[citricsquid]

I have a question for you if you've got a moment: what part of Minecraft is your son most involved in (eg: playing with his friends, creating modifications, building cool things alone)? And if he's involving in playing online, do you know if he has any involve with Minecraft communities?

I'm getting the feeling more and more recently that Minecraft may eventually become what BBSes were to the 90s: a way for "new" to the internet people to get involved in the community side of the internet (vs. just being a "consumer") and by extension the technical side. We (the Minecraft forum) have 10s of thousands of teenagers that are now programmers contributing code and creating things just because of Minecraft, people that probably wouldn't have got involved in programming this early in life otherwise.

I'm curious if that sort of effect extends beyond those actively involved in the official Minecraft communities, but I have no real way to find out as my reach only covers the Minecraft forum.

[CodeCube]

My 8yo son, 11yo daughter, 10yo niece, and 14yo nephew all recently got into it. I set up a server for them.

My nephew I think might become an architect, he loves making real-world looking buildings, complete with furniture, rooms, bathrooms.

The daughter and niece make houses where they live with each other. My daughter in particular takes her room, and adds a panic room (for when the mobs attack).

And my son has recently taken to building redstone gadgets. He took a room and put a switch on the wall, then ran redstone on the outside up to the attic to power glowstone blocks that he recessed into the ceiling. That way he can turn the lights on and off.

They mostly use the tekkit mod, and I've been trying to get them into programming by showing the how the computercraft turtles work ... it's a work in progress :P

[SquareWheel]

(And the Wiki, of course.)

I think Minecraft as a programming teaching tool would be a whole lot more valuable with a proper API and hopefully that will be introduced before the game starts to fizzle. It would be one less barrier to entry for kids, as currently they have to learn Java and get thrown into a messy (deobfuscated) codebase. Not exactly the best first experience with programming.

I think Valve's Portal 2 map maker is another good example. They give you a really nice interface for the easier stuff, and then for advanced changes you can import it into Hammer.

[Vivtek]

Sorry, just noticed your query. He plays alone - I've asked him if he's interested in the multiplayer aspects, but he just likes building things like automated mines, and watching replay movies on YouTube.