Microsoft will launch an educational version of Minecraft this summer

Launching this summer, Minecraft: Education Edition will be an “expanded” version of Minecraft for classrooms, distributed to educational institutions worldwide. Based on the already existing MinecraftEdu program—a modded version of Minecraft, used for teaching, which Microsoft has acquired—this new edition wants to help things along by launching a community site that, as the announcement from Mojang puts it, will “host lesson plans and give Minecraft: Education Edition users somewhere to discuss ideas and provide feedback.” According to the new site’s FAQ, what the developers are actually doing with the Education Edition is “growing and expanding” MinecraftEdu’s features—there’s a list of changes showing exactly what will be different compared to the game’s regular version. It’s multiplayer Minecraft with an educational twist, basically, where you can play together with your class on a Minecraft server and learn about (or teach) all kinds of subjects—as the FAQ puts it, “from math and physics to history and language arts.” Sounds more fun than the classes I’m used to, at least.