video games | Liam O'Donnell

Teacher’s Guide: Five ways Minecraft (and other video games) can boost student writing skills

by liam | Apr 16, 2012 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy, video games, virtual worlds

With the recent surge of interest in using video games in schools, I’ve been asked a lot about what gaming looks like in my class. I thought I’d share five ways I’ve used video games, like Minecraft, to help boost student success with their writing...

New GamingEdus build big!

by liam | Apr 15, 2012 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy, media, video games, virtual worlds

Our GamingEdus server is growing with new people and it’s been fantastic to see them dive in and get building right away. Both technascribe and darkana82 like their builds BIG and they can build them fast. Check it out: In just a few hours, technascribe had her...

Teacher’s Guide: Organizing student accounts on a school Minecraft server

by liam | Apr 8, 2012 | education, gamebasedlearning, gaming, literacy, media, video games

One of the questions I get asked a lot is how do you organize your students’ accounts for your school’s Minecraft server. There are many ways to do this, but this is the way I organized my students’ Minecraft accounts. I’m sure there are more...

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....