Microsoft acquires “MinecraftEdu,” tailored for schools

When Microsoft acquired the creator of the game “Minecraft” in 2014, the giant software company instantly got a cachet bump with children, picking up a blockbuster game app for a generation that didn’t depend on its products the way their parents did.

[...] Microsoft hopes “Minecraft” can help it in classrooms, another area where its once-mighty grip has been shaken by companies like Google and Apple.

The creative, rather than destructive, possibilities of “Minecraft” have caught the eyes of educators, who see it as a supplemental learning tool for everything from anatomy and earth science to math and literature.

In the Santa Ana Unified School District, for example, elementary school students in social science classes have met up inside the game and re-created the features of historical sites they have studied, including Mission San Juan Capistrano.

[...] “Minecraft” continues to be a huge success a year-and-a-half after Microsoft bought Mojang, the Swedish creator of the game, for $2 billion.

In school districts throughout the United States, computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system are facing more competition than ever from competing devices, including iPads from Apple and Chromebooks running a Google operating system.

Microsoft offers productivity tools — like Office 365 Education, which includes PowerPoint and OneNote, a digital notebook system — free to teachers and students.

[...] some teachers say they are excited about using Microsoft apps like Skype, the video conferencing platform, as educational tools with their students.

[...] Google has made strong inroads in schools, reporting recently that its free software program for classrooms, called Google Apps for Education, is now used by more than 50 million students, teachers and administrators worldwide.

Microsoft plans to charge schools $5 per student annually for access to the education edition of “Minecraft” — a fee that could limit how widely it is adopted.

Microsoft executives said the company would offer volume discounts for districts that want to make the game available to all students.

[...] they said the new edition would offer features that “MinecraftEdu” does not.

“I think it wouldn’t work as well as it does in classrooms if it wasn’t so fun to play,” Levin said.