How to get a Border Block in Minecraft (Education Edition): Step by Step Guide

Let’s talk shop! Minecraft: Education Edition is a special version of Minecraft that is crafted to suit the needs of students and educators alike. With this edition comes dozens of special features that cannot be accessed in any other version of Minecraft. This Education Edition does not come bundled with Minecraft: Java Edition or Minecraft: Bedrock Edition.

In order to play the Education Edition, players must sign-in to the game using a school email. Most colleges, as well as some high schools, offer these free licenses to all students.Once players are signed into the Education Edition, they are free to take on most challenges at their own pace.

This version of Minecraft has lots of tutorials that can help you learn the basics of Minecraft. Several blocks in Minecraft: Education Edition are centered around assisting teachers broadcast messages to students. One of these blocks is the Border Block, a useful way for teachers to fence in their students, preventing them from leaving the lesson area.

Players cannot simply purchase an Education Edition license through the Microsoft Store.

In any world with the Creative inventory enabled, players can make use of Education Edition Blocks. In the World/Game settings, players can change the game mode at any time.

Personal Game Mode is the one that affects the player.

Once in Creative Mode, players can access all the Education Edition blocks from the Creative Inventory. This functions similarly to the Survival Inventory, but with unlimited access! Press the E key to open up the Creative Inventory.

After typing in your search term, select it from the list and place it in your inventory.

Border Blocks can be used in a manner similar to the Fence in Minecraft: Java and Bedrock Edition. These blocks can be used to either confine students to a particular area for a lesson, or alternatively, they can be used to restrict access to a certain, off-limits area. This can be great for preventing distractions, glitches and bugs in Minecraft: Education Edition. Surround an area or object with Borders to ensure that your precious lesson does not get interrupted by a griefer! When access to a block is prevented through Borders, said block cannot be destroyed. Borders act identically to Fences when placing, so you can create very intricate borders. Shown below is a Board with access blocked by Borders:

While the teacher can see these blocks, they are not visible to students. This is great, as Border Blocks are used to reduce distractions for students. From the teacher point of view however, Border Blocks look like this when placed:

Q. But I want to buy the Education Edition! Is there really no way to get it?

There is a way to purchase individual licenses for Education Edition, but it requires an “Microsoft 365 Admin Account” which is different from the regular Microsoft sign-in. The cost for this version is $12 a year, and is only available as a subscription.

With the Border Block at your side, your ability to create tutorials, classes or any other education system is greatly enhanced. These signs are important because they are a direct analogue to vanilla Minecraft’s Signs. These are the same dimensions as Signs, as they are a simple block that only takes up 1 block (1x1) of space. Border Block should be great for introductions, quick reminders, or other small bits of text.