Minecraft Education

Minecraft: Education Edition is an educational version of Minecraft specifically designed for classroom use. It is being developed by Mojang AB and Microsoft 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.

Features
Education Edition is based off Bedrock 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 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 allows 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 will guide players on in-game navigation, crafting, and placing or breaking blocks.
 * and blocks: These blocks allow the educator (or a player with WorldBuilder 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 complementary 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 /ability command which allows you to modify permissions to players such as the "WorldBuilder" permission, "CanFly" which allows you to enable/disable fly in all gamemodes, and "mute" which allows you to mute a player. Abilities are similar to gamerules, except they apply to a player rather than the entire world.
 * New immutableWorld gamerule if true will prevent any players who are not Teachers (or who don't have WorldBuilder permissions) from breaking or placing any blocks unless they are ontop of an block.


 * WorldBuilder this is an Ability that can be applied to a player that will allow them to bypass the functions of blocks and  blocks

Chemistry Update.
This update is going to add four new work stations to the game.


 * The Element Constructor allows you to create elements based on their atomic structure with sliders to choose the number of protons, neutrons and electrons. By using the Element Constructor, you can create 118 elements from the Periodic Table as well as over 400 stable isotopes.
 * With the Compound Creator, you can add elements to the grid and the resulting compound will appear for you to use in Minecraft. Create over 30 compounds with this tool – from luminol and hydrogen peroxide to charcoal and soap.
 * The Lab Table allows you to create Minecraft items by combining elements and compounds in a grid. For example, adding water and sodium hypochlorite makes bleach, which a player can use to turn wool white.
 * The Material Reducer reduces a block to its component elements, providing a useful way to explore the elements that make up our environment. Some blocks in Minecraft do not exist in the natural world, and we’ve added a “?” element for these as well to encourage curiosity of learners.Elementconstructor.png

Some Other Features:
 * Teachers Lab Journal
 * Make pigs fly with helium balloons
 * Create underwater TNT
 * Find out what elements make up a grass block
 * Glow Sticks
 * Rapid Grow Fertilizer
 * Underwater torches
 * And many many more!

This update seems to be all about the eability to add elements together and with already existing

items to make specialized items like underwater torches. This update influences the game like no other update has ever done before or probably ever will.

Release is sometime early February probably between the 4th and the 12th.

Read the full article here: https://education.minecraft.net/?p=1105845

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 $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.

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

Eligibility
In order to be eligible to purchase Education Edition, you 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 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 Tech Specs):

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.