world builder' permission. We have tried to nail down who gets what permissions in what circumstances and there is no documentation, and no clear communication (yet again).
Now, I need to go through and test as many circumstances as I can, to try and figure out who can do what, and when. I managed to type /wb without issue in another teachers map, are students able to do this in a teacher hosted world, what about in student hosted worlds? All of these have serious impacts on the way I set up worlds for others to use, massive, and also a large impact on teachers 'processes' when working in classrooms with students, and how students work in groups.
Not only that, the map they are streamlining the whole product around, using one of my previous publicly available videos and instructions, would have taken someone less than 5 minutes to fix the issue that changing the whole platform is for. I even would have done it for them, but instead of using the expertise they have in the community they built, or even discussing the implications with the mentors, they just make a global permission change, which means that every single user, even in single player that wants to place a slate, board, poster or NPC needs to type /wb first. Can you see how this might impact if students are not able to do this in a teacher hosted (or fellow student hosted) world, and they are trying to put down boards so that they can demonstrate the learning they have done, or write about the build they created?
I don't want this all to be negative, so one of the brilliant things they did with this update was bring Code Connection (and rename it to Code Builder) into the game itself. Absolutely amazing, streamlines the whole process, works seamlessly from my experience. However, instead of (and this is relevant given they want people to type /wb) typing /code to start it, all you have to do now is press 'c'. In theory, a good move, but in practice a complete pain. Accidental 'c' presses are rife, I have done it multiple times since updating, and this brings the agent right into the game, where you are standing. So you cannot build where he is, or do anything in that block unless you remove him from the game.
So how do you get rid of him? Use a /kill @c command of course! See the inconsistency here? It is too hard to use some commands like /code, but /wb and /kill are commands all users are expected to be able to use, students and teachers.
I said this would be a rant, and I think I am definitely living up to that warning, however this is the reality of Minecraft: Education Edition right now. Changes for the sake of changes, without consultation of the community of experts in Minecraft and education that they created. I joined the global mentor program so that I could help shape the way the program develops and support growth of the global community, and I am not feeling any of that right now. Before I go off on that tangent, my full opinions on the global mentor community deserve their own post, so look forward to that in the next couple of days.
As always, if you managed to wade through that slab of text and negativity, thanks for reading, if you have any comments, or thoughts, please feel free to share them below.
EDIT: I have since been contacted by the M:EE Team, and they were not aware that devices other than Windows were having issues. This has highlighted the need for me to be clearer in my communications with the team as a mentor, and also that I need to get the teachers I work with to submit support requests of their own, rather than all of us expecting them to know there are issues. So, if you are still having log in issues, please file a support ticket here: https://minecrafteducation.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
Sorry to hear of your woes. Hopefully they can get their fixes deployed soon.
ReplyDeleteThanks Matt, I am sure that now the communication lines are a bit clearer, and they are aware there are still issues, that it will be sorted as soon as they are able.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that you are relaying the concerns about these issues. Failure to correctly implement a feature or expected behaviour (such as a working proxy) is often interpreted by teachers as either as a bug or tardy treatment. Sadly, it is heavy lifting to get a second-look-in. Great to read that you are onto this and that they are agile at following up support tickets. "High-Five"
ReplyDelete