At the densely crowded Bett show, a mammoth education technology conference taking up most of London’s ExCel venue, a vast audience has gathered to watch one particular demonstration. It is Microsoft’s newly announced Minecraft: Education Edition, a special version of the hugely successful building sim, specifically customised for the classroom environment. As the company representative highlights the main features, spectators photograph every single powerpoint slide. Behind the stage there’s a demo area with dozens of laptops running an early version of the new edition – all lined up on tables designed to resemble the game’s simple wooden blocks. There is a constant throng of excitable children, all desperate to play. Minecraft is a big attraction and Microsoft knows it. Just a week before Bett, the company announced that it had purchased MinecraftEDU, an educational version of the game, which was already being used in hundreds of schools all over the world. That product was designed and distributed by a small Finnish-American outfit, TeacherGaming, and while Microsoft says it won’t shut EDU down, the game won’t be receiving any new updates or support. Minecraft: Education Edition will effectively be a replacement, developed in-house at Mojang in cooperation with a team at…