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Minecraft: Education Edition Now Out in Full Release

The full version of Minecraft: Education Edition is now available, adding new features not seen in the preview release, including a "Classroom Mode."

Today also marks the cut-off for users of the free early access edition. More than 50,000 students and teachers participated in the early access program, according to Mojang, Minecraft's publisher.

Pricing for the full release version is $5 per user, according to the company. District-level licensing plans are also available.

New features debuting in the full release include:

  • Classroom Mode, enabled through a companion app that allows educators to "manage world settings, communicate with students, give items and teleport students in the Minecraft world. It displays a map view of the Minecraft world, a list of all the students in the world, a set of world management settings and a chat window. There is even a Minecraft clock to show time of day in the world. Classroom Mode offers educators the ability to interact with students and manage settings from a central user interface," according to Mojang.
  • The Education Edition also incorporates features found in the general release of Minecraft: "All the latest updates to Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition beta will be included, such as leads and horses, additional player skins, pistons and the remainder of Redstone functionality and an updated user interface."

Minecraft Education Edition 

Lesson plans, starter worlds and tutorials are accessible at education.minecraft.net, as is the Minecraft Mentors program, a community for educators who use Minecraft.

System requirements for Minecraft: Education Edition include Windows 10 or macOS El Capitan and an Office 365 Education e-mail address (available free from Microsoft, which owns Mojang).

About the Author

David Nagel is the former editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal, STEAM Universe, and Spaces4Learning. A 30-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art, marketing, media, and business publications.

He can be reached at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrnagel/ .


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