Running the PDCA Cycle in Minecraft! Building a Custom Whiteboard Plugin for Learning with Children

2026-08-30

Fostering “Critical Thinking Skills" in the World of Minecraft
When playing Minecraft with your children, you naturally develop an attitude of setting goals and working toward them, rather than just building structures and going on adventures.
For example, setting small goals like “expanding the farm today" or “stabilizing trade with villagers" and achieving them is precisely the PDCA cycle (Plan → Do → Check → Act) in action.

However, there is no way to visualize this within the game. Signs don’t have enough space, and books are cumbersome to share.
If we had a system where everyone could see “today’s goal" and “the next task," could we build a habit of PDCA right at home?
Driven by this thought, I decided to create a whiteboard that can be displayed inside Minecraft.

A “Whiteboard Plugin" You Can Write to From a Book

This plugin is a simple whiteboard feature that runs on Paper servers (Spigot-based).
By placing a map inside an item frame on a wall and drawing text onto it, I recreated a whiteboard within the Minecraft world.

Key Features

Transfer contents written in a Book and Quill to the board

Link multiple boards with the /grid command (to create a large board)

Draw text directly with the /text command

Lock editing with /lock

History control with /undo and /redo

Change background color with /bg

Clear everything with /clear

Change font size with /font

HTML formatting drawing support with /htext (experimental feature)

The goal is to “visualize learning."
Parents and children can write today’s goal, hold the book, and right-click the item frame—and a whiteboard will appear in the Minecraft world.

Installation Steps

Prepare a Paper Server
Paper 1.21 or later is recommended.
Place WhiteboardPlugin.jar in the plugins folder and restart.

Place an Item Frame
Place an item frame on a wall. The contents can just be an empty map.

Write in a Book
Write what you want on the whiteboard into a “Book and Quill."

Right-Click to Transfer
Hold the book in your hand and right-click the item frame.
→ The contents will be transferred to the whiteboard.

Adjust with Commands
You can adjust it according to your needs, such as changing the background color with /bg <color|#RRGGBB> or changing the font with /font.

Example of Writing in a Book and Quill

[clear][size 64][pos 10 80]TODAY'S GOAL
<font color=red>・Build a house</font>

Meaning of Options

[clear] Clears the board to blank before writing text instead of overwriting

[size 64] Changes the font size to 64

[pos 10 80] Changes the text writing start position to 10 80

<font color=red></font> Changes the enclosed text color to red

Examples of Use for Parents and Children

Learning Board:
Practice progress management by recording “today’s goal" and specific numerical values showing how much has been accomplished.
Example:

\
```
TODAY'S GOAL
・Complete the house
・Catch a cat
PROGRESS
・Build a house[10/22 90%]
```
\

Group Activities:
Decide on role sharing as a family and write down the progress.
E.g., “Dad → Gathering materials," “Child → Design," “Mom → Decoration."

Online Study Sessions:
When learning together with friends, you can use the whiteboard to share rules and plans.

Behind the Scenes of Development

During development, I adopted a method of drawing maps directly using MapCanvas from the Bukkit API.
The standard API requires pixel-level control, so I adjusted it to work with the latest version (1.21.9) while avoiding deprecated methods like MapPalette.matchColor().

Furthermore, I implemented /undo and /redo functions so that whiteboard rewrite history can be safely reverted.
Originally, the plan was to write using commands, but since inputting that way was tedious, I made it writable from books to improve usability.

Future Outlook

Through this plugin, children have naturally come to learn the flow of “thinking, acting, and reflecting."
The experience of making plans within a game and repeatedly making improvements also connects to real-world learning.

Going forward, I am considering the following expansions:

Timer: Measuring the timing for checking intermediate progress and today’s final progress

Summary: Minecraft is “the Ultimate Educational Tool While Playing"

By bringing a whiteboard into the world of Minecraft, a new form of home-based learning combined with creative education has come into view.
Through the plugin, children can naturally repeat the cycle of “Think → Try → Reflect."\
That very cycle is the essence of PDCA.

“Games are not just play," but rather “finding learning within play"──
This whiteboard plugin is a small experiment for that exact purpose.

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