Global Kids' Online Leadership Program

Amira and I were pleased to welcome our RezEd podcast partner DK to the Global Kids offices today, taking advantage of DK's east coast trip from his home in Wales. DK is a fantastic podcast producer, head of the new media company MediaSnackers.

DK was a font of knowledge about various Web2.0 tools to do our jobs more efficiently, from mindmaps to project management to slideshows. Along the way, we recorded a video podcast for MediaSnackers, talking about Global Kids and RezEd.

It's always fun connecting in person with one of our partners. Working via Skype and email has its advantages, but you don't get to sit in the park and eat burgers and fries together, like we did today!

Posted by Rik at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Earlier this month I gave the keynote at the SLEDcc Why Second Life Can't Tip: The Power and Perils of Living La Vida Ludic.

At some point I hope to do a more complete write-up of what I had to say. In the meantime, I came across this segment from a proposal we submitted, probably the first place where I tried to articulate the idea of the Ludic Life and what it means for using Second Life for education. Enjoy.

Second Life is a model of a type of virtual world that lends itself well for education. While Second Life is currently unique among virtual worlds for a number of reasons, a number of recently or soon-to-be released virtual worlds, like Google’s Lively or Metaplace, might soon challenge this uniqueness.

What distinguishes these worlds from others—that they are narrative spaces as opposed to open-ended worlds--is often oversimplified. However, this distinction is misleading, as it suggests that the play, or ludic activities with which “players” engage within a narrative world do not exist within open-ended worlds, where, it is perceived, “residents” merely import the more routine or mundane tasks from their real lives. The very term for people who populate each space further emphasizes this divide; while people in one space “play” those in the other simply “reside”.

But clearly just “residing” is not enough to motivate the emergence of a new medium. To say that one “resides” within Second Life begs the question of how one resides. While it is true that the sort of narrative one might explore within World of Warcraft, such as gathering with others to slay a dragon, is not the sort of activity one might do within Second Life, this is not to say that the ludic sensibilities that inform such a task are absent from an open-ended world like Second Life. In fact, these sensibilities are not only present within Second Life, but they frame Second Life’s defining characteristic: the ability to explore a ludic life.

What is ludic living? It is when play elements sensibilities create the context or inform the methods for engaging in the more routine or mundane aspects of our lives. For example, it is one thing to listen to Kofi Annan while at the Waldorf Astoria as he receives the MacArthur Award for International Justice. But it is quite another thing to watch the same event live in Second Life while floating in the sky, or dressed as a cross between Harry Potter and a Star Trek Borg, or taking photos from the event to add to a blog.

Virtual worlds like Second Life offer us a third space to explore what Eric Zimmerman has labeled the Ludic Century, arguing that we have transitioned beyond the Age of Information to one defined not just by the information available but in how we engage with that information. As he writes:

The 19th century was the industrial age; the 20th century, the age of information. Will the 21st century be the ludic age? If so, how will play becoming the central paradigm through which we see the world change how we learn, socialize, and problem-solve?

These activities and sensibilities are powerful because they offer us an opportunity to move beyond standard thinking and routines. They create spaces where new ideas and relationships can emerge, often in unexpected ways.

Second Life models a new type of virtual world, one which lets individuals and organizations explore the possibilities of the ludic life, not to trivialize information but to reinvigorate it. Nearly every example of the fascinating initiatives found within Second Life—from a non-profit raising money through a mod-your-own Yak Shack to a maze against sex trafficking to a STEM-curriculum that led students through a simulation of garbage-plagued Milan—is marked by this feature.

One could argue that this powerful combination is what drove the initial excitement around Second Life during its roughly 18 months of explosive growth from tens of thousands to millions of registered users. At the same time, one could equally argue that a general discomfort with erasing the wall between ludic and real world sensibilities caused the vast majority of those millions to log-in to Second Life and never return.

In either case, the opportunities to explore the various permutations within Second Life of such ludic living are the same opportunities that make it an attractive space for real world organizations to expand the reach of their work, especially in regards to education. As Global Kids continues work within this broader initiative, we will be watching for the emergence of competitors to Second Life and keep a close watch on how they reproduce and reframe discussions about virtual worlds, digital media, and learning.

Posted by Barry at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You might not have heard about the Cool Kids project for awhile on this blog but we're still up and running! We had a bit of a transition in the group to a new group of teens due some of the former one's turning 18, going home from the facility, or other reasons. This photo is from our initial meeting on the island last week as we got familiar with the basic guidelines of the island and introduced ourselves.

The community issues identified by the Cool Kids last week included: homelessness, neighborhood violence and crime, drug awareness, lack of healthy activities for youth and their interests are: athletics, basketball, eating, and rapping (all interestingly similar to the first group!). The enthusiasm for the group is very high and it's great to have all five participate. They also see each other more as a group during the day, which will help them have time to brainstorm ideas with each other for their venture.

One thing that I noticed last week in regards to the conversation that went on in real life was their awareness of their communication. When one of the guys misspelled something incorrectly, another one joked that his spelling was going to be ruined for life, having been exposed to words that are not spelled right. They also often ask each other before typing how to spell something.

I find this really interesting in how the way they communicate through spelling becomes more a part of representing who they are since it takes part more in a public way than just writing a paper and turning it into the teacher for a class.

I try to make a distinction for them between correct spelling when IM'ing which isn't a big deal as long as the other person understands what they're saying because it's a quick and informal way of communicating compared to something like making a blog entry. If people aren't used to IM'ing and being represented as an avatar, it's interesting to see where the emphasis on how they represent themselves is focused. In Linda Braun's book, Teens, Technology, and Literacy; or, Why Bad Grammar Isn't Always Bad (Libraries Unlimited, 2007), she writes, "When the writing becomes meaningful in a larger context the care and commitment to that writing becomes greater."

I also think it's interesting to see how the representation of themselves is more of a shared activity in that they ask each other for assistance. Again, if one is writing a paper and handing it to the teacher, it's more rare that they would ask one of their peers to look over it before it's handed in part since the perceived audience is just one person. Give them a real time situation where communication through text and representation through an avatar is everything, then it becomes more of a group effort in participation.

Posted by Kelly Eye4You at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seeing some of the enterprise-level distance meeting and videoconferencing technologies at the Web2.0 Expo recently, I've been thinking about what sorts of lessons should be taken away for running effective and emotionally engaging meetings in virtual environments. 

Here's some of my thinking on the matter...

My colleague Joyce and I were wandering around the Web2.0 Expo floor, gawking at all the new tech and hunting for toys to play with.  We wandered in the teleconferencing section of the exhibition floor, where I was immediately attracted to the LifeSize booth.  They had a large conference table set up with four chairs surrounding a sleek-looking conference phone. 

Facing the table were three large HD video screens displaying five life-sized people sitting around a very similar conference table. It took a few seconds for it to register that this was a live image, which became apparent as the people gesticulated to you and started talking to you by name. I soon found out from them that they were LifeSize employees in their Austin, Texas office.

The walls, table, comera angles, and surround-sound audio were set up in such a way that my brain was half-way convinced that these people were actually in the room with me, rather then a 800 miles away.  It was the sensory combination of sight and sound that did it.

The sense of proximity and intimacy was such that after the perfunctory discussions about the technology, we soon had moved on to talking about the best barbeque joints in Austin and best hot dog in New York City.  You could tell a joke and see the body language and facial nuances of who was amused, somewhat offended or confused by it.  In other words, this technology appeared to have a high level of emotional bandwidth.  That's what enterprise-level budgets gets you.

At Global Kids, we use a more consumer-level tech for collaborating remotely, from instant messaging to  conference calls to Skype and iChat video calls.  These work quite well for our purposes, and we're very good at using these tools. But there is also a significant amount of information lost amidst the staticky connections, packet loss, and noisy office environments.

Which brings me to virtual meetings. 

If we are going to tout virtual worlds as places where real work gets done, and people can collaborate remotely, we need to think about how these spaces compare -- favorably and negatively -- to real world meetings.  In a previous blog post, I mused about how they might be possible spaces for activist organizer collaboration.  What I didn't talk about was the affective, psychological side of face-to-face versus virtual meetings.

Face-to-face meetings involve a lot of explicit and tacit information that is being passed back and forth among the participants simultaneously. I.e.

• Where people sit or stand: can communicate who is in charge, committed, opposed, checked-out, a newcomer.
• Eye contact: Eye gaze can indicate a challenge, a flirtation, a warning, boredom.
• Body language: slouching versus sitting straight up, fidgeting, tapping your pen
• Physical contact: a hand-shake, a high-five, a pat on the back
• Voice tone and volume: whispering to just the person next to you, shouting until the ceiling tiles vibrate
• Dress: A three-piece suit versus business casual versus clubwear

What was so impressive about the video-conferencing tech I saw at the Web2.0 Expo was that a lot of this tacit information seemed to be possible to transmit across distances, along with the actual explicit content of the meeting. 

Similarly, many of these things can be currently simulated in virtual environments. Your avatar can be seated or standing, can be near the boss or at the back of the room.  You can dress your avatar like a goth vampire or a polynesian warrior or just like you.  Your voice can be projected into the room from your computer, and you can hear others voices surround you if you have a good enough speaker setup.

But generally you can not control very much about where your avatar is looking.  Your "body language" is indicated more by the sit animation of the chair you are currently inhabiting rather than any mood or attitude you feel.  You might run into another avatar, not as a sign of aggression but simply because your internet connection is flaky.

All of these things lead up to the feeling that the virtual meeting you have does not feel quite as real or psychologically relevant as a face-to-face meeting, and not as a engaging as a videoconference.

For some applications this is hardly an issue.  If you are attending a lecture, you are probably more attentive to the information being imparted more than having an intimate connection with the speaker.

But for other scenarios, the lack of emotional bandwidth might present a real problem.  I.e. a meeting where you are trying to convince three different parties with competing interests to work together and share information.  Or a new initiative that you are presenting to your board for approval.  Or a management check-in you are engaging in with your project team that hasn't met their latest deadline.  These all require a certain amount of buy-in and trust that would probably be a lot harder to get to outside of a face-to-face meeting.

Which is not say that it can't be done.  But it is harder and can take longer the less tacit information is exchanged between people.

I can't (yet) ask your avatar to look me in the eyes and promise you'll complete the project by the end of the week.  Your avatar can't lean forward and shake my hand and tell me that it'll be done.  That's what face-to-face meetings are for.

Posted by Rik at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Encore.org featured a wonderful article that focused on GK's own Executive Director and Founder Carole Artigliani. In the post ENCORE JOURNEY: From women's history to Global Kids, Jenny Griffin the author, Interviews Carole and tells the story of the path that she took that led to the creation of Global Kids.

To mark the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the nonprofit Global Kids, has launched Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City to showcase the disaster’s heroes and reinforce emergency preparedness.

Just a few years ago, the virtual reality technology used in the game and Web site would have been alien to Carole Artigiani, 67, executive director of Global Kids and a Purpose Prize fellow.

A career path that once seemed incongruous now makes sense to her. “It wasn’t always as obvious to me as it is now, looking back on my life. Three dimensions were coming together: my background as an educator, my experience in social and political movements, and my passion for the issues in our country and the world,” Artigiani said.

Global Kids focuses on global education, civic engagement and academic enrichment for public school students in New York City’s underserved communities, making them aware of pressing international and foreign policy issues.

Her path to her current encore career was a long and winding road. Here early career included teaching and a number of starts at graduate school. She got engaged, her husband was drafted, she had kids, and her husband was transferred.

She thrived when she returned to school, earning a master’s degree in women’s history. In graduate school she wrote her thesis on what she calls “second tier” women activists in Connecticut who were working on issues including anti-child labor, the promotion of nursery schools, public education, birth control rights and education.

She spent eight satisfying years at Sarah Lawrence College as a part-time administrator of the women’s history program.

An itch for something new propelled Artigiani out of her comfortable post. She was persuaded by a friend to take a part-time job working at the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) in New York City. The organization’s president suggested she find a way to educate high school students about world affairs. That grew into Global Kids, which Artigiani founded in 1989.

It was tough at the start. “I had no idea how to do this,” Artigiani remembered. But gradually she drew people of different backgrounds together and learned how to be a leader. “It was a matter of learning by doing,” she explained.

A breakthough came eight years ago, when Global Kids received a grant to bring in a technology expert, with a guaranteed salary for two years. Employees started experimenting with games and engaging kids in online dialogue.

Six months after 9-11, they created an international online dialogue among young people about their current thoughts and responses to the tragedy. The project generated media attention, and Global Kids began receiving grants, starting with the Surdna Foundation. “We’ve been very lucky,” Artigiani acknowledged.

This week the organization will issue the Global Kids Second Life Curriculum, which contains 164 lesson plans to help teachers use Second Life in both formal and informal educational settings.

Artigiani has come to see games as an ideal 21st century vehicle for illustrating global issues and challenges. For example, another Global Kids game, Ayiti: The Costs of Life, helps players experience the obstacle of poverty to education in Haiti, the home country of a number of students who designed the game.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I’d be doing what I’m doing now,” she says.

Posted by joyce at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RezEd Podcast, Episode 15- Co-Founder of Dizzywood and Elementary Principal on using the virtual platform in educational settings

(WORLD) The fifteenth RezEd podcast, produced by MediaSnackers with Global Kids.

Speaking with Scott, one of the founders of Dizzywood and also Patti, the principal of Bel Aire Elementary School who has been using the virtual platform in an educational setting.

Show Notes:

0.00—0.24 intro
0.25—2.59 RezEd news from Amira and Rik at Global Kids (any news or events can be submitted here)
3.00—3.25 intros to Scott and Patti
3.26—4.29 explanation of Dizzywood
4.30—6.29 why Dizzywood exists
6.30—7.33 how Bel Aire Elementary School got involved
7.34—9.46 what the school used the virtual platform for
9.47—12.22 lessons learned
12.23—13.21 educational gains
13.22—14.44 future use and developments
14.45—16.32 future for Dizzywood
16.33—16.39 thanks
16.40—18.28 Amira and Rik detailing the upcoming events for the RezEd community (any news or events can be submitted here)
18.29—18.37 outro

To read the abridged version of the transcription, click here.

Download the episode here.

Subscribe Now!

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To subscribe directly through iTunes:

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Posted by joyce at 2:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

About a year ago, I wrote about GK teens assisting the Pew Internet and American Life Project in developing a survey about the effects of game play in young peoples' lives. On Monday, I got an email from Amanda Lenhart of Pew letting me know that the results of the survey, the first comprehensive study on teen gaming habits and their relationship to civic life, has just been released.

From the report, which can be downloaded here [pdf]:

The first national survey of its kind finds that virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.

There are many juicy tidbits in it; my favorites talk about how there is positive correlation between kids who play games with others in person and civic outcomes, as well as results that show that teen gamers that get involved in commenting on gaming websites and discussions boards are more engaged civically and politically than their peers that don't.

This is an incredibly powerful and important report, and has already helped shift the conversation in the media about what role video games play in the lives of youth. On CBS Evening News this week, Connie Yowell of the MacArthur Foundation and Amanda Lenhart from Pew spoke about the report's findings. Check out the clips below:

Connie Yowell on CBS Evening News
Amanda Lenhart on CBS Evening News

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

My billboard is literally of "world peace". Why? Because we need it! My article was about religious people confronting Obama and trying to get his support for peace in two Middle Eastern countries. It's sad how these two countries fight because of their religious differences. That's why the religious people are confronting Obama; because no one should strife over religious affairs.

--WarriorGal

Posted by vvp JessyJo at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We got a great mention recently on the Second Life Education blog about not only the release of our GK Second Life Curriculum, but on our latest RezEd podcast episode. Thanks Scott!

Um, two things, pilgrims:

The Global Kids Second Life Curriculum (three handy freely downloadable .pdf files) may be picked up at RezEd now and I’m tickled to be about to open up my copies right after I hit the “Publish” button on this post. Go get yours.

Secondly, you can be downloading those documents at the same time you’re listening to Sarah (Intellagirl Tulley) Robbins’ marvelous interview at the RezEd podcast number 14. I’m roflmao at her clearing up some general misconceptions about Second Life’s demographic. “About time,” says your resident oldie. Ditto about her chiding corporations who plowed money into SL without critical thought about their investment or the most effective use of the platform for best return on implementation. “That’s not Second Life’s fault: It’s your fault! ‘Cause you didn’t do it right!” Heheheheeee.

Kudos to Intellagirl and to the GK folks for all their hard work!

Cheerio!
Written by Scott Merrick

You can also read the full post here.

Posted by joyce at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Since Barry Joseph's keynotes at the two recent conferences, Virtual Worlds LA and SLCC, and the announcement of the release of GK's Second Life curriculum, we have been getting a lot of buzz lately in the blogosphere.

Some of the sites talking:

• A post on Caleb Booker's site focusing on business and virtual worlds site here.
• Kelly (from Eye4You Alliance) blogged about us and gave a shout out to Barry's SLCC talk too here.
• The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch posted an article here.
• HASTAC blogged about the release of our SL Curriculum here.
• The blog Second Life Update featured a post on the curriculum here.

Posted by joyce at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The screenshot here is kind of hard to parse so let me describe it. A young person (represented by the green furry) in Teen Second Life is composing a text message to send to another teen in Uganda that she will recieve on her cell phone as an SMS message.  Meanwhile my avatar (the purple robot) sits atop the chat history represented by floating text and blue bubbles that rise higher as each new message is sent.  This remarkable exchange from the virtual world to a regular cell phone is made possible by the grey device behind the bubbles, a tool we call "Switchboard."

A little background after the jump...

Today Shawna and I organized a very special workshop and discussion on AIDS in Africa.  About a dozen teens converged on Global Kids Island in Teen Second Life to participate in the event.

To begin the workshop component, the teens brainstormed what they already know about HIV/AIDS. We compiled a series of facts about the effects of the virus as well as how it can both spread and be prevented.

With this background information in mind, the teens split into pairs to participate in a role play. The setting was the International AIDS Conference that took place in Mexico City last month. While no major breakthroughs were announced, the focus was on developing practices including behavior modification for fighting HIV/AIDS in the long haul. The teams took on the roles of four countries around the world -- Uganda, Brazil, Thailand and Britain -- that have taken very different approaches to stopping the spread of AIDS. Each team then put together and shared a brief presentation to the "conference", sharing their challenges and successes with their respective approach.

The teens discussed that there are many ways to help prevent HIV/AIDS that they highlighted in their presentations and that one additional way is to raise awareness by getting to know someone who has been affected in some way in their own life.

To give the issue a more human face, we introduced the teens to Victoria, a 17-year old girl living in Kampala, Uganda who lost her father to AIDS when she was very little and whose mother is bedridden with the disease as well.  We found Victoria through Concern for the Future, a Ugandan NGO that "locates forgotten children with innate talents and molds them into leaders." Normally Victoria would not be able to communicate with these tech-enabled teens.  So we employed a new tool that we had developed called Switchboard that can exchange text messages between a standard cell phone anywhere in the world and avatars in Second Life. 

Switchboard is built on top of the amazing SLOODLE e-learning platform. It works by basically parsing and routing messages using the the SMS text protocol and the Second Life open chat protocol. A web interface allows the moderator to see incoming messages and choose whether or not to forward them to the cell phone user or not. Switchboard works both in the Teen Grid and the Main Grid, and supports any cell phone in the world that can send and receive SMS text messages.

Here's some snippets from the metaversal conversation between Victoria and the TSL teens:

Justin in TSL: Hi Victoria my name is Justin, i just wanted to say Hi and ask, was it hard for you to find out about how your dad died?

SMS from Victoria in Uganda: hi, ya it was coz i was very young. my mum told me later.

Lee in TSL: Hi Victory, my name is Lee, I wanted to know what I could join to help fight against AIDS?

SMS from Victoria in Uganda: hi, u can donate anything 2 help ppl 2 teach others esp de young generation.

Victoria in TSL: Hi Victoria! My name is also Victoria and I was wondering what you would like to see change in your country to help reduce the spread of HIV?

SMS from Victoria in Uganda: teaching ppl esp de young generation, helping not 2 spread it etc. I will email them 4 u.

It was a short and terse conversation, given the bandwidth limitations of SMS text messaging to and from Africa.  But hopefully it helped frame the issue more personally for our teens and help Victoria to know that there were others outside of Uganda who knew about her story and wanted to help fight AIDS worldwide.

This is just the first public trial of this innovative mash-up technology.  Once we work out the kinks, we plan to release the scripts and web moderation system behind it for others to use in their own work. Thanks to everyone who participated in this experiment!

Posted by Rik at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John Palfrey from the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School wrote a recent article review on “The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning” publication which was edited by game designer and educator Katie Salen and was part of the MacArthur/MIT Press’s Digital Media and Learning series and included essays by Barry Joseph.

Barry Joseph, director of Global Kids, Inc., wrote the concluding essay on "treating games as a form of youth media within a youth development framework." His notion of game design as an element of making meaning through the creation of structures is a great addition to the thinking on semiotic democracy that I think is so crucial in this literature. His theory is well-grounded in experiences he's had with Global Kids, working with teachers and students and corporate supporters, which gives the piece an important series of links to reality that is often missing from our scholarly literature - without giving up the theoretical side.

Salen, Ito, Ondrejka, and Joseph's essays, among others in the book, led me to a conclusion out of the book: in some contexts, great forms of learning may come for some students using well-designed games, primarily of the construction genre. There's not yet sufficient evidence here, in my view, to turn over our entire educational system to games and virtual worlds, but there's plenty to learn from what some young people are doing in these environments during school time and otherwise.

Read the full article here.

Posted by joyce at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The D.I.D.I. Initiative is excited to announce that after extensive work on the teen grid since September 2007, we are excited to expand our efforts to the main grid this fall!

The Dream It. Do It. Initiative is an exciting partnership between Global Kids and Ashoka’s Youth Venture, open to young people and student groups in Second Life. Through January of 2009, the D.I.D.I. Initiative is supporting up to 40 teams of young people to launch ventures that benefit their communities, either within or outside the virtual world of Second Life.

D.I.D.I. empowers young people to identify social and health issues in their communities and to create and lead their own social ventures to address these issues. A venture can be a club, organization, business, or program that is ongoing and benefits one’s community in some way. With the D.I.D.I. Initiative’s support, each team of young people develops an action plan to design and launch their own social entrepreneurial projects. When the teams are ready to launch, the Initiative offers:

* Seed funding (up to $1,000 per team)
* Technical allies to provide additional advice and expertise
* Ongoing tools and support sessions

Over the last several months more than a dozen teams on the teen grid have been selected to receive venture funding. Venture ideas are varied with the majority of teens planning ventures to benefit their Teen Second Life community. Examples include:

* Raising awareness of human rights campaigns
* Creating interactive human body health rides that teach visiting users about the risks of smoking and drugs
* Combating bullying and cyber-bullying while raising self-esteem
* Creating peer support centers for teens who are new to Teen Second Life or may have disabilities.

With your help, we hope to launch 40 teams of young Venturers over the next four months. We would like to reach as many young people across the U.S. as possible with this exciting initiative, and hope you will join us.

If you are a young college-aged resident of Second Life or an educator working with young people on SL's main grid you are invited to attend one of our info sessions to be held at the Global Kids HQ in Second Life at the following times:

*Thursday 9/18, 1pm PDT
*Thursday 9/18, 6pm PDT
*Friday 9/19, 12pm PDT

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teaching/222/165/24

If you are a teen who will be transferring to the Main Grid soon, you can email meghan@globalkids.org or IM Meghan GKid (TSL) to learn how to get involved!

Posted by Meghan at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City was just awarded the
Editor's Choice Award from Children's Technology Review. Children's Technology Review (CTR) is an ad-free, subscriber-supported web and print-based publication. It is designed to keep educators, parents and librarians informed on commercial interactive media products designed for children, aged birth- to 15-years. The review appears in the September issue.

Posted by joyce at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kelly Czarnecki writing for the School Library Journal online, covered the 2008 Technology Summit including mentioning our own Meghan Deana's presentation there.

Digital Youth Wired for Action - 2008 Technology Summit Report...

Also speaking was Meghan Deana of Global Kids’ Online Leadership Program, which integrates a youth development approach and international and public policy issues into youth media programs with the goal of building digital literacy, develop resources for educators, and promote civic participation. Deana shared some of the program’s successes working with at-risk students in New York City, such as Playing 4 Keeps, where teens research and develop socially conscious video games; classes on machinima; creating videos using the graphics from video games; and science classes taught in the virtual world of Second Life.

Read the full article here.

Posted by joyce at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Judy Sashik of the DigiForce G blog had a great write up of her thoughts on Ayiti and education.

Now THIS Is What We Mean!!

Weaving great game design and development into real (read: in the standard curriculum) learning is not easy - but it is being done more and more as game development tools are provided to our students. A powerful project, Ayiti: The Cost of Life , is provided by Microsoft via the Microsoft Corporations US Partners in Learning and designed in collaboration with the Global Kids’ Playing 4 Keeps program and a group of students at South Shore High School in Brooklyn, NY.

Here's a game that ties great game play to insights and understanding on an issue that impacts our world (and many of the students who play) every day. Read the full article here. Give the game a try - and better yet, share it with some students and sit back to absorb their comments, reactions and opportunity for discussion.

The biggest design challenge was creating a game that realistically and sensitively illuminated the challenges posed by poverty in daily life (specifically, in the pursuit for the global right to an education) but that was still truly enjoyable and satisfying to play. Extending this challenge, it was imperative that the game be replayable such that each session would expose to the player more of the subtleties of the relationships between the different underlying economies. The economies of the game are balanced with such guile that at first the game seems unbeatable. We assure you, though, there are ways to keep your entire family healthy and happy and educated!

Global Kids is a nationally recognized leader in using digital media to promote global awareness and youth civic engagement. Global Kids'Online Leadership Program (OLP) integrates a youth development approach and international and public policy issues into youth media programs that build digital literacy, foster substantive online dialogues, develop resources for educators, and promote civic participation.

Read the post here.

Posted by joyce at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday at Global Kids, we did a team-building activity called "The 2008 Street Fair: The Fall Collection."  Organized by my colleagues Dominique and Sandip, the game was actually quite challenging and nuanced.  We divided up into five teams of about eight people, who were each given a bag containing two items. The rules were as follows:

1. Take the two items and barter with people on the street to come back with at least ten items.
2. You must barter with people, they must be the result of an exchange of actual goods by mutual agreement.  (i.e. no free goods, found goods, stolen goods, etc.)
3. After 45 minutes of bartering, come back to the office and assemble the items into some kind of "found art" exhibit.
4. Explain to the other groups the "narrative" of your exhibit.

I was skeptical that this game was going to succeed, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.  And I got to use my knowledge of geek culture to good effect to help our team complete the challenge.

In our bag we had two items: an "Obama for President" pin and a grapefruit.

Here's a video of one of the people we encountered on the street, who exchanged the Obama pin for a dime that he bent with his mental powers.  Along the way, he performed some impressive sleight-of-hand magic.

We had a couple of unsuccessful encounters with young people on the street, who didn't have much on their persons that they could exchange, and didn't really want our grapefruit.  Who would?

I realized that the key to the challenge was to find someone who had a lot of stuff that they wanted to offload on people for free.  When we passed a comic book store on 23rd Street I knew what to do.

My colleague Savith and I walked up to Cosmic Comics on 23rd and Broadway. It's a really nice shop that is worth a visit if you are in the area. When we walked in, the two employees were busy arranging some boxed comics into storage shelves.  One of them approached me and asked if he could help us find anything.

"Hi, we're from a non-profit called 'Global Kids' which is just a couple of blocks from here," I began my pitch. "We're doing a teambuilding exercise where we are supposed to walk around the city and barter goods with people we meet.  I was wondering if you had anything in the store that you might be willing to part with that we could exchange for this dime?"

"Oh you should have been here last week," the comic book guy explained. "We had a lot of free stuff to give away then. But let me look around."

"We'll take anything you have," I replied. "Flyers, posters, a sample comic book, whatever."

After a quick negotiation, I got the employees to pull out of storage not just one item, but a gigantic stack of about 100 old comic books.  I actually knew that this was likely to happen since comic book stores often have the problem of what to do with out-of-date but not popular comic books.  Older comics take up space that could be used to sell more high value newer comics.  In essence, they cost money to store without adding value. 

Savith and I carried our stash down to our shocked teammates.

We then used the comic books to barter for more stuff in Madison Square Park, which is a lot more attractive than an old grapefruit, let me tell you.  In the end, we came back to the office with a wide range of neat stuff, from energy drinks to vitamins to hair conditioner.

What this exercise taught me is that if you have the right approach, people are happy to offer you what they have.  Because I'm a comic geek, I felt comfortable approaching a couple of other comic geeks and ask them for help.  If I could cultivate that same confidence and friendliness toward other people, who knows what kind of exchanges might happen?

Posted by Rik at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Young Adult Library Services Association featured Barry in a recent episode of their podcast series.

In this podcast Linda Braun talks with Barry Joseph and Amira Fouad (of Global Kids and RezEd) about topics related to teens, gaming, education, and virtual worlds.

Download the YALSA Podcast #54 - Global Kids & RezEd podcast mp3

Posted by joyce at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During the Los Angeles Virtual Worlds conference, Global Newswire picked up the release of our new SL curriculum in their Public Affairs Newsline.

NEW YORK, Sept. 2, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On September 3rd, Global Kids' Online Leadership Director Barry Joseph will speak to leaders in digital media and education at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Joseph will showcase the launch of Global Kids Second Life Curriculum -- the most significant resource in 2008 for those educators interested in incorporating virtual worlds into their classrooms.

The conference, on the theme of The Future of Media and Communications, will take place on September 3rd and 4th and feature such keynote speakers as Collin J. Parris, Ph.D., Vice President of Digital Convergence at IBM Research; and Steve Parkis, Senior Vice President of Disney Online.

Global Kids Second Life Curriculum, available the first week of September at RezEd.org, contains over 160 lesson plans for teaching the basics of Second Life, whether in a classroom, a library, or at home. The curriculum is available at no cost and is designed to be adaptable by practitioners for a variety of uses, from teaching science, to literature to global studies.

Joseph will also preview the first seasonal report from the 1000-member strong RezEd, Global Kids' new hub that provides a network, curriculum, and resources for educators incorporating virtual worlds into their work. The seasonal report summarizes the cutting edge activities and discussions of educators in the RezEd community, including a range of MacArthur Foundation grantees. This inaugural report will offer a special feature on Ethics and Virtual Worlds shown to the public for the first time by a team from Harvard University's GoodPlay Project. The report will also highlight activities on commercial platforms like Second Life and on educational ones like Quest Atlantis.

In 2006, following extensive research into the educational potential of virtual worlds, Global Kids became the first nonprofit to develop a dedicated space for conducting programming in the virtual world of Teen Second Life (TSL). Within TSL, the organization has established Global Kids Island, which hosts interactive, experiential programs for teens from around the world. Specifically, Global Kids is conducting intensive leadership programming for youth, bringing youth from its New York-based programs into the space, and streaming the audio and video of major events into the world.

Read the full post here.

Posted by joyce at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's Rafi Santo giving his feedback to Linden Lab during a session today in Tampa at the Second Life Community Convention on how to improve Second Life for educators.  Claudia Linden was there carefully taking notes of everyone's comments during this feedback session.  It's great to see a concrete example of how that the Linden gods are listening to the educator community in SL.

Posted by Rik at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Beyers Sellers, Professor at Johnson School at Cornell University and host of the popular "Metanomics" talk show in SL, gave a really neat keynote address on “Why Johnny Can’t Rez.” Beyers addressed the difficult issue of how to convince your higher-ups and colleagues to support your virtual education project. It was a nice capstone to the addresses by Intellagirl Tulley and Barry Joseph on education in SL.  Beyer’s main message was that to get your administrator to release the pursestrings to fund your virtual world education project, you need to help them fulfill the goals of the institution.

My notes on Beyer's talk follows...

Beyers described the three basic questions to answer for your administrator are:

1. How does this help me accomplish my goals or the goals of my institution?
2. Why are VW’s the best way of accomplishing those goals?
3. What are the costs and risks?

1. How does this help me accomplish my goals or the goals of my institution?

It’s important to frame your approach based on the goals of your administrator. Get the documents that frame the institutional goals, get the history of that process, and find out what the administrator wants to do personally.

2. Why are VW’s the best way of accomplishing those goals?

What is it that VW’s are particularly good at in comparison to competition (i.e. a RL classroom, another online solution). I have identified three:

a. Presence in Place:

• SL offers synchronous communications with presence. Avatars provide for a lot of non-verbal communication.
• You can pitch this to a marketing dept well.  VW’s are closer to a personal connection. They allow people to share an appearance.
• Example: At my institution, we have an interest in connecting them to the space of the campus.  SL is good at accomplishing that.
• Example: Another group working on a “Virtual Congress” : replicating the Congress building, congressional offices and K Street where all the lobbying happens.
• Serendipity: the possibility that someone might be in the same space as me and we meet. That won’t happen in a webinar.

b. Constructive Cacaphony

• SL provides many avenues of communication and they can all happen at once. This can be overwhelming, but also very rich: i.e. speaker to audience, audience to speaker, IM, public chat, links, etc.
• This has the potential to make the virtual experience BETTER than real life.

c. Creative Collaboration

• SL offers possibilities for collaborative work that is unique and powerful.  I.e. avatar creation, machinima, games creation.
• Example: Wikitecture : collaborative architecture
• Example: Peggy Sheehy’s work on narrative

3. What are the Costs and Risks?
It is very unlikely that your VW project is going to be mission critical to your institution.  It’s likely to be extending something that you already do, but doing it better or cheaper.  You want to argue that it is cost effective and not too risky.

Costs:

• In a virtual conference, we found that the organizer wasn’t going to save a lot of money compared to a physical conference.  Conference organizers typically pay for the room, food, drink, etc.
• Where are the savings? Largely in eliminating airfare and hotel costs, which helps the attendees, not the organizers.
• Going to a virtual conference entails costs.  It might involve bringing people into a VW.  The organizers need to support these people to get them to come to your conference.
• We need to make the case to everyone: the organizer, the speaker and the attendees.  And we need to shift those costs around in ways that make sense.
• You can also argue the environmental cost of a conference – more green, responsible.
• For international conference an SL conference becomes more attractive
• Focus on educational projects that you can do over and over that rely upon the same resources.  Do not just one conference but a series of workshops, courses, or meetings.  So you can reuse resources.

Risks:

1. Tech Can Be Unreliable – we have redundancy built in to any tech that we use.
2. Inappropriate Behavior – lock down your sim if you have concerns about how certain attendees will behave.
3. Risk to Reputation -- You can insist on dress codes, behavior rules, etc.  IBM has great policies about this.

Recommendations for reducing perceived risk:

• You don’t have to use the name “Second Life” right up front, which can have negative connotations for some administrators. Use a term like  “a synchronous immersive online environment.”
• Let decision makers get familiar with virtual environment in a controlled way.  Show successes that others have had.  Get them inworld in low risk settings. 
• Pull off a small project that provides a short term win. 

Posted by Rik at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RezEd Podcast, Episode 14- Sarah

(WORLD) The fourteenth RezEd podcast, produced by MediaSnackers with Global Kids.

Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins, PhD Candidate at Ball State University and editor of the Second Life Education blog.

Show Notes:

0.00—0.24 intro
0.25—2.10 (with special intro from participants at the Second Life Education Community Conference) RezEd news from Amira and Rik at Global Kids (any news or events can be submitted here)
2.21—3.15 Sarah Robbins intro
3.16—5.21 history of educational practice in Second Life and virtual worlds
5.22—7.16 manifestation of community
7.17—9.20 SLED blog
9.21—8.00 how virtual platforms impacted on learning
11.00—13.54 potential
13.55—15.09 challenges of using virtual worlds
15.10—17.44 trends and shifts
17.45—15.50 future
19.12—19.21 thanks
19.22—21.04 (with special outro from delegates at the Second Life Education Community Conference) Amira and Rick detailing the upcoming events for the RezEd community (any news or events can be submitted here)
21.05—21.13 outro

To read the abridged version of the transcription, click here.

Download the episode here.

Subscribe Now!

Subscribe to RezEd.org Podcast Series

To subscribe directly through iTunes:

Add to iTunes

Posted by joyce at 2:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arturo Morales is an historian we met while in San Miguel. He taught us a lot of history about Mexico and connected most of it to the US. We learnt a wide range of things. We stared off talking about the independence of Mexico in 1810-1821. Even though his accent was strong we were able to comprehend every word and cover a lot of topics.
Mr. Morales seemed very galvanized about the fact that six student of different nationalities and schools that all live in New York, would be highly interested in what I'd like to call the authentic history of Mexico. I saw this through the way he wanted to enrich our knowledge of the history and at the same time slowly covered them so each point would be saturated in our minds.
We really did a lot of work in covering a lot of topics and took the time to listen with in enthusiasm. Some topic we covered, just to name a few were; Mexico's independence(1810-1821) Conspiracy in San Miguel (1810), USA invasion (1821-1846), French invasion (1862-1867), Social Revolution (1910-1920), Presidentialism (1934-1999), URSS-launch first atomic bomb (1949) and the Olympics in Mexico (1968).

Posted by Kemar HRAP at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Philip Rosendale and Mark Kingdon (i.e. Philip and M Linden) of Linden Lab gave a friendly breakfast talk for Day Two of the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, Florida.  Philip is of course always good on the stump, speaking fancifully about the potential for Second Life for distance meetings, international cultural exchange and even space exploration.  Mark was more grounded, speaking about Linden Lab’s priorities for the coming year, including improving stability, creating a better new user experience, opening up the grid, and supporting the business and educational activities in SL better.

It was almost embarassing that Global Kids got two shout-outs from the podium this morning, Mark talking about how he gets “choked up” every time he thins about his experience visiting our office!  I’m proud of our work, and its great seeing it recognized by the higher ups at Linden Lab.

Posted by Rik at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The magazine Children's Technology Review has not only published an excellent review of Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City with one week of its launch - "It is easy to play and has a valuable educational message... a good game for teachers to bookmark" - but awarded it an Editor's Choice Award as well. Check it out!

Posted by joyce at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chang Liu, of the Vital Lab, Ohio University, gave a really interesting presentation on the “STEAM Project”, which stands for Science and Technology Enrichment for Appalachion Middle-schoolers.  The project was an effort to create various learning games to help teach science to middle-school children.

The technologies they used included Second Life, Flash and a custom-built game engine.  Chang demoed two of their Second Life games, a fruitfly genetics game and a “mystery” game that taught kids about scientific inference and observation.  I liked how they built a web-based interface for the teacher to use to change questions in the SL questionnaire on the fly, as well as monitor the kid’s answers via a web-based database.

Chang noted that they have made their games available open to any kid on the Teen Grid to play on their island, and that they plan on looking into an OpenSim solution to distribute the games more widely.  His colleage Andy told me that the LSL scripts they used to create the HUD and the games is visible and usable by other educators as well, which is a great way to scale out their work.

Looks like a really neat project that might have interesting lessons that we can compare to Global Kids “Science in Second Life” project that we did last year.

Posted by Rik at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Claudia and Pathfinder Linden gave a fairly casual and friendly opening welcome session this morning to start off the Second Life Community Convention and the Second Life Education Community Conference, at the Marriott in Tampa, Florida.  Some quick notes:

• Claudia announced that Linden Lab is working with ISTE on a new pilot program for educators that you can sign up to participate in at this URL: http://SecondLifeGrid.net/programs/education
• Pathfinder mentioned that anyone can request a speaker from Linden Lab to visit a university or organization to talk about using Second Life in the classroom or corporate environment.  The URL to request a speaker is http://lindenlab.com/pressroom/speaker.
• Pathfinder noted that he view SL from a biological point of view, as an ecosystem.  He challenged educators to think about connecting with people outside of your sphere of expertise, in corporate, non-profit, arts and health care fields. As an example, he described a collaboration between Boston University, Emerson University, the city of Boston and other local groups to use SL to help real world residents in Boston to improve their community: the Hub2 project.
• Claudia explained that she writes an “education report” that gets distributed internally at Linden Lab.  She shares a lot of the projects that she hears about.  She asked that people share with her their projects, as well as their problems and issues with using Second Life for education.
• On Sunday at 11:30am, there will be a feedback session on “What would Educators Like to See in the Next 1-3 Year Time Frame?” where we can speak directly with Linden Lab reps.

Posted by Rik at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, I was back at the GK office and had a presentation with Tabitha in Second Life. I had to answer some short questions. People were fascinated about this great program. I guess I was a great help to Tabitha. I'm glad \
Since I couldn't go to college this year, I should try next fall. But no way I will just sit on my behind and do nothing. I will produce more portfolio work and take the SAT.

Well anyways just to refresh minds, my name is Mathew, I'm 19 years old and I'm Hispanic. I graduated from Aviation High School in New York City this year. Since last year, I was introduced to this program by my teacher, and applied for it. I was accepted and attended the program twice a week from late October to late June. It was my first time in Second Life that time. It was confusing for me to use, especially I didn't know how to use the features

So far I enjoy customizable avatars, usable items, creative object and different communication methods. It really feels like you do have a second life, literally. I was excited while producing a movie. But I felt like I should have done better with my team producing the parts of the movie. I learned that it's easier in Second Life to socialize and have better communication while having fun than just reading words only like instant message (ex. AIM, MSN IM).
Instead of making a movie in real life, in second life, we don't have to struggle creating characters, objects, settings and other movie requirements. Also, it’s priceless to make a movie in second life unless priced items or object are needed.

Using the Internet, we did some research about racism and education. After some great references were found, we created realistic stories that related to the topic and the reference about racism in education. Scripts were made, then we had to edit appearance of the avatars to create characters, and try to use good settings to record videos.

It was weird that I found out that Chris, my teammate recorded a video of Marcelo, when a bridge was floating behind Marcelo.

Posted by VVP Mathew at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

People around the blogosphere have been a-buzz over the recent release of our latest Playing 4 Keeps game, Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City.

Some of those who have picked up the release include:

• http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=13980
• http://blog.missiontolearn.com/2008/09/serious-game-hurricane-katrina/
• http://www.hurricane-katrina.org/2008/08/global-kids-to.html
• http://latifaz.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/hurricane-katrinatempest-in-crescent-city/
• http://www.care2.com/news/member/590300383/863594
• http://noladder.blogspot.com/2008/08/jeudiflags-up.html

And of special note...

• A ninth grade English writes that the game is "an accessible way for English Language Learners to begin learning about the disaster."
• Clark Boyd, who covers technology for the BBC/PRI radio program, "The World" and has covered Global Kids work in the past, wrote about our new game on his blog.
  

  
  Tempest in Crescent City is "a great example of a project designed to get kids interacting with technology. And by interacting, I don't mean playing video games. I mean making games... Tempest in Crescent City an excellent example of persuasive gaming -- games that are designed to be fun and challenging to play, while at the same time putting anyone who plays it in someone else's shoes."

  Clark Boyd's post on Tempest was even twittered about:

  

• The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch picked it up as well, which led to numerous financial sites mentioning it.

Posted by joyce at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So for any of you out there that are fans of our work, be sure to catch us this week at two of the hottest virtual world events of the immediate post-summer, Virtual Worlds Expo and the Second Life Community Convention/SLED Community Conference . Over these two conferences we'll be presenting a total of (gasp) six times, with over a half dozen of us diligently working on our powerpoints and interactive workshops at this very moment.

Full details of our dance card after the jump!

At the Virtual Worlds Expo in Los Angeles:

Best Practices for Education in Virtual Worlds
Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 11am -12 pm PDT

Join author/educator Cathy Arreguin of San Diego State University and Global Kids Online Leadership Director Barry Joseph as they discuss the Global Kids report to the MacArthur Foundation summarizing important concepts and examples to incorporate best practices into virtual education using Second Life. This fast-paced hour will also highlight practical examples and activities designed to inspire educators and others new to virtual worlds providing a broad level overview based on reports from the field.

At the SLCC/SLEDcc (all in EST):

Friday, September 5, 2008:

"What's Up With Teens?"
Machinima Festival in-world on the main grid

10am - 1pm, Tabitha Tsai and VVP teen Mathew

For the first time, along with Tabitha Tsai, VVP teen Mathew shares his experience in the Virtual Video Project on the main grid. He will talk about the process of making the latest machinima "Race to Equality", a 7 minute film on racism and how it relates to access to equal education.

SL in the Classroom: a hands-on workshop for educators introducing students to Second Life
3-4:30 PM, Meghan Deana & Amira Fouad

In this hands on interactive (BYOL) workshop led by Global Kids, come learn about the resources available in both starting to utilize SL for learning and in supplementing your existing educational programs. This workshop will incorporate Global Kids new Second Life Curriculum and the online community at RezEd.org: The Hub for Learning and Virtual Worlds. Learn about a host of other resources for educators on RezEd.org, from lesson plans to reviews to podcasts.

Upon successful completion of the workshop, participants will leave able to incorporate Global Kids’ simple, comprehensive curriculum in their own educational programs and access to the resources and network available in supporting learning in virtual worlds. The workshop will include a breakout session exploring participants own best practices in the field.

Participants will leave with access to a free copy of Global Kids’ simple, comprehensive Second Life curriculum.

Teaching New Media Literacies through Second Life: Lessons From Global Kids' Adventures in Learning
4:30-6 pm - Rafi Santo & Amira Fouad

In this presentation, Global Kids staff will share how work they've done this past year in Second Life has brought together a youth development model and a new media literacy framework to facilitate skill development in both face to face and distance learning contexts, highlighting how it's possible to integrate theory and practice in K12 education in Second Life. The presentation will incorporate examples of a variety of different models for education in SL, and part of the discussion will focus on how the New Media Literacies outlined by Henry Jenkins of MIT can be compatible with existing educational standards when using Second Life.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Iterations of Teaching in Second Life: What We Know and Need to Know About Student Backgrounds, Teaching Possibilities, and Learning Outcomes
10:30 am -12 pm, Selen Turkay (SL: Stardust Yakan)

As instructors of a course entitled “Possibilities of Virtual Worlds” who use Second Life, we are often asked how we deal with students’ different levels of experience, how and why we change the course as students come to us with ever greater levels of expertise, and how we deal with the instructional issues encountered as a result of requirements and restrictions by our institution and by Linden Lab's periodic modifications. But, perhaps the most critical question that we receive is “How and what do your students learn?” This presentation attempts to answer the above questions. The audience will come away with a better understanding of what it means to teach in a virtual environment like Second Life, how our students have changed (and how their learning has changed) across three years, and how course instructors and students react and change over time as they attempt to teach and learn in an ever–changing, user–constructed environment.

Beyond Best Practices: Taking Non-profits to the Next Level in Second Life
2:10-2:55 pm, Rik Panganiban & Shawna Rosenzweig

Rik Panganiban and Shawna Rosenweig will speak about how far the non-profit community has come in Second Life from a Global Kids perspective. Rik will begin by bringing people up to date on recent non-profit achievements in SL since his report on "Best Practices for Non-profits" was released at SLCC last year. Then Shawna will talk about some of the recent work and lessons learned by Global Kids that is applicable to the larger non-profit community. Then they will lead a role-play among the participants, helping them to think about where SL should be going in the next year to best serve the non-profit community.

Why Second Life Can't Tip: The Power and Perils of Living La Vida Ludic
SLEDcc Keynote, 3-4 pm, Barry Joseph

Barry Joseph, Global Kids' Online Leadership Director, will discuss the revolution affects of Second Life's singular strength - combing life and play. His modest goal is to forever change how we view, and use, Second Life for living a ludic life.

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

Today, Global Kids’ Online Leadership Director Barry Joseph will speak to leaders in digital media and education at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo held at the Los Angeles Convention Center to be followed on the following Saturday, September 5th, with Joseph providing the educational keynote at the annual Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, Florida. At both, Joseph will showcase the launch of Global Kids Second Life Curriculum — the most significant resource in 2008 for those educators interested in incorporating virtual worlds into their classrooms.

Global Kids Second Life Curriculum, available the first week of September at RezEd.org, contains over 160 lesson plans for teaching the basics of Second Life, whether in a classroom, a library, or at home. The curriculum is available at no cost and is designed to be adaptable by practitioners for a variety of uses, from teaching science, to literature to global studies.

The full press release follows...

NEWS RELEASE
137 East 25th St. New York, NY 10010 www.globalkids.org 212-226-0130
Contacts: Sofia Oviedo, Global Kids, 212-226-2116, Sofia@globalkids.org
Tom Mariam, Mariam Communications, 914-939-4294, Tom@mariam.biz
For Immediate Release:

Global Kids’ Groundbreaking Second Life Curriculum Featured
at Virtual Worlds Conference in Los Angeles and Tampa

September 2, 2008, New York, NY – On September 3rd, Global Kids’ Online Leadership Director Barry Joseph will speak to leaders in digital media and education at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo held at the Los Angeles Convention Center to be followed on the following Saturday, September 5th, with Joseph providing the educational keynote at the annual Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, Florida. At both, Joseph will showcase the launch of Global Kids Second Life Curriculum—the most significant resource in 2008 for those educators interested in incorporating virtual worlds into their classrooms.

The conference, on the theme of The Future of Media and Communications, will take place on September 3rd and 4th and feature such keynote speakers as Collin J. Parris, Ph.D., Vice President of Digital Convergence at IBM Research; and Steve Parkis, Senior Vice President of Disney Online.

Global Kids Second Life Curriculum, available the first week of September at RezEd.org, contains over 160 lesson plans for teaching the basics of Second Life, whether in a classroom, a library, or at home. The curriculum is available at no cost and is designed to be adaptable by practitioners for a variety of uses, from teaching science, to literature to global studies.

Joseph will also preview the first seasonal report from the almost 1000-member strong RezEd.org, Global Kids' new hub that provides a network, curriculum, and resources for educators incorporating virtual worlds into their work. The seasonal report summarizes the cutting edge activities and discussions of educators in the RezEd community, including a range of MacArthur Foundation grantees. This inaugural report will offer a special feature on Ethics and Virtual Worlds shown to the public for the first time by a team from Harvard University's GoodPlay Project. The report will also highlight activities on commercial platforms like Second Life and on educational ones like Quest Atlantis.

In 2006, following extensive research into the educational potential of virtual worlds, Global Kids became the first nonprofit to develop a dedicated space for conducting programming in the virtual world of Teen Second Life (TSL). Within TSL, the organization has established Global Kids Island, which hosts interactive, experiential programs for teens from around the world. Specifically, Global Kids is conducting intensive leadership programming for youth, bringing youth from its New York-based programs into the space, and streaming the audio and video of major events into the world.

Global Kids’ work in TSL and RezEd is made possible with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as well as from the HASTAC competition, Microsoft, Motorola, and AMD, and is conducted in collaboration with UNICEF, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the International Criminal Court, among others.

About Global Kids, Inc. (www.globalkids.org)
Founded in 1989, and an independent nonprofit since 1993, Global Kids educates and inspires urban youth to become successful students and global and community leaders by engaging them in socially dynamic, content-rich learning experiences. Through its leadership development and academic enrichment programs, Global Kids educates youth about critical international and domestic issues and promotes their engagement in civic life and the democratic process. Through professional development initiatives, Global Kids provides educators with strategies for integrating experiential learning methods, international issues, and service learning into urban classrooms. Over ninety percent of the high school seniors who participate in Global Kids’ leadership program graduate from high school. About the OLP: Global Kids, Inc. is a nationally recognized leader in using digital media to promote global awareness and youth civic engagement. Global Kids’ Online Leadership Program integrates a youth development
approach and international and public policy issues into youth media programs that build digital literacy
and STEM skills, foster substantive dialogues, develop resources for educators, and promote civic
participation.
# # #

Posted by Rik at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today at Global Kids, as part of an orientation for new staff members, we did an exercise where we had to draw a visual map that represented five incidents or moments in our lives that led us to come to Global Kids.  Here's the map that I drew.

It starts in the upper right corner, which represents me in grade school in small town Pleasanton, California.  At the time, I felt like the only "foreign" kid among a mostly white student body, the kid who was from a country that nobody had ever heard of, who ate different foods, spoke a different language, who didn't fit in.  It was mostly a fearful and anxiety-filled time for me.

This early experience led me to have compassion for outsiders of various stripes later in life, whether it be refugees from Guatemala or homeless vets in Los Angeles. 

This was just the beginning of my circuitous journey that led me to work at Global Kids...

The next waypoint on my personal map was a trip that my family took to Europe in 1983.  We drove all over Western Europe, from Germany to Switzerland, Austria, France, and Italy.  I loved all the strange languages and sights and flavors we encountered and wanted to explore more after that.  Since then, I've traveled widely to most corners of the world -- from Madras to Porto Alegre -- and I have that same hunger to explore more and meet more kinds of folk.

The next pivotal moment in my life on my map was in March 1991, when I led a small group of college students from UCLA to Tijuana, Mexico to build houses in a poor community there for Habitat for Humanity.  It was a very fulfilling experience for me to organize on my own this little humanitarian trip and see it through to successful completion.   

From 1994 to 2005, I worked for various NGOs at the United Nations, bringing together my passion for human rights and human dignity, my desire to travel and experience other cultures, and my skills as an organizer. 

The final marker in my Global Kids map was when I first created my avatar in Second Life in May 2006.  I originally was going to draw a computer connected to other computers, but I realized that really what Second Life is about is people connecting with other people via their computers. 

So all of these experiences -- from my initial personal experience of being the outsider, to my early exposure to other cultures, my initial non-profit organizing, then working at the UN and exploring Second Life -- all in their own ways were instrumental in me finding my way to my current position as Second Life Producer and Program Associate in the Online Leadership Program at Global Kids.

It's been a wonderful and weird ride.  And I'm so grateful to find myself here.

Posted by Rik at 8:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scott Merrick showered the RezEd podcast series with some wonderful comments and specially highlighted episode 11. Thanks Scott!

All the RezEd podcasts are great, but this one, "...featuring an interview conducted by Barry Joseph of Global Kids at the recent GLS Conference with a mother and son about their experience and focus on virtual worlds," is absolutely jaw-dropping. Granted that this is a remarkable pair of humans, this mother and son: She's Elizabeth Lane Lawley, Director of the School for Social Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology and he's her son, Lane, "an avid Second Life coder, very interested in virtual world programming and also a player of many different kinds of games and a math and programming wiz." After listening to this episode, tell me you don't want to pull your sons and daughters out of school and let them find their passion and pursue it with your guidance. Or better yet, use remarkable conversation records like this to convince your administration(s) to allow you to bring these remarkable opportunities to your students in our established but necessarily changing academic institutions.

To read his full post, click here.

Posted by joyce at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As part of the panel on Professional Development and Technology, held May 2, 2008 at the Princeton University, Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Barry Joseph talked about teaching in the technological age.

Posted by joyce at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)