Server IP: 192.99.149.174:27806

See a video tour of the server at the bottom of the page

Teachers, we are making available to you a dedicated world where you can learn or experiment or build or whatever . . . in Minecraft. This is a place where you can share what you have been doing in the class, demonstrate a lesson, share a build your class has made, . . . anything and everything is possible. This is only for teachers and students will not be given access to this server. It will be what’s referred to as a white-listed server. That means you’ll need to send me your Minecraft name via email (marktheminecraftauthor (at) gmail (dot) com). I’ll add you to the list of people who have access and then send you an email letting you know it’s been done. You’ll need to put a couple of things in the email:

• Minecraft name
• Full Name
• School name, grade level
• Email must come for a school address.

I will verify on your school’s website that you are indeed a teacher as griefers will try to gain access to this server and destroy everything. We have a lot of experience combating griefers, and some students will try to get access to this server so that they can do some destructive things. We can repair all damage done by griefers easily enough with the software tools we’ve installed, even if they destroy something you were building, it can easily be returned to its original state with a few keystrokes, but we’d like to minimize the griefer incursions by verifying who is coming onto the server. This server is only for TEACHERS!

Things you can do on this server:

• Meet with other teachers and build/learn together.
• Talk with other teachers while working in Minecraft – there is a TeamSpeak server associated with this. You can watch the instruction video so you can download the TeamSpeak Client software and learn how to work it. This software will enable you to talk other teachers as if you were in the same room, your voices coming over you pc speakers or headsets. Being able to talk to each other, via headsets with microphones or microphone built into the computer can make sharing ideas and sample lessons with others extremely easy. You can also use Skype and can ignore the TeamSpeak if you want.
• Put on workshops – You could gather other teachers in your school or other remote sites and show them things you do in Minecraft. You can send us your world file and we will load it onto the server, then you can share your lesson or something your students have built with other teachers, so that everyone can learn together.
• Collaborate with other teachers – You and your colleagues can meet on the Minecraft for Teachers server and collaboratively build a lesson for your students. You can work on your build in small groups or very large groups, and when you are done, simply email me and I will make the world available for download.
• Request world download – After you’ve built your lesson, maybe with the help of others, we can make the world downloadable so you can use it directly in your classroom. However, none of the custom software tools that we’ve had developed for our Minecraft network will be part of the world file, just what you’ve built.

Software tools/features available to you or your class:

We have developed and customized certain software tools that can make Minecraft more controllable and convenient for use with your students. Some of these have nearly eliminated kids destroying other people’s creations, controlled inappropriate language, and made creation easier for kids while in survival.

• Anti-griefing tools – we have software that make it impossible for someone else to destroy your creations.
• Building kits – Though you will be in creative, we’ve set up kits for our players that give them materials that we’ve found are conducive to getting kids to build and create. Players on our main Survival world can battle with monsters and go exploring in survival mode, but have a lot of material to build with, instantly. This is caused the players to build together and form communities where they work together, rather than against each other.
• Anti-cussing software – We’ve had a plugin programmed to block all cussing on the server, automatically giving warnings to the transgressor. After being warned, they are muted on the next transgression for a fixed time, then can be  banned on the following occurance.

• Player-based economy – Software was developed that enables items to be bought and sold using in-game currency, establishing an economy on the server. We have a server shop where items are for sale, typically at expensive rates. This starts the economy running, and students will come here to sell their wares to get money, i.e. mine gold and sell it here. Once money is flowing, kids will start setting up their own shops to undercut the sever shop and shift the economy from the server to the player shops.
• Player shops for buy and selling items – Players can build their own shops for buying and selling items. All player shops can have a warp directed to their location, to make them easy to find. Look at the video on the home page to see a review of one of the shops. Students will quickly learn which items are easiest to find or mine and can be sold to yield the best return. The player shops quickly follow the rule of Supply and Demand and students can set their own prices and see who buys.
• Rollback tools to undo damage – We have tools on the server that allow you to rollback your build by a couple of minutes or a couple of months. If you mess up your build or your redstone project, you can use the rollback command to turn back the clock over a small area, undoing the accidential blast of TNT or creeper visit.
• Creative plots server – These type of servers are ones where the world is flat and broken up into plots. Each student can claim the plot and then build anything they want in the plot, without fear of anyone else, other than an admin, breaking anything they build. These can be used with unlimited materials, or limited materials, with students being directed to build to a specific theme or subject from a book or history lesson or . . .
• Custom games – We have developed custom games on the Gameknight999 Minecraft Network. Some of them are just standard games, like paintball and survival games, but others are custom only to the Minecraft Network. These can be used as a reward for students and access can be controlled by the teacher.
• Literacy-based games – I’ll be writing short stories through the next year that will be directly linked to game play, as with our recent custom game, Elytra Perils. Students can read the story, then play out the adventure on the server. Some of the stories and game modes coming will require the student to read the story in order to survive the adventure on our Minecraft server, encouraging reading.
• Teacher Resources to get kids writing – Don’t forget to check out the Teacher Resources page on http://markcheverton.com/. There will be resources there to help get kids writing their own stories, using Minecraft as the canvas on which their story is painted. I’ve put materials for teachers and workshop handouts there for everyone to use. You can also see the stories kids like your students have been sending me at http://markcheverton.com/blog/, some of them are fantastic and a few kids have self-published their books!

Have a custom Minecraft server set up, specific to your needs:

Custom servers can be setup using vanilla Minecraft 1.10 for teachers to use in their classrooms. They can be hosted on our dedicated servers, with access to all of the custom software and tools we’ve had developed for the Gameknight999 Minecraft Network. They can be hosted as part of the Gameknight999 Minecraft Network or kept separate from the Network so that your students do not interact with any of the kids on the public server. As we all know, there are countless things we can do with Minecraft in the classroom, but the addition of these custom software tools, economies, plot servers . . . give you, the teacher, many more tools in your arsenal to capture your student’s attention and draw them into your lesson.

I’ve learned a lot over the past couple years, publishing 15 novels and getting the Gameknight999 Minecraft Server running for the readers of my books. With the tools that we’ve developed for the server, in conjunction with the FREE stories that I’m writing for teachers to use with their classes, I hope we can work together to leverage the excitement Minecraft causes amongst your students, to get them learning, reading and writing.

C o n t a c t   m e

Mark Cheverton (Monkeypants_271) at marktheminecraftauthor (at) gmail (dot) com to discuss the possibilities.