In the Applying Professional Scrum (APS) with Certification classroom, the Minecraft Campsite case study provides the best experience for students and more connections to how they work currently. Practice Scrum in Minecraft’s complex and chaotic environment to experience the high-variance world of complex product development. We use Minecraft Education Edition to bring complexity to life in a scenario everyone can experience regardless of their technical ability.
Why use Minecraft Education?
The traditional format for the Applying Professional Scrum (APS) with Certification uses a case study where students are asked to build an Animal Website. Over the years, it has become increasingly apparent that complexity is not served when building a simple HTML website. For most groups of people, this has become something simple and part of their high school education. Most people have built a website on Google Sites, WordPress, or Wix. These tools make this activity merely complicated and does not generate the level of frustration that true complexity does.
We have also observed the lack of participation of the whole team in the activity, as participants find that only 1 person can edit at a time or that it takes more time to add content than find it.
With Minecraft, we can involve every participant and create a complex environment that demonstrates both how complexity affects us and demonstrates how Scrum can help in that environment.
What is Minecraft Education?
Minecraft for Education is a game-based learning environment that allows participants to collaborate together, in our specifically designed scenario, in a secure environment. It provides accessibility support and is completely cross-platform; participants can use Windows, Mac, Chromebook, iPad, & Android.
Participants: What do I need to run Minecraft Education?
We will provide Azure Active Directory credentials to sign in and an associated licence to allow participants to access the tool. Due to the high security of this educational tool, all participants will be required to sign in to Minecraft Education using the credentials provided on our tenant (This will not affect Microsoft Teams or other SSO tools in your company).
Participants must install Minecraft Education on a compatible PC, Mac, iOS, or Android device.
We encourage participants to use a non-work-restricted computer for all of our classes and join off VPN.
Admins: What do I need to do to allow Minecraft Education?
The only requirement for IT admins is to enable the installation of the Download | Minecraft Education for the class participants or to direct them to use a personal machine.
You do NOT need to provide a licence or credentials for Minecraft Education.
In restricted environments, you may need to check the IT Admin Guide for any blocked URLs or ports that need to be opened for clients; however, if participants log in from their home network without VPN, this will likely be unnecessary.
We encourage participants to use a non-work-restricted computer for all of our classes and join off VPN.