Year 7 child/ interested in Minecraft - what next? what other transferable skills could he learn for his future?

[pasok1000]

my DS is really interested in Minecraft and i just wanted to further his passion - what would you recommend? I asked if he woudl be interested to learn Python, but he was not interested...Are there any other programmes he coudl learn - that are useful?

Have you bought the Minecraft education skins? They're free at the moment. There's one that teaches fractals. There's tons of coding websites but Minecraft is great at his age, especially if he's quite advanced on it.

I second the educational mine craft. And also city skylines or design programmes. Lego Architecture

Encourage him to start modding it himself! There are loads of forums and youtube videos on how to get started. That can teach him entry level programming and art and the endless possibilities therein. Minecraft is the PERFECT game to get started learning software development as the game is fairly in-depth and complicated, but the software itself it's relatively simple. From there he can learn to mod other games and software, and become a cracking developer!

Is he playing on a PC, or some other device? I highly recommend playing it on a PC, especially modding.

Has he tried Scratch? Roblox programming?

Dd has been playing it since she was 8 and she still loves it now at age 15. She's been enjoying it on lockdown.

QuinceSavedMyLife

Ds is also 15 and been playing since he was 8, and gone back to it during lockdown and all of his friends.

You can build logic gates in minecraft, which is what the processor part of a computer is made of.

For learning programming I like 'Small Basic' because you can't make spelling mistakes. Once you know the principles you can learn any programming language.

Yenka is good, you basically have a character that dances, but to make the dance you have to write a flow chart. It doesn't feel like learning but teaches the principles of coding, things like loops and descisions.

Having friends who work in this sector it is important to nurture complementary skills too. Those that succeed have good communication skills, are able to research market needs and interests. They’ve seen a lot of hugely technically capable people who go and develop something but there has either been something that already does it very well or it is something that has no commercial value.

Graphical and computer graphic design also seem skills useful in this sphere.

Computer gaming and development though is the new media studies - for every one who makes a living out of it there are loads who don’t.