2024-09-07 –, Online Workshops
Minetest Classroom is a free and open source (https://github.com/ubc-minetest-classroom/minetest_classroom) educational, voxel-based sandbox video game that supports the ability to create digital twins from geospatial data, including OpenStreetMap data. In this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to create your own walking tour from OpenStreetMap data with this powerful game. Participants will be able to join a multiplayer server and experience an OpenStreetMap world first-hand. We will also discuss possible lesson plans for teachers looking to engage students with OpenStreetMap, the possibilities for multi-sensory video game cartography more generally, and the future of creating an OpenStreetMap editor in a video game.
Video Game,
Workshop requirements:Participants will need to download and install the Minetest game engine for their computer (https://www.minetest.net/downloads/). The Minetest Classroom game can be installed on Mac or Windows computers, but support will only be provided to Windows users during the workshop. If installing on Windows, we conveniently provide a pre-packaged Minetest client with the Minetest Classroom game installed from our GitHub: https://github.com/ubc-minetest-classroom/minetest_classroom?tab=readme-ov-file#windows simply unzip the contents somewhere and game on!
Affiliation:University of British Columbia
I am an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia and a Faculty in Residence at the Emerging Media Lab. I primarily teach GIS and remote sensing across multiple professional graduate programs and emphasize the use of FOSS tools whenever possible. My research looks at the use of immersive virtual reality and augmented reality in teaching spatial reasoning. Various projects I have worked on include the construction of an augmented reality sandbox, publishing an interactive geomatics textbook, and the development of Minetest Classroom for teaching in a voxel-based sandbox video game.