education | Liam O'Donnell

Talking Minecraft with Teachers Teaching Teachers

by liam | Aug 23, 2011 | appearances, education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy, media, video games, virtual worlds

Last May, as the school year was winding up, I took part in a great podcast over at Teachers Teaching Teachers to talk about using video games in the classroom. Lucky for you interweb peeps, you can listen to the podcast here. The show centered around the release of...

Messy learning with Minecraft

by liam | May 23, 2011 | education, gaming, literacy, video games, virtual worlds

It’s barely 9:15 in the morning and already two students have fallen down a mine shaft, one burst into flames when he swam through lava and another just killed his best friend with a pork chop. It’s going to be a messy morning but one packed with learning....

Doctorow tells librarians to reject DRM

by liam | Jul 28, 2008 | education, life, literacy, media

Last month I read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and really liked it. Liked it so much that I wrote a review of it for the upcoming issue of Canadian Bookseller Magazine. Little Brother is a YA novel dealing with issues close to Doctorow’s heart (and mine):...

YES Mag features my video game math lessons

by liam | Jul 22, 2008 | education, gaming, literacy, virtual worlds

Last March, I wrote the post Levelling Up: two-digit math in kids’ video games, about how I used experience points and coins in kids’ mmos like Runescape and virtual worlds like Club Penguin to teach my Grade 5 students two-digit math. Writer Cora Lee and...

Writer emerges from Azeroth with news

by liam | Jul 21, 2008 | comics, education, gaming, life, literacy, media, virtual worlds, works in progress, writing news

Ok, so here’s how it goes: Writer announces that he’s delving into World of Warcraft, purely for research purposes 😉 and doesn’t blog for nearly a month. A classic case of gamer widowhood? Not really (honest!) I have been busy and there is much to...