Sandbox Learning

Minecraft: The most commonly used Sandbox in classroom.

Recently, as I’ve been tooling around the Steam game store, I’ve noticed an increasing number of sandbox games. In looking a little deeper, I discovered that a lot of these games were being adapted to the classroom.

I define a sandbox game and a virtual environment that let’s you:

  • Engage in self-regulated play and learning. The learner is presented with an endless variety of options.
  • Within reason, no rules are set. Learners can use the components in any way they can imagine.
  • These learning spaces let you test, recontextualize, reengineer, iteratively test, and imagine the new possibilities.

In the following video, I show some of the most interesting sandbox platforms. I also discuss how they are being used. I have also added an additional video below. It is a brief look at the sandbox-esque app MUSYC. In this second video, I don’t say anything, letting the app “speak for itself.”

Sandbox Learning

MUSYC – A Sandbox Music App