The Polish government is setting up Minecraft servers for children trapped at home during the coronavirus lockdown, as the internet becomes the virtual school playground in the age of social distancing.

Each day, the Polish government plans to publish new educational challenges to keep children entertained while exercising their brains, including logic puzzles, game development webinars and Minecraft building competitions with prizes.

I've undertaken a similar project in my neighbourhood, obviously on a somewhat smaller scale, creating an online Minecraft server open to my two teenagers and the neighbourhood children. This way they can all play in the same Minecraft world even when they're not in the same house and connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

While the kids are playing, they can also run a separate Skype voice call on speakerphone, so they can talk as if they were sitting in the same room. It's more social than just staring at the screen.