Here, we’ve collected the best Minecraft mods, according to our experts on the game. Mods will help you get more out of Minecraft, no matter what it is you need. In this list, we’ll collect incremental improvements to the game, dazzling worlds and entirely new types of games you can play within Minecraft. It’s worth noting, not all mods are compatible with the latest version of Minecraft, and some require the installation of legacy versions of Forge to get them running. Thankfully, installing older mods isn’t too difficult. Most mods come with instructions, but if they don’t, we’ve got a mini-guide to get you up and running.
These mods are great on their own, but it’s worth noting that they might conflict with each other somewhat if you try and install several at once. If you do have issues with that or anything else, consider trying a preconfigured modpack out instead—the launchers provided by Feed the Beast and the Technic Platform are some of the simplest ways to quickly and cleanly get playing modded Minecraft.
You know what’s annoying? When you’re at the top of a mountain and see something interesting on an adjacent mountain. No one likes the feeling off having to trudge down a mountain only to clumsily stumble your way up another directly after.
What this mod does is cut out the in between bits. Namely, point, click, and a rope bridge will magically appear to offer up a link between the two destinations.
Yes, it’s for lazy people like me. Feel free to judge. Grab it here.
A more lively map
[1.9]
Maps are great for trying to keep a rough idea of where you are or where you’re heading. That said, there’s always room for improvement.
Imagine Google Maps, only for Minecraft and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this mod does. Specifically, it lets folk view a more real-time map in-game, and on the mini-map, as well as being able to view the map online via a web browser. If you’re charting your next journey, and it’s going to take you far, far away from the sanctity of your home base, then this mod is a must.
How do you fancy creating your own Aperture testing lab? Included in this modpack are a wealth of different Portal-themed blocks and, more importantly, a selection of Portal appliances, which includes floor buttons for dumping companion cubes onto, pedestal buttons, and indicator lights. So if you decide to create a nefarious puzzle challenge, all the tools you’ll need will be there from the off.
A quick note: For the full Portal experience, you’ll first need to grab iChun’s Portalgun modpack first from here [Link 1]. After that, you’re safe to install Raptor’s mod-extension from here [Link 2].
Millénaire
[1.7.10]
How many times have you explored a new area only to be met with nothing but vast emptiness? The Millénaire mod fixes that by introducing a wealth of new content into spaces where there’d usually be nothing. Villagers are replaced by human men, women, and children, instead of the bog-standard villager. Even villages have had a makeover to incorporate 11th-century Norman, North Indian and Mayan themes. Grab it here.
Fossil and Archaeology revival mod
[1.17.10]
If there’s one thing missing from Minecraft it’s dinosaurs. Who doesn’t want to ditch creepers in favour of riding around on a T-Rex? Not only is there a massive amount of dinosaurs to spawn in creative, but in survival, the player can hunt down fossils and bring these forgotten beasts back to life. As well as a texture overhaul, there’s also a new mob boss in the Anu for those looking to put their prehistoric skills to the test. Grab it here.
Instant Massive Structures
[1.8.8, 1.8, 1.8.1, 1.9, 1.7.10]
Okay, okay, so this one may be cheating. We’ve all seen monstrous builds online which make our 5×5 dirt house pail in comparison. But what happens if you want to turn the tables? What happens if you want an enormous city in a matter of seconds? That’s where the Instant Structures mod comes in. Simply cycle through the creative menu, drop a block, right click it, and a building will magically spawn. Structures range from castles, to houses, all the way to tram stations. Yeah, sure, it’s technically cheating, but we won’t tell anyone. Grab it here.
The Lost Cities
[1.10, 1.11, 1.12]
Something has ended life as we know it. Buildings are in disrepair, and everyone has vanished, or so it seems. The Lost Cities, as the foreboding name suggests, spawns you into a city forgotten by time. The goal? See how long you can survive this post-apocalyptic wasteland without succumbing to death. If you fancy taking the survival one step further, this mod also interlinks with the Biomes O Plenty mod, meaning you’ll have a lot of stunning new areas to explore alongside the empty cities. Grab it here.
Biosphere
[1.7.10, 1.7.2]
Creating a biosphere, of decent size, takes around eight-hours, give or take. I know this because I spent eight-painstaking-hours making one. By the end, I wanted to chuck Minecraft into a nearby volcano. Making something spherical rather than a jagged diamond isn’t easy. Thankfully, the Biospheres mod removes all the annoying obstacles and spawns you into a world where the sky is overrun with various floating biomes. Just don’t fall off, yeah? Grab it here.
The Aether
[1.7.3]
The Aether (pronounced “ee-ther”) is the opposite of the Nether. While the Nether is seen as Minecraft’s equivalent of hell, the Aether is a sort of heavenly realm. Once transported via a portal, you’ll find yourself above the clouds surrounded by gorgeous, newly-designed floating islands. There’s also new mobs, including flying cows and flying pigs, some new boss enemies, as well as new block types to play with and new-fangled loot to find. Grab it here.
Optifine
[1.8.1]
Minecraft doesn’t scale too well to the power of fast or slow machines. It runs surprisingly poorly on low-end laptops, and a high-end rig can’t do much with its extra oomph. Enter Optifine—a mod that not only makes Minecraft run faster but also look far better. It supports HD textures, smooth lighting, and more, and framerate doubling is not uncommon. It’s one of the first things I usually add when installing Minecraft. Grab it here.
Twilight Forest
[1.7.10]
Love adventuring? This mod adds a new, densely-forested dimension shrouded in perpetual twilight that hides both valuable treasures and dangerous monsters. Throw a diamond into a pool of water surrounded by flowers to create a portal there, then spend a while roaming around. You’ll find hedge mazes, hollow hills, enchanted groves, glaciers, lich towers and more with rich rewards for those that delve the deepest. Grab it here.
Biomes O’Plenty
[1.7.10]
Since the ‘Update That Changed The World‘ in late 2013, there’s been a bit more diversity in Minecraft worlds. But Biomes O’Plenty adds vastly more—75 to be exact—from brushland and coral reefs, through lavender fields and ominous woods, to tundra and wasteland. You’ll need to create a new world to use it (make sure to select the ‘Biomes O’Plenty’ world generation option), but it’s worth it to see corners of Minecraft that you’ve never seen before. Grab it here.
Botania
[1.7.10]
Some mods add powerful magical items. Others add intricate machinery. Botania just adds flowers—but wow, what flowers. Flowers that heal you. Flowers that feed animals. Flowers that turn hostile mobs against each other. Flowers that eat cake. Oh, and did I mention that you’ve can also use flowers to create a magical portal to a world of elves? If you want to try something wildly different from most other mods, Botania is it. Grab it here.
Inventory Tweaks, NotEnoughItems & Waila
[1.7.10]
This trio of mods are essential quality-of-life improvements, especially when you’ve got loads of mods installed at the same time. Inventory Tweaks allows you to sort your chests with a single click and automatically replace tools when they break. NotEnoughItems provides you with a searchable list of all the blocks available in the game, and the recipes for crafting them, and Waila lets you point your cursor at an unfamiliar blocks to find out what it is. Grab them here, hereand here respectively.
Thaumcraft
[1.7.10]
Being a sorcerer is awesome, and the most awesome way to be a sorcerer in Minecraft is with Thaumcraft. It’s a vast mod that revolves around drawing the magical essence out of physical objects in the Minecraft world and reshaping it into new forms. In the process, you’ll create altars, wands, golems and fill dozens of jars of coloured goo. There’s even a puzzle game you’ll have to complete to research new spells. Grab it here.
Eyephone Mod
[1.11, 1.10, 1.8.2, 1.12]
Now you can have your friends call you up at stupid hours to spoil the latest Game of Thrones episode in-game. Hurray? And just like a regular phone, the EyePhone comes equipped with a selection of apps (with more unlockable via diamonds). The best feature, though, has to be the ability to email your friends to blow them up, because why not? Only downside is you’ll have to craft an in-game charger to keep the phone powered. It’s just like real life then? Grab it here.
Make Creepers Even More Deadly
[1.11, 1.9, 1.7.2, 1.12]
Creepers not giving you enough grief? We can fix that. The Chameleon Creepers mod makes it so when a creeper passes over a block type, it changes colour in the hopes of stealthily blending in to its surroundings. In short, it makes creepers even more deadly so you won’t see them until they’re hissing down the back of your neck. Why you’d want to use this mod is anyone’s guess, but for the masochists out there, you’re welcome. Grab it here.
Stalked by Hunters
[1.7.10, 1.8]
Sometimes the simplest of mods are enough to give Minecraft a new lease of life. The Medieval Mobs mod does just that by replacing the current line-up of mobs with bloodthirsty hunters. The Brigand replaces the skeleton, while the Bandit and Tribesman fill the zombie role. But be warned, these new mobs don’t act like their coded counterparts. They’re smarter, faster, and won’t cook in the sunlight. But if they are a little too tough, there is a config file to play around with to help balance these fiends some. Grab them here.
Ultimate Apocalypse
[1.8]
The world is going to end. In five days, the sun will explode, causing all life3plants, trees, mobs, animals, villagers—to burn up. And yes, that includes you. Can you get together enough supplies to venture underground and start a new life? Can you survive without the overground to keep you fed? Those are the questions the Elite Armageddon mod asks. To survive in this harsh, ashened landscape will require every trick you’ve ever learned. Dare you grab it here?
Natura
[1.7.10]
Another great mod for spicing up world-generation is Natura. It adds a wide variety of new tree types, and therefore different-coloured woods to make your home more aesthetically pleasing. It also adds a few extra crops for early-game food and resource production, and makes the Nether a little more dangerous. Natura is a nice first step into Minecraft modding, because it sticks close to the themes of the regular game. Grab it here.
JourneyMap
[1.7.10]
Minecraft’s default maps are a bit rubbish. They don’t offer much detail, have to be pulled out and looked down at to use, and don’t display anything other than where you are. JourneyMap fixes all that—it maps your world in real-time as you explore, can be displayed in the corner of your screen, and even lets you set waypoints to return to later. If you have a habit of getting lost in the wilderness, JourneyMap will get you home safe and sound. Grab it here.
Tinker’s Construct
[1.7.10]
Tools are the backbone of everything you do in Minecraft, and Tinker’s Construct lets you make far better tools out of a much wider range of materials. They’re upgradable, modular, and can be repaired if they break. Oh, and the mod also adds a smeltery to make high-end tools and increase ore processing efficiency. If you love having the best possible equipment to work with, grab Tinker’s Construct from here.
Forestry
[1.7.10]
If you like the agricultural aspects of Minecraft, you’re going to love Forestry. It’s a huge mod, which adds a bunch of new items, machines and blocks, but it’s best known for its bees. You can become an apiarist, capturing wild bees and cross-breeding them using real genetic principles to create masses of different useful resources. If I were teaching biology, I’d be using this in the classroom. Grab it here.
ComputerCraft
[1.7.10]
While we’re learning biology, let’s learn some programming too! ComputerCraft adds programmable computers and turtles into Minecraft, which you can write code to control. It’s based on the easy-to-learn Lua programming language, and with it you can make passworded doors, private chatrooms, automated mining turtles, and even in-game videogames. The possibilities are endless. Grab it here.
Thermal Expansion 4 & Minefactory Reloaded
[1.7.10]
These titans are two of the most important technology mods in the game. Thermal Expansion focuses on power generation and storage, as well as adding a bunch of new metals that have become standard components of several other mods. Minefactory Reloaded is where you’re going to use that power—in automating farming, animal husbandry, mining, enchanting, potion-brewing and more. Install it for the ‘raw meat block‘ alone. Grab both mods, and a couple of extras that they need to run, here.
Big Reactors
[1.7.10]
After a while with lots of tech mods installed, you’ll find that your power needs are growing faster than you can add more generator capacity. Big Reactors is the answer. It lets you build highly-configurable customised nuclear reactors that output huge amounts of power and won’t melt down spectacularly if things go wrong. It even interfaces with ComputerCraft, so you can build programs to control your reactors. Budding nuclear engineers can grab it here.
Chisel & Carpenter’s Blocks
[1.7.10]
Making your base pretty is an afterthought to some players, but to others it’s a vital part of the game. These two mods give you the tools you need to customise almost every aspect of your base design. Chisel provides loads of new texture options for many of the most common blocks in the game, while Carpenter’s Blocks adds slopes and loads of aesthetic options for doors, switches, torches, ladders, fences and more. Grab them here and here, respectively.
RailCraft & Steve’s Carts 2
[1.7.10]
You can probably guess what these mods do. That’s right—they both substantially upgrade the capabilities of Minecraft’s minecarts. RailCraft adds a bunch of new types of track, including sophisticated redstone-controlled junctions and signals, while Steve’s Carts pumps up the capabilities of the carts themselves—adding brakes, shields, drills and more. You can even make an attachment that launches fireworks. Grab RailCraft here, and Steve’s Carts 2 here.
EnderIO
[1.7.10]
Getting stuff to where it needs to be is often a problem in Minecraft. EnderIO solves that problem impressively elegantly, by adding compact conduits that carry fluid, items, power and redstone signals. It also has a few machines that enhance your ore processing capabilities, too. When your base starts getting complicated, EnderIO is one of the best ways to sort it out. Grab it here.
Applied Energistics 2
[1.7.10]
Storage can also become an issue when you start automating more and more aspects of Minecraft. Applied Energistics solves the problem by turning the matter in your chests into energy, which is then stored on disk drives, accessible wirelessly from anywhere in your base. You can even use it to autocraft anything you need by interfacing directly with your machines. If that sounds a bit magical, you wouldn’t be wrong. It uses vast amounts of power, of course, but once properly configured you’ll come to see wooden chests as hopelessly primitive relics of the past. Grab it here.
JABBA and Iron Chests 2
[1.7.10]
More storage mods, but this time focused on the early-game. JABBA adds easy-to-craft, upgradable barrels that can hold hundreds of stacks of a single item, while Iron Chests lets you upgrade wooden chests to hold more stuff. In the long run, you’ll probably still want an Applied Energistics system, but these mods make the early part of the game so much more pleasant. Get hold of them hereand here.
Extra Utilities & OpenBlocks
[1.7.10]
This pair of mods are a grab bag of immensely useful utilities with no real theme running through them. Extra Utilities adds a golden lasso for transporting friendly mobs, blackout curtains for keeping places dark, conveyor belts to move mobs around, and sound mufflers to quieten down your stables. OpenBlocks, on the other hand, adds sleeping bags, hang gliders, elevators, gravestones, rope ladders and building guides. Both are essential. Grab them here and here, respectively.
PneumaticCraft
[1.7.10]
It’s always refreshing seeing mods that try something a bit different. PneumatiCraft is a tech mod, but instead of power it uses air pressure. You’ll need to build compression chambers, pipes and valves to make sure you balance the flow of air, and if you get things wrong an explosion is inevitable. If you get it right, though, the nifty gadgets that PneumatiCraft brings to the table, like air cannons and configurable helmets, are well worth the time investment. Grab it here.
Hunger Overhaul, The Spice of Life & Pam’s HarvestCraft
[1.7.10]
Feeling hungry? You will be after you install Hunger Overhaul. It makes hunger more of a challenge, rather than a mild annoyance, reducing the amount of hunger each food item refills. Then, The Spice of Life means that you get diminishing returns from eating the same foodstuffs over and over again. So what do you do to get some dietary variation? Install Pam’s HarvestCraft, of course. It adds 58 new crops, 35 fruit trees, 12 bushes and 16 fish for you to track down, including—vegetarians rejoice—the ability to use tofu in place of meat for any recipe. It’s a veritable culinary explosion, and your mouth will thank you. Grab Hunger Overhaul here, the Spice of Life here, and Pam’s HarvestCraft here.
BiblioCraft
[1.7.10]
Bibliocraft began as a way to store books in bookcases. but has expanded wildly since into a bunch of blocks and items that are both useful and aesthetically pleasing to have in your base. There are armour stands, potion shelves, cookie jars, clocks, lanterns, display cases, nifty multipart chairs, and even tables and tablecloths. Once you’re done with Bibliocraft, your home base might actually start to look like a home. Grab it here.
Project Red
[1.7.10]
Those of you that work frequently with redstone will know what a pain it can sometimes be. Project Red changes all that, bringing vastly improved control over what you’re doing and allowing you to make your circuits much more compact. It also adds integrated logic gates, making task automation way easier. Worth having around if you ever might want to work with redstone. Grab it here.
Steve’s Factory Manager
[1.7.10]
Another incredibly useful automation tool is Steve’s Factory Manager. Like ComputerCraft, it’s a little on the fiddly side and requires a bit of knowledge of programming concepts to get going. Once you’ve got the hang of the drag-and-drop interface however, you’ll be amazed by the possibilities. For automating a factory, there’s no better solution. Grab the download and learn about it here.RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU…
video playing
The PC Gaming Show returns for 2019 – save…02/04/19
The PC Gamer Show 155: Devil May Cry 5, The…07/03/19
The PC Gamer Show 132: Battlefield 5, Black Ops…24/05/18
The PC Gamer Show 168: Final Fantasy 14, AMD’s…18/07/19
Nude bugs, G2A woes continue, the best of…11/07/19
Mystcraft
[1.7.10]
Have you grown bored of your world but don’t want to lose your progress? Conjure up a new dimension with Mystcraft. It lets you create ‘Linking Books’ that allow you to travel around the multiverse—with the contents of the book dictating the kind of worlds you’ll discover. You might find a series of snow-covered floating islands, or an endless ocean with giant trees sprouting from the water. But be careful, some of the new dimensions could be unstable, falling apart around you. Downloading Mystcraft here for a bit of exploring. I hope you make it back.
Animal Bikes
Making your way downtown in Minecraft isn’t always an enjoyable experience. While things are great once you’ve set up your own network of railways or rivers, it can often feel like a slog in new areas. Well, rather than lamenting this fact, why not speed up the experience with a whole slew of new animal bikes. This mod allows you to craft and ride a whole bunch of different beasts, all of which have special abilities. You can ride on animal hungry dinosaurs, volatile creepers, and even your very own fire-breathing ender dragon. You can grab it here.
LotsOMobs
LotsOMobs answers the key question that so many of us have asked in Minecraft: but what if there were more animals? Rather than just adding a couple of animals here or there, it adds over forty new mobs, including creatures like bees, ants, mammoths, and even cavemen. On top of that, there are a few new items to spawn some of these mods, and even new portals to go through leading to new biomes. You can get it by going here.
Bacteria
While there are plenty of mods that add in new functionality, there aren’t many that can accidentally destroy the world you’ve created for yourself. The Bacteria mod allows you to harvest special sponges from the world, and then train them to perform certain tasks. For example, you can place a bacteria down that consumes all of the dirt blocks it can reach. You have to be careful with this kind of power, and that’s what makes this mod so fascinating. Destroying the world on purpose is BDE, doing it by accident is simply very funny. Grab the mod here.
Galacticraft
With the recently revealed Picard looking so good, it seems like a good time to try and explore space, the final frontier. That’s just a small part of what this mod allows you to do. You can build your own space rocket, launch yourself into the starry sky, and then go on adventures from there. You can actually visit planets which have their own atmospheres and mobs, as well as building your very own space station. It’s stellar stuff, and you can grab the mod here.
Jurassicraft
From the deep dark abyss of space to the glistening glory of Jeff Goldblum. The JurrasiCraft mod lets you create your very own prehistoric world by extracting DNA from fossils or amber you can find. It even includes some vehicles to help you make your way around. You can even bring back some prehistoric plants too. Just remember that life, uh, finds a way, and dinosaurs are much bigger than you and usually hungry. Grab the mod by going here.
In a recent interview with Fortune, Xbox boss Phil Spencer revealed that Swedish indie giant Mojang actually approached Microsoft about the buyout of their huge indie darling. In particular it was then-Mojang CEO Carl Manneh who made the call (Manneh left Mojang in 2014). “The next thing that happened is Carl calls up and says ‘hey do you want to buy Minecraft?’ We had the 360 relationship with them, with Notch and Carl through doing the 360 port of Minecraft,” Spencer said in the interview while discussing how Microsoft doubled-down in the Xbox business. Buying Minecraft cemented Xbox and gaming as an important part of its business. “But it was a great point of clarity for us to go drive inside the company, when you’re going to invest a couple billion dollars into buyinga video game…it’s like you better be serious about being in the category if you’re going to go make that investment.” Minecraft has since gone on to become one of the most popular games of all time. Bolstered by Microsoft’s massive webwork of services and cashflows, Mojang is able to bring the voxel-building hit across every platform known to man while adding in monetization hooks for long-term revenues. They’re even making some spin-off games like Minecraft Dungeons, a very Diablo-esque isometric ARPG. Right now Minecraft is one of the purest reflections of Microsoft’s gaming business. The company puts services, live gaming, and engagement above everything else; rather than selling consoles and moving first-party games, Microsoft is spread across a multitude of strategies that all feed into one another in a synergistic way. Subscriptions like Game Pass fuel game sales as well as provide recurring incomes over time, and also organically fold into other services like Xbox LIVE Gold. In short, like Xbox, Minecraft has transitioned towards the service realm dominated by online play, monetization, and engagement hooks. It’s no longer a smaller indie, but a billion-dollar titan holding up Microsoft’s gaming empire.
Slowly but surely, Elon Musk continues to change the world. From Tesla to SpaceX, he’s truly changing how humanity will charge into the future. Most recently, Elon showcased the next steps for Neuralink, his brain-computer interface technology. Neuralink has a lot of potential. For instance, thanks to the internet, it could possibly put humans in Minecraft.
Humans in Minecraft?
If you spend enough time on the internet, you come across some weird ideas. On occasion, these ideas embed themselves in art. Furthermore, satire is a popular and entertaining way to convey artistic ideas on the internet. I came across a particular satirical video while browsing YouTube titled Elon Musk Wants to Upload Humanity Into Minecraft: Here’s How.
The video is very obviously satirical. Within the video, Musks says that humans face an increasingly precarious situation with the environment. True so far. To remedy this, he develops Neuralink, which is also actually happening. Then, Musk says that the only solution is for humanity to upload itself into the abundance of Minecraft via Neuralink. Obviously not happening. But could it?
Minecraft is a block-built open world video game released in 2009. Since its inception ten years ago, it has made history as the number one best-selling game of all time. Because of this, I won’t go into too much detail about the game. Knowledge about Minecraft is pretty common at this point. But knowledge about Neuralink, on the other hand, is not widespread. Who even knows what Neuralink is at this point?
What is Neuralink?
When Elon Musk appeared as a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience, he identified a particular problem with the human ability to put knowledge into the world. Humans have an output problem, according to Elon. To take information out of the human mind and communicate it digitally requires we speak, type on a keyboard, or use our thumbs on a touch screen. According to Elon, there’s a bandwidth problem here.
To solve this issue, Elon Musk is developing Neuralink. The Neuralink chip is designed to detect electrical action potentials in the human brain called spikes. If all goes to plan, this means that humans will be able to control keyboards, computer mice, and touch screens with their minds via the small wires threaded throughout the brain.
Musk hopes to begin human trials by the end of 2020. So far, he’s successfully integrated Neuralink into the minds of 19 rats. Unless the FDA decides to stand in the way of scientific advancement, this is only the beginning.
Elon Musk Living Inside Minecraft
The video suggests that since Neuralink aims to make humans symbiotic with our soon-to-come AI overlords (who I welcome, by the way), we can just upload whole human entities into Minecraft’s digital system. While this could be theoretically possible at one point, considering the rapid rate of technological development, I don’t see this happening anytime soon. Elon Musk hasn’t announced any plans to put consciousness in computers. Rather, he simply aims to tie them together.
As I mentioned before, Neuralink will hopefully allow humans to use a keyboard and mouse with just their mind. Pair this with contemporary virtual reality technology, and one could have a 100% immersive Minecraft gaming experience. But this is still down the road.
So no, you won’t be able your consciousness into the blocky world in the near future. But if Neuralink becomes widespread, you’ll be a whole lot closer to living inside of Minecraft.
Outschool calls itself the Netflix of learning, a live online platform connecting students from around the world to other students and teachers in an array of classes that cover everything from core subjects to niche and creative interests. By building an interactive online model, Outschool gives students access both to teachers passionate about subjects and to other students with the same interests, creating an online setting with a better than 80 percent attendance rate for classes that can range from one-offs to an entire semester in length.
Amir Nathoo, Outschool’s founder, says that while online education has long opened up avenues for students to explore new worlds of curriculum, his San Francisco-based startup offers diversity with the value of human interaction.
Launched in 2017, Outschool has presented more than 31,000 classes, costing an average of $10 to $15 per session. Teachers can pick and choose to create and build online curricula for classes that generally run between three and eight students who meet live via small-group video chats.
“Through our marketplace model and freedom to be creative, we let teachers discover new ways to inspire kids,” Nathoo says. “It is very different from what we see in K-12 education today, where so much focus is on the end results. We believe fostering a love of learning is a key building block.”
The unique course offerings range from teaching architecture through Minecraft to instruction in Spanish via Taylor Swift lyrics. Classes are capped at 18 students to retain an interactive feel.
About 85 percent of users select Outschool as a way for kids to pursue interests, although core subjects remain a part of the mix. Early on, Outschool catered to homeschool students, but as the marketplace has grown, Nathoo has seen more families choosing classes after school, on weekends and in the summer.
Currently, the marketplace has roughly 1,000 teachers offering more than 8,000 classes of several types: one-off classes to pique interest, short courses that may meet once per week for a few weeks, semester classes that have at least eight meetings and camps that meet daily for a week. Nathoo says parents often use the one-off classes, which are offered at various times throughout the year, as a test to see if Outschool is a fit. Sixty percent of customers are returning students.
Teachers seem to enjoy the freedom. “I have a strong interest in curriculum writing and design,” says Tegan Bombard, a fifth-grade teacher at a Title I public school in Florida who also teaches on Outschool. “I love that I could marry this interest with the passion that I have for teaching to create learning experiences for children around the globe. Outschool has provided me with such a unique opportunity to not only design classes from scratch but implement these classes to see the impact on a wide range of learners.”
Teachers — all from the United States or Canada, allowing Outschool to vet for experience and run background checks — keep 70 percent of the tuition fee, with Outschool retaining 30 percent for marketing, enrollment and administration. Some teachers, Nathoo says, earn up to $7,000 a month and have made it their full-time effort. Others use the platform as a way to teach subject areas they personally want to explore. Currently, about half the teachers are credentialed or are former classroom teachers.
Half of Outschool learners take a class with students from two or more countries, primarily from English-speaking countries such as the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And while 20 percent of the users are based in California, students come from major urban centers and rural areas across the United States and beyond.
Bombard says Outschool gives her joy and satisfaction outside of school hours because she believes that freedom from regulations allows her to better reach learners. “Through the small class sizes on Outschool, learning can be more personalized,” she says. “I am better able to modify the learning experiences of those in my classes to ensure that they are given the tools needed to grow in their own individual learning.”
Bombard teaches reading, writing, math and history in a fairly straightforward style, as well as other classes she teaches, such as World History Through Film, that provide less traditional methods to encourage critical thinking.
Shawn Walk, who has a strong educational technology background both owning a company and teaching in an elementary school north of Pittsburgh, heads the Architecture Through Minecraft class and says teaching at Outschool has allowed him much more flexibility in his work-life balance.
Both Walk and Bombard say the model allows them to focus on education and curriculum while leaving the marketing to someone else. “So far, as long as I make sure I am offering high-quality classes, I have seen consistent enrollment,” Walk says. “The engagement from students has been great. What has surprised me is how the majority of students are independent enough to find success in the online environment. Since the kids are taking classes they are interested in, they are focused and actively engaged.”
After working for a cyberschool, where kids were disengaged because it wasn’t their choice to be there, Walk appreciates the high level of engagement and, often, support from parents in helping their children pursue their interests. “Overall, that makes for a great learning environment for teachers and students,” he says.
Although Outschool doesn’t offer credits, it has a partnership with a charter school in the San Francisco area that gives its students credit for completing Outschool classes. “The range of subjects we have is far broader than any other vendor would be able to provide because the classes aren’t restricted by what is available locally,” Nathoo says. “We are able to support niche topics.”
Outschool recently announced an $8.5 million investment in the company after its student enrollment increased by a factor of five over the past year, meaning continued growth and greater class choices, whether it’s a veterinary technician teaching about animal anatomy or a United Nations human rights lawyer teaching about social studies and debate. And there’s always that Taylor Swift class.
Minecraft may be on its way to another platform: Tesla cars.
Tesla founder Elon Musk tweeted that the company is working on bringing the blocky game to its vehicles, and it’s a “high priority.”
Musk also revealed that Cuphead will launch in Teslas in August.
Minecraft has already become one of the most ubiquitous games out there, with ports on nearly every platform you can think of. However, you might be able to add another, unconventional platform to that list soon: Tesla vehicles.
Tesla founder Elon Musk recently tweeted that Minecraft is on his company’s list of to-dos for game ports. Going further, Musk says it’s a high priority, alongside Roblox.
Teslas all feature a large displays from which you control much of the car’s functions. Tesla has been gradually adding games to the built-in computers for months now, including Atari titles, Beach Buggy Racing 2, and even chess. Of course, the games are only meant to be played while the car is at rest, so don’t get your hopes up for playing Minecraft as you drive. That’s just plain dangerous.
For those of us without a Tesla, both Cuphead and Minecraft are available to pick up across Xbox One, Windows 10, and a number of other platforms in the meantime.
Servers are your gateway to expanding your horizons in Minecraft, and here we’ve rounded up the best Minecraft servers around. Like fantasy? Want to walk through a blocky recreation of your favourite TV show or film? Want to grief without the fear of a ban? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above, servers have got you covered.
Joining a server is nice and simple. All you need to do is load up Minecraft as you normally would, hit multiplayer, then add a server. Name it whatever you want, then type or Ctrl+V the IP address into the box below. Save it, click play, and you’re good to go. Just keep in mind some servers need you to download data for them to run correctly. If this at any point fails, just quit out and keep trying. It should work eventually.
Mineplex
This server is astoundingly large and packs in a vast array of things to do. They’ve got FPS games, painting, and even their own version of Smash Bros. Basically if you can think of a game type, there’s a large chance of it being available within Mineplex. It’s also got an incredibly active staff and as a result, suffers from a lot less grief than some of the less wholesome servers around.
IP Address: us.mineplex.com or eu.mineplex.com
Autcraft
Autcraft is a server designed specifically for children and adults who have autism. It’s designed to be a safe haven for those who want a reprieve from the potentially overwhelming things you would find on other servers. This includes things like no frightening characters and making sure everything is kept child-friendly. You have to apply in order to join the server, but if you make it in then you’re good to go. It’s not doing anything special in terms of how it plays, but it’s a useful one to know about if you or a family member have autism and would like to know there’s somewhere safe to go.
IP Address: mc.autcraft.com
WesterosCraft
Game of Thrones is over now, and whether you liked or loathed the ending, you’re probably hungry for more. Well, hunger no longer, and feast yourself on this server. While it’s not finished, it’s still going to provide a nice rush for those who want to try their hand at being King for a day. We’ve yet to see whether or not you can pet the Direwolves though…
IP Address: mc.westeroscraft.com
Pirate Craft
Sailing a ship around in Minecraft is tricky, but in Pirate Craft, they do a surprisingly good job of making it work. As is often the way these servers, it takes a bit of time to get used to things, but it’s well worth the effort if you like the idea. The scale of the ships is impressive, as is the ship-to-ship combat. Just don’t be surprised when someone nicks your pirate ship, there’s no honour among thieves.
IP Address: mc.piratemc.com
Hypixel
Hypixel is another mini-game heavy server. There are all the normal games you would expect from a high-quality server, but there are also a few noteworthy ones as well. Games like VampireZ, where you have to try and survive as a human while the vampires hunt you. There’s even a game called Turbo Kart Racers, which is a surprisingly good racing game that will pit you against other players as you try and reach the finish line first. It’s a lot of fun, and they update it regularly, so it’s worth sticking around for.
IP Address: mc.hypixel.net
The Lord of the Craft
While this may sound like a Lord of the Rings server, it’s not quite. It’s fantasy, sure, but with a huge focus on roleplaying. The world, and its lore, is already set up, and a helpful warp command means travelling between the different kingdoms (high elves, dark elves, dwarves, etc) is simple. All you need is a killer skin and an elaborate backstory and you’re good to go.
IP Address: mc.lotc.co
Grand Theft Minecart
You can probably guess from the title which popular video game series this server is based on. You guessed it, the unstoppable juggernaut that is Hello Kitty Online. Or GTA. It’s one of the two.
Join this server and you’ll be treated to two different game modes (Grand Theft Minecart and Vice Minecart), as well as 35 different GTA-inspired weapons. There are also plenty of vehicle offerings including cars, planes, and of course, tanks. Because it’s not GTA if there isn’t an option to go on an explodey murder-spree.
IP Address: mc-gtm.net
The Mining Dead
What’s the one thing missing from Minecraft? Guns! Although that’d just make it Fortnite, wouldn’t it? Either way, if you’re a fan of The Walking Dead TV show or comic, this is a great opportunity to take in all the famous sights as you’re scrambling to find weapons, ammo, and generally anything to help fend off the undead. And because of the voxel stylings of Minecraft, there’s a faint whiff of Goldeneye 64 to the whole thing.
IP Address: hub.havocmc.net
Arkham Network
Fancy donning a cape while shouting “You have failed this city!”? Maybe you’re an anarchist looking to watch the world burn? Whichever side you choose to join, the Arkham Network has a comic-book world that’s just begging to be explored. And griefed, obviously. There are also a host of different day jobs for making coin, and a wealth of gamemodes to participate in. One of the key rules of this server is make friends, fast. You’ll need them.
IP Address: mc.arkhamnetwork.org
Pokefind
Arguably one of the best Pokémon/Minecraft mashups out there, Pokefind starts as you’d expect. You meet a professor before being tasked with choosing a Pokémon. The starter choice options mirrors that of Generation 1, so that’s Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle. Once you’ve picked Bulbasaur (because you absolutely should!), you can either chill at the Pokémon centre, learn about crafting, or head into the wild and fight some poor animals. It’s just like the actual games, then.
IP Address: Play.pokefind.co
MC Middle Earth
A team was always going to attempt to recreate the Lord of the Rings universe in Minecraft, and the result is something truly breathtaking. Everything in this world has been meticulously crafted to feel as real as possible. Taking a stroll through the Shire is a lovely way to lose a few hours, but if you’re not here for a sightseeing tour, there’s also a PvP server. Because of course there is.
Build IP Address: build.mcmiddleearth.com
PvP and Event IP Address: pvp.mcmiddleearth.com
The Tomb
If you’re new to the world of Minecraft servers, you’ll be forgiven for not knowing what a prison server is. Basically, the player spawns and is locked in an area. In The Tomb’s case, it’s an underground mine teeming with lavish decorations. The goal here is to level up and escape by collecting and selling resources. Think No Man’s Sky if No Man’s Sky was trapped underground without a spaceship. If you’re a fan of relaxing grinding, this one’s for you.
IP Address: the-tomb.com
Extreme Craft
We couldn’t put out a list of Minecraft servers without mentioning one of the most popular out there. Extreme Craft keeps popping up because of the sheer amount of modes there are to play, including the likes of a fully fleshed out survival mode, hunger games, factions, skygrid, skywars, skyblock, acid island, and eggwars. That’s on top of a creative mode and the option of roleplaying. It’s like a Minecraft greatest hits compilation.
IP Address: play.extremecraft.net
Minewind
For people who hate people there’s Minewind, an anarchy server where the only rule is don’t cheat. See someone building a nice tower they’ve spent hours on? Tear the whole thing down and laugh as they furiously scramble to get away. Another player near diamonds? Push them headfirst into lava. Here you can grief as much as you desire with zero repercussions. While this is one server you may want to avoid, it’s also a server you may want to visit, because you’re a horrible, horrible person.
IP Address: play.Minewind.com
Potter World MC
When you first enter Potter World, you’re greeted by the boy himself battling a dementor as Hogwarts sits ominously in the background. Much like Middle Earth, Potter World goes all out when it comes to authenticity. Buildings appear as they do in the mind’s eye, complete with inside furnishings. You can learn about potion making, duel other wizards and witches, or go off and play a friendly round of quidditch. This is Minecraft at its strongest: creating game worlds that best those of their AAA counterparts.
