Minecraft Education Edition, aimed at teachers, arrives in May

Microsoft announced earlier this year that the company is planning to bring Minecraft into the classrooms by building a new and a teacher-friendly edition of the game. In 2014, Microsoft acquired the highly popular Minecraft for a whopping $ 2.5 billion and is reportedly now expanding their investment into this game’s development.  Microsoft announced today that their new version, called Minecraft Education Edition would be available as a beta release starting from May.

With the beta program being offered to more than 100 schools from 30 different countries worldwide, Microsoft aims to gather some valuable feedback before the final version is released.  For the first time, the software will be beta tested inside of classrooms so that the company can implement some necessary changes and improvement before the eventual release.

Microsoft has planned another release of an early access version of Minecraft Education Edition in June, which will allow teachers to download the game in exchange for their valuable feedback to the company. The June release will reportedly be available across 41 countries and in 11 different languages.  This program will reportedly last throughout the summer while Microsoft works in unison with early access players to create and share many fun filled learning activities that include reusable projects.

Microsoft has said that once the early access program comes to a close sometime in the future, people will be able to purchase the game through volume and direct licensing channels.

The FAQ segment of Minecraft Education Edition has a notice that the game will be readily available for activation to those districts or schools subscribing to Microsoft agreement later in the year. The game can also be purchased online by teachers and for the convenience of large scale institutions, volume licensing packages will also be available.

Microsoft also stated that more details regarding licensing plans and price will be revealed later this year.

According to Microsoft, Minecraft Education Edition will be compatible with the latest version of Mac OS X EL Capitan and Windows 10. To get access, the game requires students and teachers to sign up for an Office 365 Education account, which can be done using their personal email ID and school account emails as well. If you don’t remember, let me known that the decision for developing the classroom version of Minecraft came after Microsoft’s acquisition of a developer studio called Teacher Gaming LLC, which was involved in making learning games like MinecraftEdu meant to be used by teachers.

MinecraftEdu was once touted to be a revolutionary software consisting of an extensive library base of lesson plans that can help school faculties to teach about language, history, STEM, and art, all through brain making use of the marvellous game. Microsoft has not revealed the price for which they acquired the rights to this game, which they purchased earlier this year.

Now that Minecraft is already in the school curriculum and is being used to impart lessons, the more one part of Microsoft to invest in the game’s expansion into classrooms could mean that the next education revolution is right around the corner. In January, Microsoft noted that teachers in more than 40 countries and over 7000 classrooms were using Minecraft to impart valued education.