Since 2011, the growing popularity of sandbox creation games such as Minecraft has resulted in their wide use in classroom instruction. However, little research has been conducted on how history educators create, design, and use such technology for their classes. There is even less comprehensive research describing how students experience game-aided lessons in a formal school setting and whether gender and prior experience impact their motivation to learn in this way. Using teacher interviews, correspondence, and reflections, this chapter discusses collaborative, technological, creative, and pedagogical considerations on how teachers design and use Minecraft lessons. When a mixed method approach was used, motivation to learn was a significant driver for students’ positive learning experience, accounting for about 32% of the variance in learning experience. Neither gamer experience nor gender contributed significantly to learning experience. Student surveys and interviews along with analysis of students’ artifacts suggest that students enjoyed the creative tasks, quests, and interactions with non-player characters (NPCs); these contributed to experiences of flow, collaborative learning, and historical imagination. Controlling for gamer experience and gender, the main driver for the positive learning experience was motivation (Prob > F = 0.0016), suggesting that the immersive, interactive, and collaborative features of Minecraft led to enhanced student engagement in participating and exploring history actively within the game context. However, in order to integrate Minecraft into effective teaching practices, school support and expertise beyond individual teacher competencies are needed. Teacher skills such as being able to align and integrate Minecraft activities into the curriculum, design learning tasks, and consolidate student learning and effective classroom management are also required in order to ensure effective learning. Networked learning communities provide a platform to bring together distributed expertise for developing such resources and competencies.