literacy | Liam O'Donnell

Connecting with educators in RezEd

by liam | Apr 27, 2008 | education, gaming, literacy, media, virtual worlds

With the arrival of ning.com, creating social networks is as easy as creating an email account. I find places like Facebook too broad in their focus for an online network. Same with LinkedIn (although as more people are joining linkedin and find me, a cohesive network...

Talking kids’ virtual worlds with the TDSB

by liam | Apr 21, 2008 | appearances, education, gaming, literacy, media, virtual worlds

Last Friday marked the end of my classes at OISE’s Bachelor of Education program, but I’m not done with my teacher training or talking to teachers. In addition to a month-long internship at the Institute of Child Studies Lab School, I’m heading out...

All kids’ virtual worlds are educational

by liam | Apr 5, 2008 | education, gaming, literacy, media, virtual worlds

There is a great discussion going on over at Shaping Youth (starting with this post and then this one) and Izzy Neis about the possibilities of eco-education in kids’ virtual worlds. I’m so happy to hear this discussion because, as I’ve said before,...

Rheingold draws “maximum” crowd in Second Life

by liam | Apr 3, 2008 | education, gaming, literacy, media, virtual worlds

The auditorium on ISTE Island was packed last night, with a maximum of 74 avatars gathered to hear online community pioneer Howard Rheingold talk about his Social Media Virtual Classroom project. He did that and a lot more. For me, one of the key points of the talk...

Traffic shaping/Net Neutrality on CBC news

by liam | Apr 2, 2008 | education, literacy, media

The big telcoms practice of traffic shaping, controlling how fast your internet connection is, finally makes the news today with this report from CBC. I’m not even sure if that link will work as the CBC site doesn’t let you link directly to videos (!?) You...