virtual worlds | Liam O'Donnell

Five Essential Plugins for Minecraft School Servers

by liam | Feb 24, 2013 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy, media, Teacher's Guide, video games, virtual worlds

Last November, the GamingEdus Minecraft server celebrated its first year anniversary. In the time, I’ve learned that running a Minecraft server for teachers and students takes 3 Ps: Patience, Persistence and Plugins. I can’t help you with the first two....

Multi-School Minecraft and the Digital Learning Commons

by liam | Feb 5, 2013 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy, Teacher's Guide, video games, virtual worlds

As you might know, last week I spoke at the Ontario Library Association’s 2013 Super Conference about my GamingEdus Multi-School Minecraft project. It was a lot fun, definitely exciting and I had a chance to talk Minecraft with many great people. But for me, the...

Getting Started in Minecraft: From Zero to Punching Wood

by liam | Feb 1, 2013 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, media, Teacher's Guide, video games, virtual worlds

A few months ago, the GamingEdus team was interviewed about using Minecraft in Education by Seann Dikkers, for an upcoming book on the subject to be published by the University of Ohio. As the interview progressed, it became clear that one of the goals of our...

Talking Minecraft at OLA Super Conference 2013

by liam | Jan 28, 2013 | appearances, education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy, video games, virtual worlds

I do a lot of talking about alternative literacies in education, like graphic novels and video games. On Friday, February 1st, I’ll will be talking Minecraft with my GamingEdu pals at the Ontario Library Association’s Super Conference 2013in Toronto....

Play is the Thing for Gaming Curious Teachers

by liam | Dec 19, 2012 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy, media, Teacher's Guide, Uncategorized, video games, virtual worlds

I regularly receive emails from teachers around the world looking for advice on how to use video games with their students. While each teacher, student and learning environment is unique, my first piece of advice is always the same: Play the game yourself. For fun....