Curro Krugersdorp teacher brings teaching to life through Minecraft

In a creative leap that has captured the imagination of both learners and teachers, a coding and robotics teacher at Curro Krugersdorp Primary has turned a regular robotics lesson into a fully immersive, game-based learning experience using Minecraft Education.

After over a decade in the classroom teaching Grade Ones, Chantel Conradie recently transitioned into her new role as the leader of the Foundation Phase Coding and Robotics programme.

Determined to make tech education more exciting and relevant, she decided to bring the class robot mascot, Novi, into a space her learners already loved – Minecraft.

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“I had already introduced learners to Novi’s parts and functions in class, so I thought, why not take that learning into Minecraft.

The result was a custom-built Minecraft Education world, complete with quiz-style challenges, command blocks, scoring systems, and interactive buttons that tested learners’ understanding of coding logic and robot components.

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“But this wasn’t just gamified learning with rewards, this was true game-based learning, where the teaching and application of content happened inside the game itself,” Chantel said.

Learners were taught how to host multiplayer sessions, taking turns as world hosts, collaborating with their peers, and engaging in real-time problem-solving. The lesson ended with a group project to build a Novi robot inside Minecraft, a task that required communication, delegation, creativity, and technical knowledge.

“It wasn’t just about Robotics anymore,” Chantel shared. “It became a lesson in teamwork, design thinking, and digital exploration.

The excitement on their faces said it all, of course, as any good tech story goes, there were some humorous hiccups.

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“One learner discovered how to ‘farm’ points by pressing the correct button repeatedly – a clever workaround that brought laughter and a reminder of how intuitive and curious young minds can be.”

Looking to the future, Chantel plans to build on this success by introducing block-based coding through Minecraft’s built-in Code Builder, expanding on the learners’ existing knowledge from platforms like Resly and Scratch.

Her message to fellow educators is simple and inspiring.

“The world I built wasn’t perfect, but it worked. If you have an idea, don’t wait for it to be polished, try it, build it and dare to fail, because in the end, it’s not the bugs they will remember, it’s the joy of learning.”