April 22, 2026
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Joel Levin

best of education

The Best of Education Gamification in 2013

Ivan Kuo14 mins

When it comes to gamification, no community can match the level of excitement, engagement, and dedication to the concept as much as our education readers do.

To wrap up our first week of the best gamification stories of 2013, we’d like to present 5 stories ranging from the emergence of World of Warcraft, Minecraft, and zombies in schools to increased US government spending on educational game initiatives. It’s a good (read: fun) time to be an educator for 2014.

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MinecraftEdu: Now Teaching in Over 1000 Schools

Kevin Shane45 mins

Educators are rapidly embracing Minecraft, an online simulation game in which gamers craft buildings and conceive of entire civilizations. These efforts proceed in an open world environment. Things have certainly progressed from educators imploring their students to stop playing Minecraft in favor of completing assignments. Now, teachers are seriously exploring ways that the Minecraft experience can advance the education of their students.

Joel Levin is a computer teacher at a private school in NYC. His foray into using Minecraft in the classroom evolved to the point that his enterprise, TeacherGaming LLC, has developed MinecraftEdu. This version of the global gaming phenomenon has been developed specifically for game based learning. As of December 2012, MinecraftEdu had already entered into the curriculum at almost 1000 schools and has even become mandatory in one Swedish school as well.

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Minecraft Added to Mandatory Curriculum in Swedish School

Ivan Kuo23 mins

Minecraft is emerging as one of the most pleasant surprises in game-based learning. Already existing in some schools as a social tool and Roman history lesson, the Swedish-developed block building game has found its way into the mandatory learning curriculum for one particular school in Stockholm.

The Viktor Rydberg school in Stockholm has made Minecraft a part of the compulsory learning curriculum for about 180 students. This new curriculum addition stems from an  internnational school competition called Future City that aims to teach students more about urban engineering.

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