Minecraft is a game known by everyone, it's essentially digital Lego. The game provides a space in which you can either be creative with unlimited resources or take part in a survival setting in which you have to gather resources, avoid monsters and level yourself.
Minecraft has already been implemented into an educational setting; MinecraftEdu.
''MinecraftEdu is a school-ready remix of the original smash hit game Minecraft, played by over 30 million people worldwide. We provide discounted Minecraft licenses to educational institutions, a custom edition of the game with features designed especially for classroom use, and a hosting service to let users connect and play together.''
Minecraft can beneficial in many ways that are relevant to the development of children. Having played the game myself I am in full agreement with some of the suggestions put forward by the official Minecraft Wikipedia page.
Reading - Whilst there are many games out there created to progress a childs reading capability, Minecraft can do it almost subconsciously through the use of inventory items and crafting. The game mode in which you have to survive incorporates many situations in which you need to learn which items can be mixed in order to create something more useful. For example, in order to make tools in the game you have to know which components would make, say, an axe. Without knowing you'd have to look it up and then read the descriptions of various materials to figure out which go together.
This would be both reading and social skills, by setting up private servers within schools, you'd allow children to play with one another, socialising and discussing which materials might be best to build a house.
Mathematics - Within your inventory you can only have items stack up to 64, before they begin making a new stack. This will encourage children to know if they have enough room and for example, work out how many more blocks of gravel they can dig up before their inventory is full.
Crafting certain items, to create a bookshelf, you need 3 books. To create a book you'd need 3 pieces of paper and 1 leather. To create paper you need to collect 3 sugar cane. 3x3 sugar cane = 9 pieces of paper, thus enough for 3 books. 3x leather = 3 leather. So 27 pieces of sugar cane + 3 leather = one bookshelf.
All of this would be happening naturally, because it's a game they'd be enjoying themselves whilst learning. This is how all educational games should be, something that children want to sit down with and become involved in. Minecraft creates an experience for children, rather than forcing a maths lesson into them with bright shapes.
An educational game I used to play is DK's, I Love Maths! It was a game in which you're presented with various puzzles relating to maths which you have to solve allowing you to progress through the game. One level I can remember is you have to fix the plumbing in Atlantis, you have various sizes of pipes relating to fractions, each time you solved one pipe puzzle you'd be given another, slightly harder, one.
This did work as an educational game but it still always felt like an overlay on a maths lesson, rather than being an actual video game that subconsciously teaches you something.
