The kids were off school today, as today was a district-wide Professional Development (Pro-D) / non-instructional day for Comox Valley Schools (SD71). Teachers and staff had professional learning activities, so students did not attend school. The district’s official calendar lists September 21 as a “Non-Instructional Day,” and individual SD71 schools describe it specifically as a district-wide professional learning day.
Given this, and since Ethan was still in school (because it was just our local school district that had the day off), it seemed like a perfect opportunity to play some Minecraft with the kids.
I contacted Bobby through Alexa, and he tried to explain how we could play multiplayer. He told me about Minecraft servers and their $10/month server cost, and an app called Modrinth that we could use to achieve the same thing, but for free. I guess Ethan told Bobby about it. Anyway, trying to follow his instructions over Alexa proved a little too difficult so eventually, he came over to the Barn Suite and set everything up on my desktop before heading back to his own computer.
Once we were connected, we were able to play Minecraft together in multiplayer mode!. Bobby switched the game over to Creative mode as he said that there would be more options, and I spent quite a bit of time simply trying to figure out how everything worked and how to move around properly.
Katie joined us a little later and she showed me how to use the furnace to smelt iron ore and make things like an iron chestplate. We had the game set so that we didn’t have to worry about monsters attacking us at night, which was probably a good thing considering I was still trying to master the basics!
Bobby eventually built us a nice little house with beds inside (see photo to the left) ready made for napping! Altogether, the three of us played for about an hour.
It was a really good session. While we were playing, we started talking about how funny it might be to record these sessions—with me trying to figure out Minecraft while the kids attempted to teach me—and turn them into YouTube videos and channel. Could go viral as I guess my reactions and trying to figure things out are priceless. Katie and I thought it could be a great idea and possibly even take off, but Bobby was considerably more dismissive about the whole thing stating that it would be a lot of work. Either way, it was a fun afternoon playing Minecraft with the kids.