Month: May 2022

Minecraft’s Six Principles of Game-based Learning

  • The failure dynamic, fail early, fail often. Teach students to take risks in a safe environment- a game.
  • The flexibility dynamic. Provide multiple paths to success. Old school video games had one way to win. Newer “sandbox” games are more open.
  • The construction dynamic. Build something that matters. Students want to create things with a purpose. Minecraft lets them create something difficult and worthwhile.
  • The situated meaning. Learn new ideas by experiencing them. Students learn vocabulary in real-time, as it pertains to playing with others in the game; or learn math as they understand construction.
  • Systems thinking. Learn how all pieces can fit or be fitted. Games help players see how their actions fit into the bigger picture, not just the individual.
  • Build empathy. Bring players together to learn a common goal. By communicating and working together, players build empathy through their avatars by raising awareness of local or global goals.

(via Minecraft: Education Edition: Teacher Academy)

I’m brushing up on my Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite skills because I’ll be teaching in each of these soon. I went down this path a few years ago to each at our learning center, but then COVID came and shifted everything online. It’s taken too long for me to get back on track with this.

Windows Store Error Fix for Missing “wuauserv”

Today, I encountered serious Windows Update problems that started as a Windows store problems, namely, I couldn’t install anything from the Windows Store or any Minecraft programs at all – a big problem because I’m brushing up on MC, Roblox, and Scratch teaching skills.

The guided walkthrough from Microsoft didn’t help, so I tried manually resetting the Windows Update Service:

Open administrative Command Prompt and type following commands one-by-one followed by Enter key.
net stop wuauserv
net stop cryptSvc
net stop bits
net stop msiserver
Ren C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
Ren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 Catroot2.old
net start wuauserv
net start cryptSvc
net start bits
net start msiserver
Close Command Prompt and see if Windows Updates works then.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/window-10-update-is-stuck-on-checking-for-updates/d4833fef-620e-445b-9b99-997c03b9a1f8

However, the “net start wuauserv” command returned an error:

The Windows Update service is starting
The Windows Update service could not be started
A system error has occurred.
System error 2 has occurred.
The system cannot find the file specified.

To make a long story short, I must have deleted this key from the registry at some point, and the fix that worked for me was re-adding the key via cut and paste from this article: Windows Update service missing 0x80070424 , Windows 10 Pro x64 1803 [Solved] / Error code 0x80070006 or 0x8008005

So far, I have a bunch of Windows Updates queued and will proceed with Microsoft Store and Minecraft installations after that, but it looks like everything is working properly again.

Highway rest stops in Thailand

Coming from Japan to Thailand 15 years ago, the state of the roads here was lamentable, and many of the streets/rural highways in the Issan region and around our city weren’t even paved – or had big enough holes to break wheels and axles, a common sight back then.

I used to go on university trips every term and we would often take the uni bus or minivans on long road trips, ostensibly for work, but more just to get out and travel. This was always a nice perk for government university work, because we could often take the whole family, as well. It also made me very aware of the lack of highway rest stops in Thailand.

Actually, the default highway rest stop in Thailand is fulfilled by large gas station facilities, most notably those run by the PTT group. PTT stations come in all sizes, from a few pumps and a convenience store to larger mini mall-type complexes. However, on the toll roads around Bangkok and central Thailand, there are a few privately run rest stops, most notably the huge one between Bangkok and Chonburi located here: ศูนย์บริการทางหลวง กรุงเทพ-ชลบุรี มอเตอร์เวย์ ขาออก. That ones been around as long as I can remember, and it’s huge (long, actually) and chaotic. It’s also got the most foreign food shops of any highway rest stop in Thailand, with a lot of western fast food joints like BK, McD’s, KFC (maybe even 2 branches IIRC), Indian food, pho, dim sum, sushi, etc. As a side note, it’s also very easy to miss the turnoff if you are speeding along the toll road there.

On our recent trip to Hua Hin, we happened along another private rest stop in Samut Sakhon called Porto Go. It was not as big as the rest stop mentioned above, but it was newer and cleaner (there’s also one in Ayutthaya, apparently). These new rest stops with clean facilities make road trips a lot more convenient than they used to be!