TY - GEN
T1 - An Analysis of K-12 Programming Education Utilizing the Minecraft Metaverse Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic
AU - Sawada, Chiyoko
AU - Terazono, Masafumi
AU - Hagino, Tatsuya
AU - Hattori, Takashi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2025/2/18
Y1 - 2025/2/18
N2 - In March 2020, all elementary, middle, and high schools in Japan were temporary closed for approximately one month in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this interval, we initiated a programming education program for students ranging from elementary to high school, utilizing the metaverse capabilities of Minecraft. The primary participants in this initiative were educators and students from two private programming institutions. Students engaged in a simulated school experience that leveraged Minecraft's command and Redstone based programming functionalities. Furthermore, the collaborative nature of the metaverse enhanced students' programming and computational thinking abilities. This poster will first delineate the distinctive features of Minecraft's programming environment in contrast to visual programming platforms such as Scratch. Subsequently, we will analyze students' experiences within the metaverse, focusing on peer interaction and the enhancement of motivation towards programming. Finally, we will conduct an evaluation and propose directions for future research.
AB - In March 2020, all elementary, middle, and high schools in Japan were temporary closed for approximately one month in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this interval, we initiated a programming education program for students ranging from elementary to high school, utilizing the metaverse capabilities of Minecraft. The primary participants in this initiative were educators and students from two private programming institutions. Students engaged in a simulated school experience that leveraged Minecraft's command and Redstone based programming functionalities. Furthermore, the collaborative nature of the metaverse enhanced students' programming and computational thinking abilities. This poster will first delineate the distinctive features of Minecraft's programming environment in contrast to visual programming platforms such as Scratch. Subsequently, we will analyze students' experiences within the metaverse, focusing on peer interaction and the enhancement of motivation towards programming. Finally, we will conduct an evaluation and propose directions for future research.
KW - K-12 education
KW - commands
KW - computational thinking
KW - game elements
KW - metaverse
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=86000249608&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=86000249608&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3641555.3705122
DO - 10.1145/3641555.3705122
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:86000249608
T3 - SIGCSE TS 2025 - Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
SP - 1615
EP - 1616
BT - SIGCSE TS 2025 - Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
T2 - 56th Annual SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE TS 2025
Y2 - 26 February 2025 through 1 March 2025
ER -