In recent years, my mom, who is a doctor of education and has been helping kids with disabilities for over 30 years, has noticed her students playing Minecraft quite a bit. For kids that have difficulty creating connections with their peers, she thought it was great that technology has allowed many of her students to flourish and build friendships online. Inspired by her thoughts on the positive educational impact videogames can have on kids, we're planning a fundraiser using Minecraft in support of the Autism Society.
Basically the concept is: bringing children's dreamworlds to life. Kids have submitted their drawings, crazy ideas and concepts and we want to help them bring them to life! I wanted to get some Minecraft pros' input on how something like this could be achieved concretely, if you have any suggestions and... well... if you guys think it's a good idea!
Yay! That's awesome, thank you!! The event will be live soon, but I just want to make sure it's a good idea, and we've got all of our bases covered.
For example: if we have several requests for drawings, should we host on different servers or do each kid dream individually? Which mode should be used? What are the risks involved? Should we book mods for each server? I think it's a really good idea, so I wanna make sure everything is figured out first! I'm not a minecraft pro, I'm quite a newb in fact... and though my mom is a doctor of education, she definitely doesn't know much about it either.
Coworkers, who are also Minecraft aficionados warned me about griefers. But, would someone really try and destroy something that's being built for kids thats to benefit a cause like Autism? My half full glass says 'no way, people are inherently good!' but my half empty glass says 'uh, yeah. yeah they would.'
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from many previous experiences i would say there is a good chance griefers would come. a decent percentage of them are quite young and don't understand the importance of an event like this.
if i'm hosting a server i can make sure that only certain people can log on to the server
just keep in mind that all the people wanting to join will need Minecraft Premium accounts
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It's a me MetaMeow!
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In regards to the server host, one of our colleagues suggested that we use his set up. He's got a powerful computer capable of handling it. But, he was also concerned that if there are a lot of people participating at once, that he might not be able to handle it. Lets say best case scenario this thing takes off... would several servers be ideal?
And YES YES YES, we are absolutely looking for moderators!!!!! right now, we're gathering our first dreams! We've got a brother sister team who are really into minecraft. The younger brother has autism and has taken quite a liking to Minecraft in a big way! Also, we're wanting to lock down the technical aspect of the event, so we're able to handle everything that comes our way! Obviously we want this to be big, which is why we're leaving the event open until April 2nd (World Autism Awareness Day).
In regards to the server host, one of our colleagues suggested that we use his set up. He's got a powerful computer capable of handling it. But, he was also concerned that if there are a lot of people participating at once, that he might not be able to handle it. Lets say best case scenario this thing takes off... would several servers be ideal?
And YES YES YES, we are absolutely looking for moderators!!!!! right now, we're gathering our first dreams! We've got a brother sister team who are really into minecraft. The younger brother has autism and has taken quite a liking to Minecraft in a big way! Also, we're wanting to lock down the technical aspect of the event, so we're able to handle everything that comes our way! Obviously we want this to be big, which is why we're leaving the event open until April 2nd (World Autism Awareness Day).
Spreading the word trying to get the banner working too
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It's a me MetaMeow!
Press that button if i'm helpful
Anyone without a Minecraft account will have an enormous chance of not being a proffesional in most aspects. Most people which use cracked accounts will get eventually premium too. Also, you can only join cracked servers when having a cracked account.
And as you stated in your original post, you needed proffesional builder.
Great, good to know! Good advice. I think that's something we want to avoid at all costs. Seeing a community of players come together and build something the kid thought up could be a wonderful experience. Seeing a community come together and one dude decides to destroy it all is pretty much the LAST thing I'd want to happen. That would be devastating.
I don't see the point in several servers, even though we don't really need a server at all. You could just send us some pictures and we could take a screenshot of the work, that would work too.
i think the point is that the people with autism socialize while building their dream home/castle/palace whatever
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It's a me MetaMeow!
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Yes, the first task should be coming this weekend and I'm going to make an official call out the crazy imagination of kids! Also planning on making an open call for childrens drawings and crazy ideas at the beginning of next week. Also, going to get input from the Autism Society to see if they have any specific fundraising goals in the near future, like awareness campaigns, research programs, tutoring etc...
The event itself will be hosted on gamengive, which is a platform for fundraising using games. There's also a twitch feed on the page, so maybe streaming the building process could be cool too!
So yes, it's definitely early on in the process! There is still room to make adjustments according to your feedback. All of this is already amazing, Im super excited you are willing to mod and help! OVERWHELMING EXCITEMENTTTTTTTTTTT!
@MetaMeow That's true. By the way, this is about raising funds for helping people with autism, not the people with autism raising funds for themselves. lel
Yeah at first the idea was pitched that the dreams should come from kids with autism exclusively but we thought it might come off as a bit patronizing. We don't want to single them out. And so the idea evolved into accepting submissions from any/all children. It'll highlight the positive impact of game communities, the potential for team work and even psychosocial development! (my dr mom will do some educational podcast throughout, talking about it in a more academic way.)
But yes, any dreams are valid! I think a lot of the kids will participate in the building. But, imagine the amazement when they get home from school or launch their game in the morning and see that strangers, people they don't know, came together and helped them build it?
I would love to take part in this, I don't care what roll. I take part in helping kids with autism in my grade, and school. Last month I went to an autism parade with my whole family.
Well, it's a grassroots campaign launched by an individual, it's not coming from a big company or anything like that. But yes, we have plans for the launch, with the Non-Profit the promotion and all that fun stuff.
But, I think the Minecraft forums was a perfect start! No better place to get feedback and advice than from the game communities themselves.
But yes, it's 1am here so I'm going to try and get some sleep and will be back in the morning!
In recent years, my mom, who is a doctor of education and has been helping kids with disabilities for over 30 years, has noticed her students playing Minecraft quite a bit. For kids that have difficulty creating connections with their peers, she thought it was great that technology has allowed many of her students to flourish and build friendships online. Inspired by her thoughts on the positive educational impact videogames can have on kids, we're planning a fundraiser using Minecraft in support of the Autism Society.
Basically the concept is: bringing children's dreamworlds to life. Kids have submitted their drawings, crazy ideas and concepts and we want to help them bring them to life! I wanted to get some Minecraft pros' input on how something like this could be achieved concretely, if you have any suggestions and... well... if you guys think it's a good idea!
Your feedback is greatly greatly appreciated!!
For example: if we have several requests for drawings, should we host on different servers or do each kid dream individually? Which mode should be used? What are the risks involved? Should we book mods for each server? I think it's a really good idea, so I wanna make sure everything is figured out first! I'm not a minecraft pro, I'm quite a newb in fact... and though my mom is a doctor of education, she definitely doesn't know much about it either.
i May need to get that 16 gig ram upgrade sooner than i thought
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if i'm hosting a server i can make sure that only certain people can log on to the server
just keep in mind that all the people wanting to join will need Minecraft Premium accounts
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Oh well no worries then if you need a moderator or such i'd be glad too help
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MetaMeow: so with this concept, all participants who want to pitch in and help build will need Minecraft premium accounts?
yes i can provide one extra account but 99%(Assumption) of the people on the forums have a premium account
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And YES YES YES, we are absolutely looking for moderators!!!!! right now, we're gathering our first dreams! We've got a brother sister team who are really into minecraft. The younger brother has autism and has taken quite a liking to Minecraft in a big way! Also, we're wanting to lock down the technical aspect of the event, so we're able to handle everything that comes our way! Obviously we want this to be big, which is why we're leaving the event open until April 2nd (World Autism Awareness Day).
Spreading the word trying to get the banner working too
Press that button if i'm helpful
Great, good to know! Good advice. I think that's something we want to avoid at all costs. Seeing a community of players come together and build something the kid thought up could be a wonderful experience. Seeing a community come together and one dude decides to destroy it all is pretty much the LAST thing I'd want to happen. That would be devastating.
Press that button if i'm helpful
i think the point is that the people with autism socialize while building their dream home/castle/palace whatever
Press that button if i'm helpful
The event itself will be hosted on gamengive, which is a platform for fundraising using games. There's also a twitch feed on the page, so maybe streaming the building process could be cool too!
So yes, it's definitely early on in the process! There is still room to make adjustments according to your feedback. All of this is already amazing, Im super excited you are willing to mod and help! OVERWHELMING EXCITEMENTTTTTTTTTTT!
Yeah, thats the thing we're still wondering. Do we complete one dream at a time, or do we have several going on simultaneously?
Yeah at first the idea was pitched that the dreams should come from kids with autism exclusively but we thought it might come off as a bit patronizing. We don't want to single them out. And so the idea evolved into accepting submissions from any/all children. It'll highlight the positive impact of game communities, the potential for team work and even psychosocial development! (my dr mom will do some educational podcast throughout, talking about it in a more academic way.)
But yes, any dreams are valid! I think a lot of the kids will participate in the building. But, imagine the amazement when they get home from school or launch their game in the morning and see that strangers, people they don't know, came together and helped them build it?
We could do it similar to a Plots server so each person can build their own dream on a plot while moderators go around helping
it would be allot safer too letting only the dreamer and the moderators build on their plot
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But, I think the Minecraft forums was a perfect start! No better place to get feedback and advice than from the game communities themselves.
But yes, it's 1am here so I'm going to try and get some sleep and will be back in the morning!