Heads up educators: Microsoft just released an early access version of Minecraft: Education Edition for you to test out for free throughout the summer.
The release comes after Redmond last month hosted a beta program, during which it collected feedback from more than 2,000 students and teachers representing more than 100 schools in 26 countries. Microsoft said it used that feedback to "fine-tune the experience" to suit a wide range of learning environments.
"One of the most common requests we get from educators is the ability for students to collaborate together to build projects and solve problems," the Minecraft Education Team wrote in a blog post Thursday. So, with Minecraft: Education Edition, an entire classroom of up for 30 students can play together, or classmates can work together in pairs or groups.
As they make their way through the game, students can take screenshots of their work and save it in a portfolio, documenting the development of their projects. Educators, meanwhile, can create non-player characters such as a "town guide" to help students through the game, offer instructions, and insert links to additional resources.
"We're continuing to work on a whole host of other features that the community has told us are important, including a Classroom Mode interface for educators with a map and list view of all their students, teleport capabilities, and a chat window for communication," the Minecraft Education Team wrote.
Microsoft is also releasing some updated lesson starters to help educators kick off the fun. Lessons include "City Planning for Population Growth," "Exploring factors and multiples," and "Effects of deforestation." Each lesson includes learning objectives, activities, suggested reflection questions, and evidence of learning criteria.
The complete version of Minecraft: Education Edition will be available for purchase in September and cost between $1 and $5 per user, per year, depending on the size of your school and qualification for volume licensing offers.
To try out the early access version, you'll need a computer running Windows 10 or OS X El Capitan, along with a free Office 365 Education account.