media | Liam O'Donnell

My Print on Demand fail is your win

by liam | Dec 13, 2014 | Battle of the Blocks, literacy, video games, writing news

I’m not good a keeping track of stuff. My desk is a collection of piles of papers, books and gadgets that I tell myself is organized into a “system”. But it’s not. It’s just what it looks like: piles of stuff. Being this way is not a...

Minecraft, the paper clip and me

by liam | Sep 21, 2014 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy

This was meant to be a post about using Minecraft Pocket Edition with Grade 1 students. But given the giant paper clip in the room, that post will have to wait.

Instead, I’m going to write about what the recent Microsoft purchase of Minecraft could mean for educators, students and myself. [Click the post title to read more . . . ]

Why I was sad & scared on CBC’s Metro Morning

by liam | Sep 14, 2014 | appearances, gamebasedlearning, literacy

Last Friday morning, I took a detour on my way to school to the CBC building downtown.

I wasn’t lost. I had been invited to chat with Matt Galloway on Metro Morning to discuss, you guessed it, Minecraft.

How those Minecraft books got my students reading . . .

by liam | Aug 1, 2014 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, video games, writing news

[This post originally appeared on GamingEdus.org, but I figured folks dropping by here might like to read it too!] If you’ve been near a young Minecraft fan lately, you’ll know that this year’s must-have items aren’t the creeper hoodies or pink...

How an old idea is kickstarting my new year

by liam | Jan 14, 2014 | literacy, writing news

I have a lot of story ideas. It comes with the territory. Some are good. Some should be taken down to the lake and, y’know . . . Others should be left to simmer in one of my many, many notebooks. While they simmer, they evolve. Sometimes they evolve into...