Minecraft Education

Minecraft: Education Edition is an educational version of Minecraft specifically designed for classroom use. It is being developed by Mojang Studios and Xbox Game Studios and contains features that make Minecraft easy to use in a classroom setting. The full game was released on November 1, 2016. There was a beta test between June 9 and November 1, 2016.

On August 20, 2018, Mojang Studios announced that it would bring Education Edition to iPad in Autumn 2018. Microsoft stated that licensed users would be able to play starting in September. It was released to the App Store on September 6, 2018.

On March 27, 2019, it was announced that the Education Edition would be operated by JD.com in China.

On June 26, 2020, an Education Edition Public Beta was made available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on August 7, 2020.

Features
Education Edition is based on 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 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 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.
 * + : 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 allow students to take screenshots of their work and document the development of their projects.
 * s: Creators can use chalkboards to communicate learning goals, provide additional information and give explicit instructions within the game. Chalkboards come in three different sizes – (1×1),  (2×1), and  (2×3).
 * Tutorial world: For educators or students new to Minecraft, a tutorial world is available that guides players on in-game navigation, crafting, and placing or breaking blocks.
 * and blocks: These blocks allow the educator (or a player with World Builder privileges) to place specific areas where players can or cannot build.
 * blocks: These blocks prevent players from entering or leaving a specific area. The range of influence extends the full range of the Y coordinate from wherever the block is placed on the x & z coordinate. It is the same shape as a cobblestone wall but with a smooth, red texture and red particle effects.
 * Classroom mode: This is a complimentary program to Education Edition and allows educators a master view of the map (including the locations of all players), communicate with players via chat (and monitor the chat), and turn off/on some world settings.
 * Additional item hotbar: There is a smaller hotbar with three additional slots that can be enabled for players by the educator. This smaller hotbar rests to the right-side of the main hotbar and educators can populate this hotbar with items.
 * Code builder and the agent: A complimentary program to Education Edition that allows students to write code in a code editor and The Agent then executes the code in the program. This was a newly announced feature and was implemented in 1.0.1.
 * New command allows the player to modify permissions of players such as the   permission,   allows the player to enable/disable fly in all game modes, and   allows the player to mute another player. Abilities are similar to gamerules, except they apply to a player rather than the entire world.
 * A new  gamerule, if true it prevents any players who are not teachers (or who don't have worldbuilder permissions) from breaking or placing any blocks unless they are on top of an  block.
 * World builder is an ability that can be applied to a player to allow bypassing the functions of blocks and  blocks.

Lesson plans
Lesson plans through Education Edition are available to download and are split between certain age groups and various subjects such as history, visual arts, and gaming. Additionally, educators can upload lesson plans that they have created for others to use from the main website.

Pricing
The full game costs US$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 is also planned. Schools and districts that already have MinecraftEdu can get the Education Edition for free.

It was announced on May 2, 2017 that schools and educational institutions that purchase new Windows 10 devices receive a free year of Minecraft: Education Edition.

Eligibility
In order to be eligible to purchase Education Edition, a player must meet the following requirements (as seen on Tech Specs):


 * 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 educational 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.

Availability


The following chart shows the country availability and language availability for Minecraft: Education Edition.

System requirements
Minimum system requirements (according to Tech Specs):

Windows

 * 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

macOS

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

Additionally, a Microsoft 365 account is required to log into Education Edition.

iOS and iPadOS

 * iOS 8 or later

Chrome OS

 * Chrome OS version 83 or newer.
 * Device that supports Play Store apps.
 * ~500 MB Hard Drive storage free (250MB client + Space for worlds) per account on the device.