Welcome to the TeacherCast Podcast. In this episode, Jeff sits down with Microsoft Innovative Educator Steve Isaacs, and Minecraft Education Manager Neal Manegold to discuss how Minecraft Education Education is shifting the way our students are learning in classrooms around the world.
What is Minecraft Education Edition?
Minecraft: Education Edition is an open-world game that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive environment where the only limit is your imagination.
Links of interest
About our Guests
Neal Manegold
Neal Manegold is the Senior Manager for Minecraft Education, having previously worked at an educational technology start-up focused on personalized math instruction and real-time authentic assessment. Previously, Neal worked as an Educator and Math Coordinator in California and Washington State and is a National Board Certified Teacher. Neal grew up in Los Angeles and lives outside Seattle with his wife and two children, both of whom teach him something new about Minecraft every day.
Steve Isaacs
Steve Isaacs teaches Video Game Design and Development at William Annin Middle School in Basking Ridge, NJ. In addition, he developed and teaches an online version of the Video Game Design and Development course for the VHS Collaborative.
Steve is a strong proponent of student choice and student voice. It is his mission to provide students with opportunities to pursue and nurture their passion.
Community building and connecting with other educators is one of Steve’s passions. He is proud to be the co-founder of #EdTechBridge, a Twitter chat, and community working to build collaborative relationships with EdTech stakeholders to create better EdTech for our students. The chat meets on the first Wednesday of every month at 7 pm EST.
On a personal note, Steve has been married for 21 years (consecutively, to the same person 🙂 ) and has two beautiful daughters. When Steve has ‘free’ time, he loves to bike, hike, swim, snorkel, and ski, and play video games.
Please follow Steve’s blog to find out more about his pursuits http://gamesandlearning1.blogspot.com and explore his showcase of student work at http://www.pinterest.com/stevei2071
Steve can be found on twitter as @mr_isaacs and is one of the Minecraft Mentors. You can set up a time to chat with Steve through the Minecraft Mentor community site http://education.miecrosoft.com/minecraftmentors.
