Minecraft Education

Minecraft: Education Edition is an upcoming educational version of Minecraft specifically designed for classroom use. It is being developed by Mojang AB and Microsoft Studios and will contain features that will make Minecraft easy to use in a classroom setting. The full game is planned to be released on November 1, 2016. A beta test is currently ongoing as of June 9, 2016.

Features
The Education Edition is based off the Pocket Edition and contains features that make Minecraft more accessible and effective in a classroom setting, including:
 * Easy Classroom Collaboration: Educators have told us that one of the greatest benefits of Minecraft: Education Edition is the ability for students to collaborate together to build projects and solve problems. An entire classroom of up to 30 students can play in a world together with no separate server setup required.  Or students can work together in pairs or groups simply by joining their classmates’ world.
 * Non-Player Characters: An educator may create an NPC (Non-Player Character) to act as a guide for students in the game, giving instruction, providing more information, and also allowing educators to insert an active web link to additional references.
 * Camera + Portfolio: An important aspect of teaching with Minecraft is being able to collect evidence of learning in the game, and being able to track student progression. The camera and portfolio features allows students to take screenshots of their work and document the development of their projects.
 * Chalkboards: Creators can use chalkboards to communicate learning goals, provide additional information and give explicit instructions within the game.  Chalkboards come in three different sizes – Slate (1×1), Poster (2×1), and Board (2×3).
 * Simple, Secure sign-in: Individual student and teacher logins with Office 365 Education accounts ensure data privacy & security while playing Minecraft: Education Edition.
 * Tutorial World: For educators or students new to Minecraft, a tutorial world is available that will guide players on in-game navigation, crafting, and placing or breaking blocks.

Lesson plans
Lesson plans through the Education Edition are available to download, covering various subjects such an engineering, history, and visual arts. Lesson plans included with the Education Edition are split into three groups covering certain age groups. Additionally, educators can upload lesson plans that they have created for others to use from the main website.

Ages 5-9

 * Creating A Virtual Community
 * Factors & Multiples
 * Landmarks In The Community
 * Story Setting
 * State History
 * Area & Perimeter

Ages 10-13

 * Preventing Urban Sprawl
 * Loss of Biodiversity
 * Ignoring Climate Change
 * Fraction Stories
 * Deforestation
 * Storytelling (Badlands)

Ages 14 and up

 * City Planning
 * Sustainable Living
 * Solar Planning
 * Rube Goldberg Machines
 * Animal Farm

Pricing
The full game will cost $1 - 5 per user per year to use, depending on school size and if qualifications for volume licensing are met. Volume pricing for school-wide deployments and large-scale academic institutions are also planned. Schools and districts who already have MinecraftEdu will be able to get the Education Edition for free.

Eligibility
In order to be eligible to purchase the Education Edition, you must meet the following requirements (as seen on the FAQ):


 * An eligible educator must be a full-time or part-time faculty or staff member at an academic institution and have a school-specific email address provided by the school that can receive external email.
 * An eligible district or school must be a qualified education user, defined as an accredited institution organized and operated exclusively for the purpose of teaching its enrolled students.
 * An eligible public library must provide general library services without charge to all residents of a given community, district, or region.
 * An eligible public museum must be an agency or institution organized on a permanent basis for essentially education or aesthetic purposes, and utilize a professional staff to exhibit tangible objects to the public on a regular basis.
 * Finally, an eligible home-school program must provide K-12 education to a student or students with written proof that it either belongs to a nationally-recognized home-schooling organization or is expressly recognized by a local school district as an acceptable alternative to an accredited or state-recognized/approved educational institution.

System requirements
Minimum system requirements (according to the FAQ):

Windows 10

 * 1 GHz or faster 32-bit or 64-bit processor
 * 1 GB RAM or 2 GB RAM
 * 16 GB available hard disk space or 20 GB
 * DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Mac OSX El Capitan

 * 2 GB RAM
 * 8.8 GB available hard disk space
 * All Mac models as listed here

Additionally, an Office 365 account is required to log into Education Edition.