26 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2023
    1. (Chen, NeurIPS, 2021) Che1, Lu, Rajeswaran, Lee, Grover, Laskin, Abbeel, Srinivas, and Mordatch. "Decision Transformer: Reinforcement Learning via Sequence Modeling". Arxiv preprint rXiv:2106.01345v2, June, 2021.

      Quickly a very influential paper with a new idea of how to learn generative models of action prediction using SARSA training from demonstration trajectories. No optimization of actions or rewards, but target reward is an input.

    1. Wu, Prabhumoye, Yeon Min, Bisk, Salakhutdinov, Azaria, Mitchell and Li. "SPRING: GPT-4 Out-performs RL Algorithms byStudying Papers and Reasoning". Arxiv preprint arXiv:2305.15486v2, May, 2023.

  2. Jul 2023
    1. Bowen Baker et. al. (Open AI) "Video PreTraining (VPT): Learning to Act by Watching Unlabeled Online Videos" Arkiv, June 2022.

      Introduction of VPT : New semi-supervied pre-trained model for sequential decision making on Minecraft. Data are from human video playthroughs but are unlabelled.

  3. Apr 2023
    1. Bowen Baker et. al. (Open AI) "Video PreTraining (VPT): Learning to Act by Watching Unlabeled Online Videos" Arkiv, June 2022.

      New supervised pre-trained model for sequential decision making on Minecraft. Data are from human video playthroughs but are unlabelled.

      reinforcement-learning foundation-models pretrained-models proj-minerl minecraft

  4. Mar 2023
    1. asks for the Minecraft domain.

      They demonstrate the model on a "minecraft-like" domain (introduced earlier by someone else) where there are resources in the world and the agent has tasks.

  5. Oct 2019
    1. The Unfulfilled Potential of Minecraft – Assuming a Different Perspective

      What are the assumptions at the heart of Minecraft's virtual world?

  6. Jun 2016
  7. Apr 2016
    1. code, Minecraft has become a stealth gateway to the fundamentals, and the pleasures, of computer science.

      learning code = computer science? I guess, but I also wonder if my need to learn code has come more from a desire to communicate on social media more effectively.

    2. In the late ’70s and ’80s

      There's also something about teachers who went to school then too. I'm one of them, and I love to tinker with the curriculum.

    3. invites them to tinker

      Yup! That's the secret.

    4. all three put together

      It's the different kinds of experiences in one place that makes Minecraft different.

    5. a different sort of phenomenon.

      And it's worth teasing out the differences.

    6. harness

      That's an interesting verb. What skills does Jordan have that allow him to do this?

    7. some of which players can kill and eat (or tame, if they want pets)

      Notice how many options there are here: "some," not all the animals, kill and eat or tame and make pets.

    8. obsessed

      This is what my students describe: loosing track of time while they are on Minecraft.

    9. navigate

      We can never underestimate the pleasures of moving around in what seems to be a virtual space.

    10. challenge his friends

      He invites peers to play his game with him.

    11. concoct his own version

      After reading a book, this 11-year-old sees ways to create his own version of an imagined world.

    12. you make things

      In the second paragraph, I'm delighting in how many different modes of thought are evident. First there's the making.

  8. Mar 2016
    1. Minecraft can discourage imagination in children.

      Key word here, I imagine, is "can." It probably all depends on how the time on Minecraft is structured, and I worry that I haven't done this well enough for my students.

    2. parents

      Parents need to give children "structured" play time and more "free time." Granted, but what do the structures look like and don't we need to do the same in school for youth of all ages? We need play AND we need to think about how to structure this play.

    3. encourages ‘labour’ over ‘love’

      When I watch Gabriel, Faith, Mia, and others playing Minecraft, I worry that the game is inspiring more "work, work, work..." or mindless obsession than it is creative making and expression.

    1. , perhaps leading a timid player into confusion, an uninformed player into a sense of complacency, or an adventurous player into sense that this simulation of a blocky world is truly open for player exploration

      I've been in the first two categories: timid and uninformed, and I've watched my students be adventurous players!

    2. See Figure 1, below, for an example of the view from a starting spawn point in Minecraft — a pleasant morning on a sandy beach, with virtually no instruction as to what to do next

      This is off-putting to some of us, but I guess a lot of young people like the freedom of being able to get lost in such a world without "instruction."

    3. Beyond

      So there's more to it than building things and surviving? A student who plays minecraft told me today that he thinks you actually do learn what you are simulating in the game. "Like when you build a garden, you learn how to farm," he told me. Hmmmm.

  9. Feb 2016
    1. With more than 18 million downloads to date, Minecraft is the best-selling computer game of all time; the game’s free-form structure has made it popular with kids and adults alike. But little by little, teachers, parents, and students have discovered that the game can be used for educational purposes, too.

      18 million downloads. This is a popular game. Parents, teachers, and students are using the game for educational purposes. This surprises me because I never though a game would help kids.