Minecraft Education

Not to be confused with MinecraftEdu.

Education Edition
Author(s)	Mojang Studios Jens Bergensten Aron Nieminen Daniel Kaplan Shoghi Cervantes Daniel Wustenhoff Tomas Alaeus Mikael "Slicedlime" Hedberg Xbox Game Studios Tommaso Checchi Jason Major 4J Studios
Platform(s)
Written in	C++
Latest release	1.20.12
Release date	November 1, 2016
Size	181.16 MB – 206.79 MB
License	Terms of Use
Source code	No
Other links	Website

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

Main article: Education Edition exclusive features

Education Edition is based on 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 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 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 allow 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 – (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.
• Allow and deny blocks: These blocks allow the educator (or a player with World Builder privileges) to place specific areas where players can or cannot build.
• Border 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 /ability command allows the player to modify permissions of players such as the World Builder permission, MayFly allows the player to enable/disable fly in all game modes, and mute 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 immutable World 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 allow block.
• World builder is an ability that can be applied to a player to allow bypassing the functions of border blocks and deny 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

Availability of Minecraft: Education Edition

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

Country/Region
Afghanistan
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Anguilla
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belgium
Belize
Bermuda
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bonaire
Botswana
Brazil
Brunei Darussalam
Bulgaria
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Cayman Islands
Chile
Colombia
Comoros
Costa Rica
Côte d'Ivoire
Croatia
Curçao
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Estonia
Ethiopia
Faroe Islands
Fiji
Finland
France
French Guiana
French Polynesia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Greenland
Guadeloupe
Guatemala
Honduras
Hong Kong SAR
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Israel
Iraq
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jersey
Jordan
Kenya
Kuwait
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Martinique
Mauritius
Mayotte
Mexico
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanamar
Namibia
Nepal
Netherlands
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Nigeria
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palestinian Authority
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Republic of Cabo Verde
Réunion
Romania
Russian Federation
Rwanda
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
San Marino
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
Singapore
Sint Maarten
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
Suriname
Sweden
Switzerland
Tanzania
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Togo
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turks and Caicos Islands
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Vatican City
Vietnam
Virgin Islands of the United States
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Language availability
English (United States)
German
Spanish (Spain)
Spanish (Mexico)
French
French (Canada)
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Portuguese (Brazil)
Portuguese (Portugal)
Russian
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Turkish
Polish
Indonesian
Ukrainian
Greek
Bulgarian
Hungarian
Finnish
Danish
Swedish
Norwegian
Slovak
Czech
Dutch

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