Global Kids' Online Leadership Program

In the afterglow of the launch party, it was time to get back to work. Global Kids was launching the essay contest in two days and we needed Global kids Island to be in place.

We were ready to move the island from the main to the teen grid. To do this, we need help from the Lindens, most often from Blue Linden, the head of the teen grid.

Moving territory in SL isn't like moving a web site from one server to another. For one thing, the move would forever alter who could use it. It was not like moving across a city. It was more like crossing the Iron Curtain or, shall I say, Linden Curtain. This age-defined barrier lets 13-17 year olds into one side and those 18 and older into the other.

So once the move was made no one from the main grid could EVER visit the island and, for the first time, teens could take it over. GK Island would be the first public adult-owned space in the teen grid.

Two Blues are better than one! Blue made his own teen-grid avatar, Blue Gkid, to help us test things out during the move.

Another tricky aspect of moving territory is that, while virtual, it has its own physical properties, which must be respected. Simply put, our plot of land has to be in relationship with its neighboring territories.

As a separate island, we chose not to be connected to the mainland. This gave us more control. Yet I worried how others would find us. Once it was in place it was exciting to see it on the mini-map of the teen grid. It was like Dorothy's house landed in Oz.

(note the cap on Snoopy’s head – a sure sign it is Blue Linden)

At the same time, I, an adult, needed access to GK Island, as did my colleague. To earn this access we had to submit to the same extensive background check required for Linden employees, insuring there were no convicted pedophiles in the bunch.

At the same time, we knew we would not have the same privileges in the teen grid as other residents. For one, we would not be able to leave the island, nor return to the main grid. Like Gilligan, we were trapped. For us it was a privilege to be there at all, to be able to interact with the teens, but when teens later learn of our status they always respond as if we've been punished and feel bad for us. It’s so sweet.

In addition, the official Group association above our name has to announce we are adults. No problem. Teens should know what they are dealing with. However, I forgot the official line and simply made it Certifiable Adult. I liked the pun. In addition I created a new avatar (I would need my old to interact in the main grid) with the new surname created by the students in our gaming program: Barry Gkid.

When I got moved for some reason something went wrong. I ended up in this suburban purgatory until Blue freed me. I never realized how confining and abnormal suburbia is until trapped there in the context of SL's free-flowing landscapes.

Once the island was in place, we had yet to flip the switch that would allow the island to be visible or available to the teen residents. First we wanted to make sure it worked as it had in the main grid.

Long story short, it did not. Almost everything broke. The earth globe rolled out of the lake and off to sea. Access to the volcano cave didn't work. The envelope for submitting completed essays sent them off to a black hole from which they would never return.

Long story short, for over two weeks, deep into the start of the essay contest offline, GK Island was inoperable. It was a nightmare. But every day, Linden employees led by Blue, and the Magicians led by Kim (who had their own background checks), toiled away until the problems were solved. To me, they were all heroes

Nobody had ever tried to do what we had just done, and now everyone can learn from our mistakes:

Mistake 1: GK Island, designed to live in the teen grid, was owned by an adult, Globalkids Bixby, a main grid resident. As a result, our Gkid avatars could not properly access key features for managing the island, like kicking off a disruptive resident, while the absentee land owner, locked out of the teen grid was just as powerless. In short, there was a disconnect between power access and geography created by the Linden Curtain.

Why not just have GlobalKids Bixby transfer ownership to Barry Gkid? It has something to do with "estates". GlobalKids Bixby's account is associated with the main grid estate and Barry Gkid with the teen grid estate. Since the land was designed in the main grid, the owner would have to also be from the main grid estate. Why not make Barry Gkid be a resident in the main grid estate? I would then have power over the land but be unable to communicate with the teens - while I could bring a main grid account geographically through the Linden Curtain, the communication tools would not follow. The solution: create a new main grid avatar, Staff Gkid, move him to the teen grid, and use him strictly for land management tasks.

Mistake 2: The entire island's objects, especially those designed to be given to teen grid residents, were designed and owned by main grid estate accounts. As such, a bat designed to give out a notecard, or a t-shirt, or an iguana, gave out nothing, as an adult account can not give an object to a teen account, even indirectly through a build. The Linden Curtain in action! Solution: Blue, Kim and others painstakingly sold every item to Barry Gkid, who shares the same estate type with the teens.

Trust me. None of this made sense to me at the time, but once it was over I had graduated with a degree in the backend of SL. I had also learned: only let teen grid avatars buy land in the teen grid or build objects that require any form of interaction.

We opened the island for just a few seconds, to test something, and this teen, Veritas Kennedy, teleported over, the Island’s first teen visitor. He/she teleported out almost as soon as arriving. Before long, Blue told me, bootleg Global Kids t-shirts were being passed around the teen grid, in anticipation of the opening.

Towards the end of the process, Kim and I commiserated at her home in the main grid:

• You: hi Kim
• Kim Anubis: Hi, Barry!
• You: How ya doing today?
• Kim Anubis: Well, this project's been a real adventure so far, huh?
• You: Is that an understatement. lol
• Kim Anubis: haha yeah, sure is
• You: It's been insane. If I wasn't already so bald I would have pulled all my hair out
• Kim Anubis: Yeah, that's starting to worry me a bit
• You: But Blue and his folks have been amazing
• You: now we know the two things that SHOULD have been done - the build should have happened in the teen grid and by teen avatars.
• Kim Anubis: We got to be the pioneers on this one
• You: those are the scars we get to proudly wear. :-)

Now that the ISLAND was functioning properly, we still needed to test out if the EXPERIENCE was working. Would teens know what to do once they got there? Could they figure it out? And what role could me and my colleagues play to assist them?

Every few days we opened the island for a few hours to get out the bugs. A Linden would make a grid-wide announcement and the teens would pour in like a pile of rice, one atop another. They would eagerly explore the island and we would watch, insuring that everything worked.

While I was delighted to see our design work properly, we ran into one unexpected glitch: the Linden Curtain was preventing me from interacting with the teens. No IM. No exchanging of objects. No sharing of cards. And to make matters worse, there was no message notifying the initiator that there was a problem. Every IM, object exchange, and card offered to me was met by an indifferent silence, as I never knew it had occurred. What would they think of me?!!

At the same time, all I could use to follow the conversation was the public chat. With twenty or more teens rapidly conversing, the dialogue flew past quicker than I could follow. Before long the entire graphically rich, embodied 3D environment was subsumed by a traditional scrolling chat window, which I frantically tried to read, reply to questions, then scroll back to see what I missed. It was a Sisyphean task.

Between the rudeness of being socially isolated and the exhaustion of being relegated to disembodied group chat, I left the first test distraught. I was upset by the experience, and concerned that without more access this entire SL experiment would be a failure, not just for the essay contest but for any other use by educators.

I wrote up an extensive email explaining the situation to Blue, making my case for the communication features. To be honest, I had little hope. I understood the Linden Curtain and did not expect them to change the code just for us. But lo and behold, it had all been a mistake. We were supposed to have those features in the first place! Blue worked his magic (by changing our Gkid account’s estate setting, I believe) and everything was back to normal. Now I could IM, trade objects and exchange cards with teens. More importantly, I could join the social network and take on a social role, which, in a virtual world, is the only way to be real.

I will never forget the lessons I learned that afternoon, about how essential those tools are for communicating in a virtual world, managing those relationships, and joining the public sphere. Without the ability to isolate and focus communication streams down to a 1-to-1 level, or at least amongst a smaller group, the ordered world is experienced as mere chaos.

The weekend before we officially opened the island 24/7, any concerns I had about teens visiting the island were swept away. Blue had promised me that as soon as the island appeared, the teens would come running. A grid-wide announcement would be announced and promoted in a message received when teens log in. Still, I was not convinced.

During the test runs, we made available the new group, Global Kids, for any teen to join. This would allow us to communicate with those most interested in the island. Just as I could send a single IM to a resident, I could choose to IM the GK group - any resident of the group logged in would get the IM, creating a group-only chat.

Well, that weekend I logged in to check something on the island. It was still closed. But immediately an IM came in. Then another in response. I was confused because it appeared I was arriving mid-conversation. And the topic: when would GK Island open back up. I had forgotten than ANY member of the group could initiate a thread, not just me. I had never imagined anyone would want to. So while I was trapped on GK Island and they were locked out, we could still communicate. And maybe it was a coincidence that I had logged in when I did, but to be listening in on teens talking about ME and MY WORK! well, I knew the buzz had begun and we had reached them.

I asked them how they would describe GK Island. One teen said: Take quizzes, win prizes and have fun. We immediately made it the tag line for the island.