When was Minecraft: Education Edition launched? Exploring the history behind the game – Sportskeeda

A classroom-friendly version of Minecraft that can illustrate topics like programming and chemistry, Minecraft: Education Edition has enjoyed considerable success over its five-year tenure.

Operating on similar grounds to Minecraft, but exhibiting features that allow students and educators to come together and work on hands-on assignments, Education Edition is built off the existing codebase of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition.
Compared to the original Minecraft on Java, Education Edition had a relatively quick development period, as it already had much of its foundational programming squared away. After a short beta period of a few months, Minecraft: Education Edition was released on November 1, 2016.
After the success of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition began in 2011, releasing on new platforms over a number of years, Mojang began to set their sights on a new version of Minecraft. Knowing that children were a huge part of the game’s fanbase, Mojang sought to use the game as a medium to further the goals of educators and improve the education system.
At the time, a program known as MinecraftEDU was developed by a small team known as TeacherGaming. Though far different from the final product of Education Edition, MinecraftEDU exhibited many cooperative aspects between students and teachers. Mojang would go on to announce that they were acquiring MinecraftEDU from Teachergaming, and on the same day announced their plans for Minecraft: Education Edition.

Written in C++, much of Minecraft: Education Edition involved working with the existing codebase of Bedrock Edition, which allowed Mojang to avoid creating a new version of Minecraft from the ground up. This would have prolonged development time considerably. Since Bedrock Edition’s code had already been used for the mobile or “Pocket” edition of the game on Android and iOS devices, it seemed sensible to do the same for this new venture into an educational angle for Minecraft.

Since the base code was already established, a beta phase was initiated for Education Edition after a quick development alpha period began in earnest, on June 9, 2016. Testers and players were able to try out the Minecraft version while its features were tweaked by Mojang. Seeing the end in sight, Mojang and Microsoft Game Studios greenlit Education Edition to be available for early access on October 2, 2016.
On November 1, 2016, version 1.0 released worldwide for Minecraft: Education Edition. It began circulation in classroom settings with PC access, before expanding to multiple devices such as iPadOS devices and Google Chromebooks. Companion software was developed alongside the game’s ongoing post-launch development, including Code Connection (for teaching students basic coding languages in a visual format) and Classroom Mode (allowing educators to change settings for an entire classroom from a central interface).
Minecraft: Education Edition has made its way from version 1.0 and is now at version 1.17.3, known as the “GOAT Update.” The update brought along features from Java’s Nether Update and the first part of the Caves & Cliffs Update to Education Edition, as well as bringing quality of life improvements such as integration for Microsoft Teams and Flipgrid.

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