Global Kids' Online Leadership Program

On Friday, February 12, Global Kids and the National Youth Leadership Council launched "The Salam Project," a month-long effort to support young people to learn about the conflict in Sudan and what they can do to promote peace there. The kick-off event took place in the virtual world of SmallWorlds, where a Sudanese peace activist and two Global Kids youth leaders, spoke about their work to educate others about the conflict and support peace in Darfur. Since then, we've had a great response from the SmallWorlds community to the project.

Most exciting is the "mission" we created to go along with the project, an online game that teaches you about the country of Sudan and the conflict there. Since the launch in February, the Sudan mission has been played more than 8,000 times!

We also launched another mission on service learning which we highly encourage people to play. To get started in SmallWorlds and play both missions, head to the Salam Project website. It's free and only takes a few minutes to register and go in-world!

Continue reading "Update on Salam Project: 8,000 Plays of Sudan Mission in SmallWorlds!" »

Posted by Rik at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Amira Fouad and Rik Panganiban of Global Kids Online Leadership Program will be facilitating a professional development workshop on "Transforming Youth From Social Media Consumers to Creators" on Wednesday, March 17. Here's the full description:

Global Kids has been a leader integrating social media tools within educational programs to develop 21st Century skills since 2000. With the emergence of online media from Youtube to Wikipedia, the new digital generation is presented with opportunities to broadcast their voice in unprecedented ways. In this training, educators will be engaged in hands on activities using social media tools that have educational applications, such as blogs, digital comics, maps and more, and hear about successful case studies from a variety of educational settings.

For more information or to register, please call 212-226-0130 or e-mail pdtrainings@globalkids.org.

Posted by Rik at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Award winning machinima producer, Draxtor Despres' latest video report focuses on using machinima for social good and Global Kids machinima film "Discovered". In it he features interviews with Chris Hall and our own Rik Panganiban.

Posted by joyce at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global Kids is involved in the production of an upcoming HBO documentary called "Meeting Online." We are looking for interesting stories that revolve around connections made on the internet.

If you, or a friend or colleague you know, has met someone online and this relationship deeply affected you, then we want to hear your story. It could be anything from Internet dating to making a significant personal or professional connection. whether that be a best friend that you met through WoW, a long-lost relative you connected with on Facebook, or your life partner you first bumped into in Second Life.

The show will be directed by Emmy Award, Oscar-nominated director Robert Kenner ("Food, Inc.") and produced by Marc Weiss, creator of the critically-acclaimed public TV series "P.O.V."

You can share your Meeting Online stories:

• Submit it to the Meeting Online web site.
• Email your story to stories@meeting-stories.org.
• Submit your story via video to the Meeting Online YouTube channel and add your story as a reply.
• Submit your story via Google Voice.
• Follow WebLab on Twitter and post it with the hashtag #howwemet.
• Join the Meeting Online Facebook group and post it there.

Tell us your story!

Posted by joyce at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a recent post on the blog New Journalism, the educator Paul Allison shares with us a video created by one of his high school youth at East-West School of International Studies. This video featured 10th grader Terrence reading on how Ayiti: The Cost of Life, compares to the MMORPG World of Warcraft online.

You can also view this video directy on New Journalizm.

Posted by joyce at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This Wednesday there will be a second Games-Based Education training! There are only a few spots left, so hurry and register!

A description of the training can be found below:
Since 2002, Global Kids has been a leader in the use of online games to promote global awareness, engaged citizenship, and 21st-Century learning skills. In this training, educators will play games they can use with their youth, create their own game designs, be introduced to free, web-based tools to support students to design their own games, and understand how game play and design can lead to deep learning.

Posted by Krista at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently there have been numerous game focused essays posted to the site Youth Voices comparing various games to Ayiti: The Cost of Life. These comparisons range from World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, Civilization, Animal Crossing, and even traditional card games like Crazy Eights and students reflecting on how the game play compares to Ayiti.

Certainly a site to watch - New Voices is titling itself as "a meeting place where students share, distribute and discuss their digital work online", and was set up by a group of innovative educators from the New York City Writing Project, a chapter of the National Writing Project.

Below is one of the great student comparison reflections. You can read the rest of these essays on Youth Voices here.

Finding Haiti in Wonderland

Not all games are the same. Some are board games played for family fun. Others seem to be designed to arouse young boys' interests. While some are played simply for the enjoyment of having bragging rights. Whatever game it is, the goals are always the same: win and win. We are sucked into the world of winning simply because we are taught that to loseisn 't an option. I'm no different. I too am sucked into this world of needing to win. I'm Alice and I fell down the rabbit hole a long time ago, and frankly, I don't want to come out, because falling feels so good. If winning comes with that feeling then why should i want to stop falling?

Continue reading "[P4K] Youth Compare Ayiti: The Cost of Life to Other Games" »

Posted by joyce at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In January, Global Kids had the opportunity to give three presentations at the Jewish Day School Conference in Teaneck, New Jersey. We had a great time talking about our work with digital media, games and social networks. And apparently our participants got a lot out of it as well.

We just received the results of the post-conference evaluation, and got some nice feedback on our two sessions on "Games Based Learning 101" and "Social Media Production & Constructionist Learning." All of the participants said that they "learned something new" and all but one found our sessions to be "inspiring." Both presentations received a rating of 4.5 out of of a scale of 5!

Among the written comments about us:

• "Loved it! great new ideas even for a participant who is already very knowledgeable about social media."
  
• "Nice conversation around table shared good ideas."

Posted by Rik at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week, Barry, Amira and Rik were thrilled to present with a wide array of partners and colleagues across four different panels at the MacArthur Foundation's first Digital Media and Learning Conference - themed "Diversifying Participation" - held February 18-20 in San Diego, California. Below are videos, Prezi's and youth media referenced within the presentations. [note: This is a work is progress and material will be added as they get uploaded]

The four panels were:
-- Barry and Amira co-presented with Cathy Arreguin, Beth Wellman, and Kelly Czarnecki on "Breaking Boundaries with Virtual Worlds in a Science Classroom and a Teen Jail: Two Case Studies."
-- Barry spoke on the panel "Data Visualization for K-12 Learning."
-- Rik Panganiban co-presented with Common Sense Media and Harvard's Good Play Project "Meeting of Minds: Cross-Generational Dialogue on the Ethics of Digital Life."
-- Barry co-presented with Project New Media Literacy "Mad Skills: Making New Media Literacy practices accessible to educators and students alike."

Continue reading "GK at DML 2010" »

Posted by Barry at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global Kids' Center for Global Leadership proudly presents:

• Infusing Social Action into Your Curriculum: Darfur as a Case Study - Thursday, February 25th
• Games-Based Education - Wednesday, March 3rd and Wednesday, May 12th
• Transforming Youth From Social Media Consumers to Creators - Wednesday, March 17th
• Environmental Service Learning Projects - Tuesday, March 30th
• Creating a Safe Space I: Conflict Resolution - Wednesday, March 31st
• Creating a Safe Space II: Cultural Diversity - Tuesday, April 6th
• Understanding Youth in the Digital Age - Thursday, April 15th
• Developing Global Citizens - Saturday, May 8th
• Interactive Teaching Strategies - Tuesday, May 18th

Please see below for more info and a description of each training or for a complete list of offerings, please click here.

For more information or to register, please call: 212-226-0130 or e-mail pdtrainings@globalkids.org.

Continue reading "[PD] Global Kids' Spring 2010 Professional Development Offerings" »

Posted by joyce at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)