The WOW Zone Hosts Teacher Gaming European Tour
The WOW Zone was chosen to be the North West host of the Teacher Gaming European Tour that helps primary school children construct a virtual house through Minecraft.
Over 30 young people took part in workshops, ran by TeacherGaming, which takes them through whole process of building a virtual house – from mining the raw materials to combining them to help create new ones, thus learning about manufacturing processes and skills along the way.
The WOW Zone is Wythenshawe Community Housing Group’s specialist Learning Centre based at the Woodhouse Park Lifestyle Centre. They work with local schools on a variety of creative and technology-based projects, with the aim to help raise children’s aspirations in Wythenshawe and equip them with the knowledge and skills to enter the modern age of computing.
Primary school teachers are now expected to deliver programming and coding sessions as part of the new Computing Curriculum. Programs such as Minecraft help cover these objectives in a discrete way, so that children don’t even realise that they are learning.
Learning Designer at TeacherGaming Mikael Uusi-Mäkelä said, “Compared to all of the other places I’ve been on the tour the room was very well equipped.”
Chris Jones, Computing & Solutions Expert for over 20 years, said, “The Children take to Minecraft like a duck to water. I’ve never seen kids so excited and enthusiastic about anything before.”
WOW Zone Teacher Lisa Whittaker said, “Approaching Minecraft in an educational setting, using structured guidance, enables the children to be creative without being destructive. The WOW Zone is very proud to have been the North-West host on this tour, and we will continue to deliver high-quality Minecraft sessions as part of our unique offer to schools.”
