games based learning | Liam O'Donnell

An Overdue Tour of the Multi-School Minecraft Server

by liam | May 4, 2013 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy, media, Teacher's Guide, video games, virtual worlds

Since we launched the Multi-School Minecraft server in early 2012, myself and my GamingEdu pals have received a lot of questions about it. The most common question is usually: “What the heck is the Multi-School server and how does it work?” It can be...

From the Vault: My interview with James Paul Gee from 2004

by liam | Apr 19, 2013 | comics, education, gaming, literacy, media, Teacher's Guide, video games, virtual worlds

Back in 2003, I was a struggling freelance writer with a few graphic novels for kids under my belt. I was pitching articles to magazines, playing a lot of video games and wondering if a career in teaching was for me. That was also when I stumbled upon a newly released...

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...