#HackMini: MiniDevs, Microsoft, Mixiply & Minecraft

HackMini is part of Newlands Intermediate’s EOTC (education outside of the classroom) week, and 26 students from the school will participate, along with their teacher, Marianne Malmstrom, members of Theta’s innovation lab, and Microsoft staff.

Over the three days, following a hackathon format, students will be invited to pitch their ideas, form teams and create a prototype for an app, game or activity that will benefit their community. That community might be their school, marae, town, Wellington or even New Zealand.

Participants will be working with two platforms to create their prototypes, Mixiply and Minecraft Education Edition.

Mixiply is a platform for creating augmented reality (AR) worlds, experiences and games. First imagined at the Future Realities hackathon held during Tech Week in 2017, when Newlands Intermediate’s Marianne Malstrom and Theta’s Jim Taylor first met, Mixiply is now in beta. Its creators – Theta’s innovation lab and the MiniDevs of Newlands Intermediate - are keen to see how it gets used at HackMini:

“Our idea of applying mixed reality technologies to learning is now a real application, and we’re excited to see it in action at the hackathon.”

Minecraft Education Edition has recently been made available to all schools in New Zealand. It’s a game-based learning platform with standards-aligned content across K12 subjects and special features designed for classroom use. Minecraft is already supporting thousands of educators in over 100 countries.

Says teacher Marianne Malmstrom:

“Both platforms offer an array of tools to inspire creativity and execute designs.”

Follow #HackMini on Twitter to see what the students come up with.