ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the ambitious Minecraft project is conducted in 2012, when it was new and innovative to use Minecraft for educational purposes. It employs conventional data-generation methods, including student interviews, teacher interviews, classroom observation and collection of work samples and artefacts; the most significant of these were the Minecraft server and student-produced Wikis. What has been particularly interesting about the process of researching the Aurora56z project is 'mining' the huge volume of data collected through the preservation of the Minecraft server as well as the student Wikis which recorded the thinking and negotiations through the construction of the new world, Aurora56z. Robinson Kynan has previously composed and performed music to accompany readings of sections from The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a dystopian Cli-Fi novel that explores the relationship between a father and son in the landscape of a dystopic future. This Cli-Fi framing of the curriculum was also shared and shaped by all the teachers in the project.
