Global Kids' Online Leadership Program

This morning I gave a brief talk about the impending Teen Grid transition that Barry and I have written about. I was at one of the regular Nonprofit Commons meetings in Second Life, talking with about 40 other nonprofit folks facilitated by Glitteractica Cookie of Techsoup.

It was a very positive conversation, with lots of folks offering to help teens as they transition over the Main Grid, support the educators bringing their projects and sims over, and find ways of continuing the various youth-led activities and groups that made the Teen Grid such a special online space. And we had a couple of former Teen Grid residents there to give their views on the transition. Gotta love the spirit of cooperation and generosity that the Nonprofit Commons fosters -- it's the best of what Second Life is.

You can read the chat log from the event after the jump....

Continue reading "Rik Addresses Nonprofit Commons about Teen Second Life Transition" »

Posted by Rik at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Wednesday, August 25, Global Kids was honored to host a screening of the new documentary "Abraham's Children," a series of intimate and frank profiles of ten Muslim-American teenagers in the New York area directed by Nina Froriep. It was a very special night as around 30 people gathered to watch the film, share an interfaith "iftar" meal together, and discuss the film with the director and one of the stars of the film Imran Chaudhri.

We want to acknowledge with gratitude Nina Froriep for allowing us to show the film as a fundraiser for Global Kids. The funds raised will go far towards helping our teens learn about the world around them, connect with people across cultures and serve their communities. (If you weren't able to attend but would like to support Global Kids, see our website.)

We also want to thank the wonderful folks at Chandhi Restaurant, Kalustyan's Market, and Haandi Restaurant for donating all of the delicious food that was served during the iftar meal. Your generosity showed us the true spirit of Ramadan.

More pictures from the evening are on our Flickr set. You can see trailer for the film here and get more information on how you can host a screening of the film or get a copy for yourself at the official website.

Posted by Rik at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This summer we were contacted by Laurel Felt, a Doctoral student at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism who was working on a educational project in Senegal. We were happy to share some of our wisdom and help out her project by sharing resources and thoughts on our Digital Expressions Digital Transcript. Below is a guest post by Laurel detailing the results of this.

Project New Media Literacies' Research Assistant Hillary Kolos and Research Director Erin Reilly recommended that I peruse Online Leadership Program (OLP) Director Barry Joseph’s Using Alternative Assessment Models to Empower Youth-directed Learning. This wonderfully useful, insightful piece introduced me to the Digital Expressions Digital Transcript, a tool that looks like a worksheet with Scout-esque merit badge images of NML skills. In each corner of every triangular badge, there is a letter representing a type of skill mastery - R for Recognize it, D for Do it, T for Talk about it. In a conversation with Barry and Joyce Bettencourt, I learned that OLP instructors evaluate participants’ mastery at project’s end and award badges accordingly.

I wanted to use the Digital Expressions Digital Transcript as a means for participants' assessment of their own progress, envisioning the worksheet as the version of our daily post-tests. By circling the badge corners that best described their sense of NML use and mastery, Sunukaddu-ites could reflect on and take ownership of their learning process.

Continue reading "Sunukaddu - a voice for youth in Senegal" »

Posted by joyce at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life, recently announced that they will be closing their youth-only virtual world Teen Second Life at the end of the year. As one of the educators who runs programs on the "Teen Grid," I was initially quite upset about the news, sharing Barry Joseph's view that this was a sad loss of a youth-run online space.

I have had some time to process the news, and think about the reprecussions for our work at Global Kids. I would say now that the Teen Grid transition has both positive and negative aspects for us and for the teens that we work with. But on the whole, I think it creates more opportunities for Global Kids and the teens in our programs than problems.

But first let's look at the negative repercussions...

Continue reading "Why I'm Excited about the Closure of Teen Second Life" »

Posted by Rik at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are more than proud of our latest Global Kids OLP summer intern Peter Xu. Though his internship is now over, we were delighted to read the press release from his university that spoke of Peter receiving a Watson Fellowship and interning at Global Kids.

"This summer thanks to the Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship, a program that provides on-the-job paid learning opportunities for promising New York City undergraduates, Xu is getting an opportunity to use his technological ability and serve society. Xu works in their Online Leadership Program (OLP), using digital media to design web-based curricula and educational games. He credits this experience with crystallizing his career objective to become an engineer working on green innovations, a position that combines technology with public service."

This release was even picked up by two Chinese newspapers: World Journal and Singtao. Congrats Peter on work well done!

Read the full press release here.

Posted by joyce at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)