A lot of parents are especially happy to spend time and money on Minecraft for their kids because they see it as a teaching tool. Minecraft can educate kids about architecture, and players can use something called redstone circuits to create simple mechanical devices, even entire computers, out of Minecraft blocks. And while Mojang offers a number of different versions and upgrades of Minecraft to download, the incredible variety of worlds to explore and items you can build comes from "mods", modified software created by the community that can be installed on a server to reshape that world or the rules that govern it. For many young players, mods become a gateway to the world of computer programming, something parents, and perhaps Microsoft as well, are keen to encourage.
Trei Brundrett, the chief product officer at The Verge’s parent company, Vox, played with his two sons Aedan and Joseph. They started out by sitting together on the couch playing in the same world over a LAN (local area network.) "It felt like playing LEGO with him, but obviously much more interactive. We'd spend hours building giant cities, dividing up responsibility for different parts that would connect together." Soon, however, the boys wanted to progress to custom games, which meant adding on mods. "Aeden taught himself how to find, download and install the mods on his own local machine. He quickly cycled through many of them. And inevitably he wanted to make his own."
For a while Aedan just watched as Brundrett learned the basics of how to create mods. Then he enrolled in a summer camp to learn Java. "Eventually he created his own simple mod - just his own block that he could insert into the world. The mystery of programming, of software, of Minecraft and mods, disappeared. I've never seen him more proud. And man I was proud too - my kid didn't just play a game on his computer, he had hacked it - just like I did on my Apple IIe. Sitting next to my kid writing code, hacking on a game together is an amazing experience."
- More Here on the future of "Biophilia"
Trei Brundrett, the chief product officer at The Verge’s parent company, Vox, played with his two sons Aedan and Joseph. They started out by sitting together on the couch playing in the same world over a LAN (local area network.) "It felt like playing LEGO with him, but obviously much more interactive. We'd spend hours building giant cities, dividing up responsibility for different parts that would connect together." Soon, however, the boys wanted to progress to custom games, which meant adding on mods. "Aeden taught himself how to find, download and install the mods on his own local machine. He quickly cycled through many of them. And inevitably he wanted to make his own."
For a while Aedan just watched as Brundrett learned the basics of how to create mods. Then he enrolled in a summer camp to learn Java. "Eventually he created his own simple mod - just his own block that he could insert into the world. The mystery of programming, of software, of Minecraft and mods, disappeared. I've never seen him more proud. And man I was proud too - my kid didn't just play a game on his computer, he had hacked it - just like I did on my Apple IIe. Sitting next to my kid writing code, hacking on a game together is an amazing experience."
- More Here on the future of "Biophilia"
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