Global Kids' Online Leadership Program

RezEd Podcast Episode 21: Jackie Marsh talks about her research on British youth use of virtual worlds

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

Jackie Marsh, Professor of Education at Sheffield University, UK, discussing here her "Out of school play in online virtual worlds and the implications for literacy learning" paper centered around children aged 5to 11 (she also authors the Digital Beginnings blog).

Show Notes:

0.00—0.24 intro
0.25—4.19 RezEd news Rik at Global Kids (any news or events can be submitted here)
4.19—4.27 intros
4.28—4.51 background to Jackies focus
4.52—5.55 overview of the research
5.56—7.09 research findings
7.10—9.21 reading / writing and other practises
9.22—12.39 results from observation
12.40—14.49 opportunities for education
14.50—18.44 future
18.45—18.53 thanks
18.54—20.45 Rik detailing the upcoming events for the RezEd community (any news or events can be submitted here)
20.46—20.53 outro

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

Download the episode here.

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Posted by joyce at 1:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of us here at GK wanted to show our appreciation to all the incredible GK youth leaders that we work with both in the schools and on the web, so we put together this short video expressing our thanks. Enjoy!

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

What would Obama Play? Suzanne Seggerman, Co-Founder of Games for Change poses this question in her recent article on the power of games for learning and civic engagement.

And games do a lot more than entertain us. In fact games have extraordinary potential for learning and civic engagement across age, economic and other differences. A recent Pew Report showed that 97% of all teenagers are playing games, and that there is a noteworthy correlation between players' civic activities in digital games and their civic engagement in the real world. And last week, a MacArthur Foundation-funded study suggested that online participation equips kids with the media literacy they'll need to be successful adults.

For me, the most interesting area is the new genre of video games about real world issues -- games about the environment, global hunger, poverty, disease. These are games that help kids become more thoughtful, responsible and committed citizens. And these games may be the best tool we have to reach and engage them in the issues they will carry into their future.

Why? Games let players interact with a story, rather than passively consume it. This keeps them engaged. Unlike more linear media, players have "agency" -- which means they can affect the outcome of their experience. This encourages personal identification with the characters and, again, a deeper immersion in the content. A well-designed game is an exact balance of challenge and reward, creating a fine-tuned learning environment. And games let people become mentors -- across all age groups. Where else do kids have the chance to be the experts?

read the full article here.

Posted by joyce at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's activity was discussing Peace and Justice. The world is not at all at peace, and is not entirely just. I realized we don't live on such a nice planet after all....

"If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.” -Tenzin Gyatso

Posted by VVP Helen at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week we put our hands in red pant and placed them on paper. This was for the red hand campaign and we also wrote things on the paper next to our hand prints.

Posted by VVP Christopher at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"If you want peace, work for justice." -Pope Paul VI

I did some research on the topic of peace and found a Japanese organization that wanted to spread awareness on how to achieve peace. Then, I found a picture that read "peace" in Japanese and made a billboard of it on Second Life!

WarriorGal

Posted by vvp JessyJo at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everybody.

This project was so interesting for me, why, because at the beginning I didn't know what "From 52 to 48 With Love" meant, I was so confused about this. After we took a look at some of the photos people took, then I really understood what it really meant. There were so many different pictures. I was so impressed with the work other people did, they were so creative. Our project was to create something similar, and I thought that there was nothing left for us, after we saw those pictures. But I tried my best; I tried to come with something simple. It was a great idea for us to make this kind of stuff. I really learn a lot from this project, but most importantly about the past presidential election. Check it out!!

Posted by Sebastian - GKm2 at 3:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey guys!
Want to know what we did at Global kids? First we had a guest speaker talking to us for the first hour about Machinima and how can we use it in different ways and how can we make a higher-quality movie.
The second thing that we did was participate in the Red Hand Campaign which was about child soldiers. By making red hand prints we showed that we wanted action on the part of the United Nations; they should give child protection and freedom to teenagers and young children. Children are being forced to be soldiers all over the world.

Posted by VVP Jamila at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So on November 17th , 2008 I ran the event “Genocide it has to end!” To try and raise awareness of whats going on in darfur.

So, when I started the workshop voice went down. So I found it pretty hard to adapt to typing but I found it kind of easy after a while. So when I started the workshop, I asked the participants a few questions about what Genocide was and a couple of other questions just to get some ideas about what they knew. This went down pretty much without a hitch.

After I got through the views on genocide, I moved on to my main task, a RP (role-play) activity involving four groups, each one with a specific link to the genocide in Darfur and each could have a few possible solutions for the problem. I found that I wasn't clear enough with presenting the task and suffered for this later, however the groups that asked me about the task and grasped what I meant had some really amazing discussions on their views of the subject, some of them collided and turned more into a argument rather than a discussion but it was kept under control. Then as I went round group to group asking about the views or possible solutions to the genocide, I was really surprised about how much thought some of the participants had put into their answers, for me this was the highlight of the event as it implied they had read all of the information I had given them and learned a lot of it and became aware of the situation in a lot more detail.

After the RP, I decided to finish the fireside with a few questions that turned into a discussion, again I found this to be really exciting, as a lot of the teens there really started to get involved in their answers, and I had to calm them down so I could move from question to question, but this went pretty smoothly too. It took up a lot more time than I thought that it would but it turned out to be the best activity to get all of the participants involved in.

After running over by about 20 miniutes, the event finally finished and I felt it was a big success as some of the teens that came stayed and continued to debate even though it was over.

On the whole Id say the workshop even with drawbacks like having no voice, went really well for my first attempt. Ive learned to pre-type anything I can think of as it saves time typing during the workshop. And that I need to be A LOT more clear when I'm giving out instructions, even if it means taking extra time so that someone fully grasps what they are doing.

Posted by Grimreaper - SL Intern at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During our discussion of child soldiers, and the discussion of POWs at my school, I was wondering if when the child soldiers are caught in the middle of the war, they're labeled as POWs or as civilian children.

I know that with the "rules" drafted by the Geneva convention, the POWs are given a right to be treated humanely by their captors. However, it seems that only the nations that are "civilized" seem to follow this ideology.

It's just a thought I had in school today...

Posted by VVP Christine at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is my second blog...

I felt excited to know that what I was creating was going to be put in a public online space. It made me think that there was going to be more activities like this further on in the future during this project. I think that it is important to work with people that think differently from me because I can get someone else's opinion from the other side of the playing field. You can get a better understanding of why they feel the way they feel about a certain topic. Posting your thoughts online is a valid form of reaching to people from the other side.

Posted by Viveca - GKm2 at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's me again, Shakera. Shakera here lol, right now I feel the need to talk about my experience with the whole from 52 to 48 with love. I have never heard of this site before because I didn't think that people would be patriotic enough to start a website showing support to both parties in which they supported. In the days latter days before the election I saw some videos about some McCain supporters and the had the worst things to say about Obama, I didn't think that it was fair but I figured that there would be feuding all over the country because of racism, sexism etc. When I stumbled across this site I really didn't think that Obama and McCain supporters would get along but evidently they did.

It was nice to see how everyone was supporting each and thinking of better ways to make this country one . I was actually super excited about that part in particular. I was kinda second guessing myself about making a post because of the fact that I didn't even vote but at the same time, I thought that it would be kool to show my support for President elect Obama and also allow the McCain supporters to know that the love is still there.

I think on a political level it's important to work with people who are different from ourselves because it give you a better outlook on what the situation is and the many solutions that may be available to solve the problem if there is one. As opposed to face-to-face, posting my thoughts in an online forum is a valid way to reach out to the "other side" because it's safer, more expressive, and you have a peace of mind when writing about it.

Posted by Shakera - GKm2 at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey my name is Shonell Richmond and I am a part of Media Masters, a program in my school by GLOBAL KIDS and its cool. We get to blog about our experiences .

In the picture above I drew a map of Africa or something like Africa lol but it was loads of fun doing it . When I drew the map and considered how it was laid out, like what map I was going to use was simple. I used the map of Africa because of its space and countries that it has that represents the things that I like to do and it represents my background of where my ancestors came from.

Expressing my digital life in the form of a digital map is better than putting it down on a piece of paper or filing out an online profile because I get to express myself and be more excited about what I did in the map. I get to share with everyone what I like to do and what is important and fun to me.

Making a map of my digital did alter the way I think about the use of digital media in a way because I get to show everyone what I think is important. It makes me think about how I see the world that I am in, for example how I put what I do the most on the internet in a bigger position than the most important things like school in the small position.

Overall I think that making the map was an enjoyable experience. It was fun and I got to share my ideas with the people around me.

Posted by Shonell - Media Masters at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is my picture from 52 to 48 with love. I know that this will be shared with tons of people. But I like that because everybody will know about my ideas and will know how I feel about the election. Also I want people to share their ideas with me. It was good to make something everybody will read and have opinions.

It is important to work with people that think differently because you both share your ideas and you gain ideas from also you'll know more about the topic the other person is telling you.

I like to share my thoughts with other people because I want them to know about my ideals. Also people with get something that may help them in the future.

Posted by Michael - GKm2 at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi my name is Mo. I'm 17 years old.

I wanted my map to look nice because I use a lot of websites on the internet. I get online every weekdays. I used colors and I made the websites that I use everyday bigger than the ones I use often. The map that I made expressed how many times I use the internet. When I make a list people don't really pay much attention to it, it expresses less feelings about websites. Yes, it made me think that technology is extremely amazing, it's fun and it makes me realize that the world would be a different place without technology.

Posted by Monel - GKm2 at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi my name is Shonette and I am part of a group that is part of Global Kids called Media Masters.

Well the other day we, the people in my group, made some maps to explain what media meant to us.

I drew a map of South America in the middle to represent my home continent. In the small green thing below, THE SEA OF MUSIC, is Fanfic which is short for Fanfiction as in fanfiction.net.

This is very important to me as I often write stories there to and post for the world to see.

Next to that is Quizzila, a site for qiuzzes that I am also a part of.

Yahoo because I am a part of yahoo mail and often use Yahoo as my search engine.

Xanga, face book and Live Journal (LJ) aren't that important but I use them all as a means to stay in contact with my friends and penpals.

The same can be said about Myspace and Hi5. Hi5 was placed where it was because it represents how close it is to me since it was placed near my home country.

Stories and art are important to me since they go hand in hand with fanfic and hi5 and such.

School on the other hand, while important to me was never placed in the same view as media.

The sea of quotes represents my hobby of collecting them and the ISLANDS OF ANIME represent the fact that anime plays a role in what I do and how it relates to me.

Virus and Anti Virus represent the dangers of media and THE UNKNOWN SHORES represent all that is unknown about it.

Posted by Shonette - GKm2 at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I read the pictures that other people created on the from 52 to 48 website. I love one of them very much, a girl and a boy are kissing. One is blue and the other is red. I love that idea very much and the other pictures are also very creative. I didn't know what the numbers 52 and 48 meant. I thought it may be some kind of law of something else. And I hear that is about the election, I thought that is a very creative idea to express your voice to another side. Even I am not a United States citizen, but I also love this country like any citizen in this country. I also live in this country. We all live in the same country, for me it doesn't matter who won the election. I only want a president that can lead us to a better life. I want to tell the red and blue that we are together. My idea is very similar to other people's. But we have the purpose, we want to be united and bounding to each other.

Posted by Joe - GKm2 at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey there my name is Neville, I'm from Brooklyn New York and I just joined Media Masters last week. In last week's activity, we played a game (icebreaker) called "what are you doing". The game involved us going around asking other people what are you doing then you have to do what the person said what they were doing.

Then after the game we wrote what Obama's victory meant to us. From there we viewed the website from 52 to 42. I was very shocked to see other Americans reaching out to each other. I have always viewed America as a place where it's every man for himself. But to see a son who voted for Obama telling his father that he still loved him even though the father voted for McCain. Then on top of that everyone who uploaded something looked like they put a lot of effort into it without even trying. When they told us that we were going to be making our own I was like WOW. I didn't have a idea what to make, I felt really lost like a kid in candy store. So I ended up looking at other people's work to get a idea of what to do. I saw a picture of a donkey and a elephant then it hit me.

Check it:

Posted by Neville GKm2 at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is my digital map, and i use New York City train map for base map, because I see this map every day.

However, I live in The Bronx, and study in Brooklyn. So this map shows D train line I take from my home to my school; thus, I use orange for the train line and marked some of important stops and renamed them for websites and software I use most often online. For example, MSN, YAHOO Messenger, and QQ, is the first software to pop out. And I will check Facebook, and xiaonei.com. lastly, Google, and Baidu.com are two websites where I do research.

Posted by Owen - GKm2 at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone my name is Mark, I am from Russia. I am in media masters for 2 days and I have done map picture and picture 48+52. My decision when I made the map was not hard. I thought of doing something simple and to make all my word to fit in paper and to make then visible. I have put the things that I do with in my computer and few of that I do outside of computer. Making the digital map is different from filing out on online profile because making map is creative its attracting people but the profile is boring and people get bored when they read to much. Digital life alter the way I thing about using technology and digital media because when I made this map I saw that I got msn and games bigger then the rest I realize that I am spending too much time on them and I should do everything equal and have time for other things then just siting and spending my time for nothing when I chat with people about some stuff I forget next day.

Here's my map:

Posted by Mark - GKm2 at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey wats up everybody , my name is shakera and this is my very first blog. Am I excited? Yes indeed! Well today I'm writing about my digital life. What's that? It's basically a self made map telling what I like and how my media intelligence is dispersed around cyberspace. In the process of making my map I thought of where I spend most of my time and also where I spend least of my time. The blueprint was based on the sites I visit on day to day basis and the others are just random things I do online and sites where I'm just a member.

Expressing my digital life in the form of a digital map is very different from making a list or filling out an online profile because that's where my personality comes out and I cold really show who I am in a very modern way. While I was making this digital map my views about technology and digital media were changed a bit because I always thought that technology was always complex and hard to understand, but after I finished with my map I kinda had a second view about media and technology and I see it as a more easy, cool way to express my opinions. To add to that, I also saw what kind of person I am by just looking at the size of different sites I made and how much time I spend there.

Posted by Shakera - GKm2 at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey my name is Amana. Last week in Media Masters was my first week and I'm hooked. We looked at this really cool website:
http://www.zefrank.com/from52to48withlove/index4.html

It was really cool, this website is a bunch of photos that people put up, basically saying that though the recent election pretty much tore the United States in two, now that it's over something had to be done in order to bring us back together. People from all over wrote letters or made signs in the hopes of reconciling with the other half. I was shocked to see so many people reaching out and taking time out of their lives to speak to the other half. 52 (Obama supports) were reaching out to 48 (Mccain supports) and the same the other way, no one was bitter or upset, everyone was hopeful and supportive. I was excited to know that i was going to get a chance to post a photo of my own. I decided to go with "We'll be the United States, No Matter Who Won" and I'm proud that i took part in this. I'm looking forward to the other projects we'll be doing in Media Masters.

Posted by Amana GKm2 at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi my name is Viveca and this is my first blog...

At first, when I made my digital map, I had to consider the numerous social networks that I had accounts on. I also had to consider how I was gonna create the map such as the shape, the color, and the size of he map. In the end, I decided to make a digital map in the shape of a globe, but with a twist. I created the map using all of my social networks and a few commonly used websites and turned them into geographical features. It's different from making a list or filling out an online profile because it's not just a piece of paper with words, it's a completely different way of showing what websites you use in your daily life. This map made me think about other websites that are more popular than MySpace or FaceBook. It made me think about how I use technology and what I use it for rather than why I use it.

Posted by Viveca - GKm2 at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This picture represent my digital life in my everyday life. I considered the way I did my digital map the best way of describing how I am I separates all my web pages in computer I do not like to have more than 2 pages open at the same time such as the maps nothing is connecting in my maps how you can see.
Expressing my digital life in the form of a map better than making a list or filling out and online profile because doing a map is not something that we do everyday so I think is a very creative way of showing what you do everyday in your computer.
Making a map of my digital life alter the way I think because now I see that I got to stop going to myspace for a while I been there for hours everyday you can see it in my map OMG I think I been over use it also I alter the way I think about internet because I see that I been close to other web pages and I am going to start watching more pages.

Posted by Eduardo - GKm2 at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is Red Hand Day. It's a campaign that raises awareness and protests the use of child soldiers in different countries around the world. The VVP Teens painted our hands and made posters that will be later sent to Washington D.C to be joined together with other posters made around the world in support of abolishing the use and recruitment of child soldiers once and for all. Kids and their families shouldn't have to worry about their young relatives being recruited or forced into this. SO...do something about this! By going to http://www.redhandday.org/index.php?l=en&view=info you can make a difference.

Posted by VVP Kimberly at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global Kids own Carole Artigiani had her letter to the editor featured in the New York Times online.

Read the article below or on the NY TImes site here.

Young Social Activists Published: November 20, 2008

(in response to) Op-Ed Columnist: Talia for President (November 16, 2008)

Thanks to Nicholas D. Kristof for drawing attention to the efforts and accomplishments of entrepreneurial young people who take action to address the needs of people and communities suffering from natural disasters and social injustice. The projects inspired by youths like Talia Leman, an eighth grader in Iowa, are remarkable, but not new.

In 20 years working with New York City’s public school students, I have known hundreds of teenagers who have identified problems — from homelessness and environmental devastation to sex trafficking and genocide — organized campaigns to educate their peers, and advocated for government policies that address critical issues, not only here but also in other countries.

This last dimension is too often missing from the commendable work of “social entrepreneurs,” both young and old. The work of individuals like Talia — or even Melinda and Bill Gates — can never serve as a substitute for government investment and public policy.

As Mr. Kristof suggests, service is not the same as civic engagement. Many of the creative young people who have figured out ways to provide immediate assistance to people in dire need have been led to believe that government is the cause of problems and can never offer the solution.

The wide involvement of youths in the Obama campaign suggests a renewed understanding of the role of government in addressing the needs of citizens. And we educators need to assure that all young people enter adulthood with an understanding of their rights and responsibilities to participate in the decision-making process.

Carole Artigiani
New York, Nov. 18, 2008

The writer is the founder and executive director of Global Kids.

Posted by joyce at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Tuesday, we talked about child soldiers. We also saw a music video on it. The video was very interesting because the singer of that video was a child soldier. He wants to tell the world about child soldiers through his music. Then, we read some facts about Child Soldiers. I was very surprised to find out that there are child soldiers in Bangladesh and Myanmar. After this workshop, we had a chance to sign in to second life.

Posted by VVP Sabina at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently had the opportunity to post on MacArthur Foundation's Spotlight on Digital Media Learning blog. The Spotlight discussion, entitled RezEd.org Releases First Seasonal Report on Ethics and Virtual Worlds discusses the first seasonal report for http://www.RezEd.org, the hub for learning and virtual worlds launched last spring.

Global Kids Inc. has released the first seasonal report from RezEd, Global Kids’ new hub for learning and virtual worlds, with a membership surpassing twelve hundred people. The seasonal report summarizes the range of activities and discussions taking place among those on the cutting edge of education, whether through commercial platforms like Dizzywood and Second Life or educational ones such as Quest Atlantis. The report highlights material produced for and by the RezEd community, including James Paul Gee, Sasha Barab, and Linda Burch. In addition, this first ever report offers a special feature, on Ethics and Virtual Worlds, introduced by a team from Harvard University’s GoodPlay Project.

Read the full post here.

Posted by Amira at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today Mimi Ito and the Digital Youth Research group released their long awaited ethnographic report on kids informal learning through digital media, and it's a must read for any parent, educator, policy maker, journalist or administrator who's ever heard the word MySpace. More than anything else, it dispels the myth that youth involvement with the connected, digital world is at best a waste of time and at worst an impediment to their social development. The report outlines the variegated and granular nature of youth habits online, differentiating between those that use technology to "hang out" with friends they already have face to face, those that "mess around" with tech through tinkering and creating, and those that "geek out" through deep engagement with global online communities that are oriented around a common interest.

I think that the most important thing I'd highlight in terms of its relevance to educators is the fact that youth are engaging in self directed learning online, developing habits around the exploration of knowledge areas and skill sets that will be critical later on. One of the key things that we're attempted to do in both our online and offline programs here at Global Kids is create spaces where youth that have these passions personally can have a space to explore and develop them in a way that is safe and supported. I definitely hope that anyone reading this blog post takes the time to read the paper, and integrates at least some of what it has to say into their interactions with young people.

Read the executive overview. [pdf]
Read the full white paper. [pdf]
Read the book.

You can also see videos from the event titled "From MySpace to Hip Hop: New Media In the Everyday Lives of Youth" which we covered last Spring where many of the authors presented at length about the research. Part 1 is here, Part 2, here.

Posted by Rafi Santo at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global Kids in collaboration with TakingITGlobal were recently featured on the MacArthur Foundation's Spotlight Blog to discuss Youth Media Exchange. TakingITGlobal's Natalie Rodic and Jennifer Corriero discussed the launch and development of Youth Media Exchange, the online social network for youth interested in using digital media tools to share information on major global issues.

The demonstration phase of Youth Media Exchange sought to examine the question: how is youth-produced media best conceived, organized, and disseminated to engage and educate a broad audience of global citizens? This social networking website went about answering this question by aggregating and amplifying youth voices through digital media with the aim of increasing media literacy skills in the process. Throughout the course of the last year a number of new questions arose for this collaborative group of professionals informed by the process of experimentation and academic advisors on the project.

Is sharing media the entry point into an interest-based social network such as Youth Media Exchange? What are youth most interested in sharing?

Launched publicly on May 1st, 2008, ymex.org has had 2,302 young people from around the world sign up for membership and averages 22,000 hits a day. The website offers interactive and collaborative features such as guided learning activities (Quests) and a peer-to-peer mentorship system (Youth Guides and Explorers). In this initial phase the amplification of youth voices has happened most frequently and effectively by members sharing digital media on global issues that they either created or found elsewhere on the web.

The most engaged members on ymex.org have been those who created their own images, blogs, and videos. Out of the top 10 most active members, 8 of them shared digital media that they had created and two of them shared only third-party media. Additionally, the digital media literacy survey results which members had the option to take upon their first visit to the website affirmed that many members had engaged in creating and collaborating as well as re-mixing media prior to joining ymex. But, further examination of site activity revealed that the majority of young people who signed up for ymex.org began their engagement by submitting third-party media and then did not participate further other than as observers. Do these more reluctant members need extra motivation to try out new skills and need to be nurtured through the process?

In considering the next steps and honing in on the learning potential of this website, the ymex team consulted with the project advisors. danah boyd raised the question: Do we want to find super engaged media superstars or is there a way to step people through and have layers of participation without them having to be those superstars? Erin Reilly encouraged us to further examine how users are creating, circulating, connecting and collaborating with each other. She and her colleagues at Project New Media Literacies are curious about what drives new users to become creators and what tools and motivations allow them to start collaborating with each other.

The initial phase was generally more concentrated on recruiting young media superstars and those who were already initiated into the process of creating digital media with a global-social focus in order to seed the network with exemplary content. Would an ideal direction for the future involve guiding young people from initiation to completion of digital media creation? Can this occur in tandem with broadening their understanding of digital media’s potential to be an instrument in creating positive social change?

The post can be found on the Spotlight Blog here.

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

In a recent post on the VW 4 Real Learning blog, Viki Silvansky goes over an interesting micro lesson focusing on avatar appearance, she developed using the Global Kids Second Life Curriculum. Her thoughts being that avatar appearance is one of the first key elements most users of virtual world spaces like Second Life want to tackle.

"In the last blog I mentioned about my view of you in-world orientation places and how they use different approaches for helping newbeis. In this blog, the focus will be on out-world source called "Global Kids Curriculum (GKCx)" and the method it use to motivated users to try and learn new things so that I will finally be able to come up with I own learning environment in-world used GKCx methods. The curriculum is divided into 9 main levels, each including some related modules with predefined missions for students to carry out. I've been asked to choose one modules out of 4 modules (appearance, walking and flying, talk a close look and chat) within level one as part of my weekly activity and develop my own environment based on that."

Read the full post here.

Posted by joyce at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Tuesday, Nov. 18, Global Kids discussed the issue of child soldiers. Any person under the age of 18 attached to armed forces (government or any other regular/irregular force) is considered to be a child soldier. Africa has the largest number of child soldiers with Asia coming in second. The exact number is unknown because of the extreme difficulty in gaining access to conflict zones. Children as young as 8 are forced to fight and die for independence. Even still, media coverage is rarely seen, if the atrocities are covered at all. Many people are unaware that child soldiers even exist because of this lack of media initiative...

...Global Kids is trying to spread the word and change this. Right now not much is being done to end this endangerment of children. People respond more to visuals so I think more pictures and videos of child soldiers should be circulated. This would expose the issue and get peoples' opinions and ideas out into the open. The more educated people there are the more results we can expect.

Posted by VVP Bryan at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I first learned about the crisis in Burma last year from the 30-day campaign challenge to rally 50,000 voices to speak out for the Burmese who, in their own country are not allowed to speak out for themselves. If they did they could face serious time in prison. How much? Recently a blogger speaking the truth about the oppression was sentenced 20 years in prison.

After following the campaign closely and spreading the word in my hometown I found that sadly Burma’s issues are unknown by the general public. So I decided that holding a fireside workshop in TSL on the topic would be a great idea.

Participants were given basic information on the crimes being committed in Burma, a general time line of events from the 40’s all the way up to today, and information on major players and their impact on the crisis. This was probably the most challenging part of the entire fireside. Planning was quite frustrating, what would be too much information, what is most important to get across, and how do you go about presenting this much information at once without boring people to death? I eventually came to the conclusion that my best bet would be to include all of the facts needed for basic comprehension.

For the main activity groups of participants were given 10 minutes to research a topic and find a picture that represents it. They would then upload the picture and explain to the group why the picture represented the topic. The groups were given the topics 8-8-88, and human rights. Both groups did an excellent job both defining their topic and finding pictures/making shirts that represented their topic.

Group 2 does their presentation on Human Rights.

As always there were things I learned while planning and running this fireside.
1. My mic hates me so if someone is telling me its not cooperating I need to switch to text instead of waiting to see if it will clear up.
2. Large amounts of information need to be broken up so participants don’t get bored. Finding a more interactive way of presenting the information would also work.
3. Getting frustrated that things I can’t control keep causing problems just creates another problem.

Over all I think that my main goal was reached. People who had never heard of Burma now know it exists, know of the junta and all the despicable crimes they commit everyday.

Posted by Victoria - TSL Intern at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The High School for Global Citizenship has officially posted a job opening for an Assistant Principal position. They are seeking highly motivated candidates who strongly believe in social justice and human rights for all (and social justice and human rights education), hold high expectations of their students, colleagues, and themselves, and are interested in joining a team of hard-working, dedicated educators. Please visit the website for more information about the community: http://hs-gc.org

Please pass this to everyone you know who may be interested (or who may know someone who is). Details, and a link to the job posting and application, are below. The deadline for applications for jobs newly posted on November 17, 2008 is 3 p.m. on Monday, December 1, 2008. Please be sure all applications include your 6-digit file number that was issued along with your NYC Certificate of Eligibility.

JOB DESCRIPTION
Assistant Principal (Administration) - Day High School

The New York City Department of Education (DOE) is seeking self-motivated, visionary school leaders from inside and outside the New York City public school system for multiple assistant principal vacancies.

Led by Chancellor Joel I. Klein, the DOE is committed to creating a system of 1,450+ high-performing schools. Since its inception in 2003, the Children First agenda for New York's schools has improved graduation rates, increased student performance on state standardized tests and narrowed the achievement gap. Children First reforms empower principals as chief executives, holding them accountable for improving student achievement while giving them strong performance incentives and the authority to make critical instructional decisions.

We invite applications from qualified individuals who seek to improve student learning as assistant principals by:

Using data to set high learning goals Leveraging deep knowledge of curriculum, instruction, and assessment Developing staff and sharing school leadership Managing resources Fostering a culture of excellence through personal leadership

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA
Applicants must possess a valid New York State certificate in School Administration/Supervision (SAS), School District Administrator (SDA) or in School Building Leadership (SBL) as well as a Certificate of Eligibility for Supervisory Placement or a valid New York City license in the specific area for which they are applying. Please visit https://www.nycenet.edu/offices/DHR/rms/ext/res/HomeHRMS.aspx to obtain a Certificate of Eligibility.

SELECTION PROCESS
The selection, assignment and appointment of all Principals and Assistant Principals is governed by Chancellor's Regulation C-30 which may be accessed at http://schools.nyc.gov/Administration/ChancellorsRegulations/default.htm

SALARY
See CSA contract at www.csa-nyc.org.

UNION AFFILIATION
Principals and Assistant Principals are covered by the Council of Supervisors and Administrators (CSA). Information regarding members' benefits and union coverage can be obtained by visiting the CSA web site at www.csa-nyc.org

***Please note: For ease in completing your application, please prepare 400-1000 word answers to the two questions below and be prepared to cut and paste those answers into the online application where those questions will reappear. Please also have your resume ready to be uploaded. You are asked to do this now because the online application will time out after 90 minutes and you are not able to save it and return to it.

Question 1: Please describe one instructional initiative that you undertook that was intended to improve student achievement. Select an initiative where you were responsible for the results and had a significant leadership role. The endeavor could range in scope from a school-wide program to an initiative that you implemented in your classroom. Specifically address:

The purpose and scale of the initiative The steps you took to start and implement the initiative The end results of the initiative What you would have done differently, if anything

Question 2: Please describe what has inspired you to want to become an assistant principal. Please include relevant information on your experience, skills, and vision for student achievement and how this qualifies you to be an excellent school leader.

Job Location HIGH SCHOOL FOR GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP (K528)
Position Type Full-Time/Regular
District 17
https://hostedjobs.openhire.com/epostings/jobs/submit.cfm?fuseaction=dspjob&id=23&jobid=209936&company_id=15651&version=4&source=ONLINE&JobOwner=999734&level=levelid3&levelid3=101292&parent=School%2DBased%20Leadership%20%28Assistant%20Principals%29%3B%3B%3BAssistant%20Principal%20Positions%3B%3B%3BDistrict%2017&startflag=3&CFID=839577&CFTOKEN=34798131

CONTACT
Erin A. Bauer
English and Literacy Educator, Advisor, and Senior Advisor for Graduation
The High School for Global Citizenship
883 Classon Ave., 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11225
http://hs-gc.org

Posted by joyce at 2:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Election Event went over very fantastically. I would like to thank Nate Kongo for helping me out during this entire event. I would also like to thank all of the Gkids for making this election year a good year for the teenagers of Teen Second Life. This event would have gone down badly if it wasn't for the people that kept it together.

The event itself consisted of a few different key elements that made it successful. Whether it be the intelligence of all the teen residents that decided to have a voice or perhaps even the fact that the topics were spoken about so intelligently. It was all a very mature conversation and a lot of people seemed to have enjoyed themselves.

The event itself was not the best thing that happened that night. The voting booth showed that Barack Obama had a clear victory over the teens in the grid with most of the votes going to him over McCain.

The event was a complete success in all different aspects. I have never seen an event go so long and still feel like a powerful event even after the 2 hour limit that was set unto the previous events. This event has indeed inspired me to make a longer event and without haste I will again do another event of this magnitude. All the teens have respected their rules and have sent me IMs within the past week saying how good of an event it was. My reply was always the same. I always said "I want teens to have a voice, and I am glad that you appreciate the gift that was given to the teen grid" as a sign of gratitude.

We had a lot of fun and it just wouldn't stop getting fun as we headed over to the teen barometer for a couple minutes to figure out exactly what teens thought about with the war. A lot of teens decided against it. I asked why and I got mixed answers. Whether it may be that another family member is fighting over seas right now or you just don't want to see another American come home hurt or not even come home at all.

In final thoughts, here is a picture of our victor, Barack Obama. Congratulations to him and let it be a good 4 years ahead!

Posted by Lee - SL Intern at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global Kids Playing 4 Keeps teen Tashawna, part of the team who helped develop CONSENT!, takes us on a tour of the project that was created within Teen Second Life during 2006-07. She was asked to narrate it nearly a year after the game was completed. It was created in partnership with youth in the Global Kids after school program and youth developers in Teen Second Life.

In this simulation based on Harriet A. Washington's book "Medical Apartheid" you play as an African-American prisoner who has to make tough decisions about whether to choose to 'consent' and submit to medical experiments from the 1940s to the present.

The game was built within the virtual world of Teen Second Life.

Find out more information on our blog or the Global Kids website.

This program was made possible through the generous support of Microsoft Corporations US Partners in Learning.

Posted by Krista at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We had a very successful Second Life conference on education in virtual worlds yesterday.  This was the first virtual conference sponsored by RezEd.org, the social network for virtual world educators. The RezEd conference featured a panel discussion with educators working in Second Life, Google Lively and Dizzywood; a "birds of a feather" breakout session; and a fun social mixer to close out the evening. With 60+ avatars from a range of institutions and backgrounds, this was a perfect example of how virtual worlds can enable networking, collaboration, and learning in an immersive and ludic environment.

Update November 24: One of our speakers Ryan Clemmens tells us that he was informed 30 minutes prior to speaking at the RezEd conference on November 17 that Google was closing the Lively virtual world at the end of the year. Thus, this was probably the last public address on Google Lively before it was publicly announced on November 19 that it was shutting its virtual doors.

The RezEd conference was only part of four hours of programming built around a "sneak preview" of the MacArthur Foundation's new island in Second Life, called simply "Foundations."  Rather than spend the time talking about the Foundation, the sneak preview focused on the work of the large constellation of public good projects supported by MacArthur -- from the Ability Commons work with people with disabilities, the Encyclopedia of Life digital archive of all living species, to the "I Dig Tanzania" summer camp that Global Kids and the Field Museum organized this past July.

We will have a more detailed report, audio recordings of the proceedings, more images and video from the events online soon at RezEd.org and networkculture.usc.edu.

Thanks to all of you who attended and contributed to making this day such a great success.  For those of you who missed the sneak preview, the Foundations sim is now open for business at this teleport link.  There's a lot of great content in there about how MacArthur operates and some featured projects that they support.

Posted by Rik at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you have been to RezEd recently you might have noticed a new group focused on the upcoming Lego Universe and the subsequent insightful post by Barry on the possibilities of this new virtual world space. It seems to have drawn the attention of others as well. The post below is from Anne Collier of Net Family News.

Real competition for Teen Second Life?

There are some great virtual worlds out there for kids' entertainment, but nothing quite holds a candle to Teen Second Life for its collective-creativity tools. Until Lego Universe arrives on the scene, says Barry Joseph, director of Global Kids' Online Leadership Program, in his blog. In the organization's blog he refers to it as "a bright light in the distance," he wrote in the organization's blog, point to Lego Universe, expected to debut sometime next year. Apparently it'll be virtual world and massively multiplayer game combined. The reason why it could offer TSL serious competition is Lego's track record for collective creativity online and the fact that it has a tangible, well-known Real Life connection: those little plastic bricks (you may be interested in my interview way back in 1998 with Robbie Berg, whose work at the MIT Media Lab contributed to the development of Lego MindStorms). Joseph's post includes a video preview of what Lego Universe will look like, including one that depicts "one avatar building a car followed by a second avatar collaborating on its construction." With this game/world, parents probably will quickly find the same kind of comfort level they found with Lego Star Wars. In that case, little Lego people running around with light sabers just can't seem very violent; in the case of a virtual world, this environment's more like ClubPenguin than Teen Second Life. Building and leveraging RL Lego fans will have to make up the difference for teens.

Read the post here.

Join the new RezEd Logo Universe group.

Posted by joyce at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just what exactly is a child soldier? Well, I don't think there is a precise definition but what my definition would be is... Any young individual forced to fight against his or her own will. The saddest thing about them is that not many people are aware that they even exist. Organizations like the Red Hand Campaign strive to spread awareness of the horrors of being a child soldier. I was a part of the help too! All I had to do was stamp my red-paint covered hand on a piece of paper with my name on it and send it in to the campaign. From there, they take all the red hands they receive and try to raise awareness. Well, gotta go.
WarriorGal

Posted by vvp JessyJo at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is no doubt that the world is filled with endless amounts of technology. Being told about Second Life was not shocking to me. I didn't know much based on the digital game but I was interested in becoming familiar with it. On Thursday in the vvp program we signed into our Second Life accounts for the first time. After login we each got the chance to fiddle with the game for a while. I wasn’t too excited at first because I felt like videos games are all the same. As soon as I logged on and saw my character I was amazed. Everything looked so realistic. My facial expressions were lifelike and very detailed. There were trees, cars, roads, stores and much more. I was definitely surprised to see that even though it is digital, I feel like it’s not a video game. Second life is more realistic, more lifelike, and each character can look completely different. I hope to learn more about it and see what else is possible in this digital experience.

Edelyn

Posted by VVP Edelyn at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whatever your political views, you have to admit that the Fake New York Times that was released in the wild this week was pretty brilliant transmedia political commentary.  For me, the fake paper and website -- while also very entertaining -- is the perfect example of how a holistic political activist agenda can be made concrete and inspiring. 

For the teens that we work with at Global Kids, there are definite lessons for me in how we expose them to global issues, what process they go through to learn about and contextualize those issues, and what products we want to facilitate them to create.

My understanding from talking with people who were tertiarily involved with the planning of the Fake New York Times project was that they intended for it to show what is possible if people got off their collective butts and actually organized and put pressure on their own government for change.  They could have easily just did a fake newspaper on "United Nations Declares Peace on Earth" and "Obama Makes Racism a Thing of the Past." 

Instead they have headlines along the lines of: "Popular Pressure Ushers Recent Progressive Tilt" and "Times Reporter to Embed with Peace Groups." Several articles write about how it was particular non-profits, activist organizations and popular movements that caused the particular political change -- real groups, not made-up ones. And the  "fine print" on page 2 lists a number of those actual groups from a range of interests and sectors, from LGBTQ to climate change to anti-war groups. 

For the youth that we work with at Global Kids, the Fake New York Times is a great example of how they can think about challenging and complicated issues without giving into despair that nothing will ever change.  It's one thing to expose young people to the genocide in Darfur, the plight of Tibetans in China, the spectre of global warming, etc.  It's another thing to get them to think creatively about what they can do to help address those problems in big and small ways.  Otherwise, we risk disempowering them even more rather than giving them the tools to be positive forces in their communities and in the world.

Perhaps what they should be creating for themselves is a newspaper of the future, forecasting what they would like the world to look like in five, ten, twenty years, and what steps could be taken to get there.  I.e. something like this chart in the Fake New York Times:

And personally, each of them can do this for their own lives as activists and leaders.  What is the change that I want to see happen, what would the world look like if that change were to be implemented, and what steps can I take over the next year / 5 years / 10 years to get the world closer to that?

Then there is the collaborative aspects of the Fake New York Times.  Having teens work together on creating their own fake newspaper (or radio show or TV newscast) would enable them to connect with each others' aspirations for the future and how they might work together to see their different causes and concerns brought to fruition. 

And then they need to do what the Fake New York Times people did -- release it into the wild.  Be strategic about sharing their vision for change with a wider audience using the media that they have at hand. Use their own social networks (offline and online) to get it out there during some strategic outreach period.  Having our teens use future-oriented media to think about how their actions can affect the lives of people around the world can be enormously empowering and affirming.  And a really fun activity to boot.

Posted by Rik at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The other day in Global Kids, we experienced the world in Second Life. Who knew flying could be so easy when you're in a game? Second Life is a virtual world where you could be anyone; it's like an alter ego on the internet. I enjoyed the game very much and i hope to learn more by playing it at home.

Posted by VVP Helen at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RezEd Podcast, Episode 20- Deborah Fields on Whyville Learning Structures and Opportunities

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

Barry Joseph (of Global Kids) interview Deborah Fields, a doctoral student at the University of California. Over the past two years she had spent innumerable hours in Whyville, a virtual world for tweens, studying Whyvillian news articles, an after-school club that played on Whyville, cheat sites about Whyville, becoming an established, wealthy citizen on the platform and paying off her loan for an exclusive Whyville car.

Show Notes:

0.00—0.24 intro
0.25—3.27 RezEd news from Amira and Rik at Global Kids (any news or events can be submitted to rezedinfo@globalkids.org)
0.25-1:36 Legos creates new virtual world, Lego Universe. Check out the new RezEd Group created, Lego Universe.
1:37-2:39 Read the Serious Virtual Worlds Report.
2:40-3:35 A head's up on the Sloan-C International Symposium on Emerging Technology.
3.51—4.43 podcast interview intros
4.44—6.13 Whyville overview. Whyville is developed by Numedeon
15.45—16.38 learn more here or check out the listserv for educators in Whyville here
16.39—16.43 thanks
16.44—19.03 Amira and Rik detailing the upcoming events for the RezEd community (any news or events can be submitted to rezedinfo@globalkids.org)
16:44-17:38 November 17, 2008 is the first RezEd mini conference in Second Life. Find out more details here
17:39-18:05 ReLIVE08 is on November 20, 2008
18:06-18:50 The NCTE Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas will be held on November 22, 2008
19.04—19.12 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 1:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Video footage from this year's SandBox Summit now is up on YouTube. You can find the videos here.

Our own Barry Joseph gets to lead the "Show and Tell" portion of the Sandbox Summit!

Posted by joyce at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Venture Beat online in a recent post on the online educational market, highlighted Ayiti: The Cost of Life as a successful example of such.

"Many educational games have been duds, prompting game publishers to avoid the market altogether. According to Johnson, it's very hard to bridge the gap between academics and successful games. And Mary Flanagan, a professor doing research on games at Dartmouth University, backs that sentiment up. Making learning fun has been the "scourge of education software for twenty years," she said.

Even so, Flanagan said, there have been recent successes in educational games for all ages, such as Darfour is Dying, Hush, Ayiti: The Cost of Life, and others. There are also brain-training exercise games such as Fit Brains from Vivity Labs and Photograb from Shufflebrain. It remains to be seen if this will amount to a resurgence for educational games."

Read the full post here.

Posted by joyce at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Thursday we finally started Second Life. It was SO fun. I never used it before, but my partner, the other kids and Tabitha and Shawna helped. At first it was hard because I don't really have a lot of gaming experience but later on I got the hang of it. I learned how to make my avatar walk, fly and sit. I love the flying part.
I hope others will use Second Life. If your friends have acounts too, you can interact with them online.

Posted by VVP Kimberly at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey guys!

Want to know what we did on Global Kids. Well we learned about Second Life even though I already knew about Second Life. Specially the Second Life was new to the new students that joined Global Kids. This year the internet was much better than last year. Last year when I went on Second Life I wasn't able to log or there was no net. So as days passed by there are new things that are being built by people with new ideas. I had fun sharing my own experience with new students showing them what to do.

Posted by VVP Jamila at 7:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi guys! Well my name is Jennifer and I am a VVP member. So let me recap what happened yesterday in VVP. Yesterday November 13, 2008 was our first time in Second Life! It was so cool! I was impressed with the virtual world and all the different stuff you can do there. The thing that I liked most was the fact that we can be in the virtual world being with REAL people! =D . I don't know how to explain how exciting it was yesterday! I just can't wait till we learn to do other stuff!! It's just the best ! =]

VVP ROCKS!

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

In global kids the other day, we watched a video about Harvey Milk's speech about making a difference in the world. It was very inspiring. It makes you think about the "big picture". Everyone isn't as fortunate as others. I feel very grateful to have such great technology and resources. Not many people recognize that.
In global kids, I also learned that Europe has the most technology! Who would have thought! I thought it would be the United States or even Japan but it's Europe!

Posted by VVP Helen at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was very fun to help students with their second life accounts. Even though it was their first day on second life, most of them were pretty good. The internet and also second life worked way better than last year. Almost every student was able to fly, sit, walk and communicate. They all learned something new. It was pretty amazing to see them flying.

Posted by VVP Sabina at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hurray! Finally, what I've been waiting for! A chance to work on Second Life! I'm glad to let ya'll know that I was not disappointed. It was a lot of fun. I couldn't believe how customizable the avatars were. I can't wait 'til I get the chance to work on mine! I'm going to try to make it look as similar to myself as I can. The only, only, thing that annoyed me was the major LAG! But apparently that lag won't last forever, so yay. There's just one more thing I'd like to say before I end this post: Second Life is fly... literally, lol. I flew high, and landed in the ocean – but it’s all good!
~WarriorGal

Posted by vvp JessyJo at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey everyone! Did you know that 60% of jobs require skills with technology? Well it’s true. This alone concerns me a lot because everyone is becoming too dependent on new technologies. In my opinion this is starting to go in the wrong direction because now people who are older have to learn new skills so they can just get a decent job. This could become a major problem some day, like in a black out, when no one would know what to do. This situation concerns me a lot.

Posted by Linette B. at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey you know who it is, today I’m here to tell you my feeling towards the digital divide. I never thought that 46% percent of blacks wouldn’t have online access. Because everyone I know has computer access whether it’s at home or at school. I kind of agree with the fact that 83% of whites have online access because of the fact that the majority of whites I see are either online on their phones or at home. I also hang out with a number of whites and all they really talk about is what new online games are out or "did you put that new pic on myspace yet" and that is all i have to say for today..

Tawana

Posted by VVP Tawana at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Digital Divide, this is a pretty heavy concept in this day and age. Most of us have taken the internet for granted. Most of us won't even think about who can't use the internet! For example, in Africa only about 6 million people use the internet. 6 million is so small in comparison to the US's 182 million. The Digital Divide does not stop at countries; white households are more likely to own a computer in comparison to Black or Hispanic households, and it even goes across Income levels!

The Digital Divide is a pretty interesting matter; it has made me think twice about how privileged I am to be able to access the internet so easily.

Posted by VVP Yuzo at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everybody.

My name is Sebastian Solis and this is my first blog. For the first class we had I created a project called Digital Life Map. It represents what are some of the things I experience with almost everyday. I think that there are many social networking sites were you can share ideas with other. Why don't we use them to make a difference? Some of the social networking sites I use are, my space, hi 5, facebook, hotmail, yahoo, itunes, etc. It means we are connected; I like to stay connected with my family and friends. It doesn’t really look like a map, but what I wanted to show is that they are all connected to my life, connected to the center, they are all necessary for me. It looks like the solar system and my life is like the sun. Check it out!!

Posted by Sebastian - GKm2 at 2:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Did you know in today's world of work, 60% of jobs require skills with technology; People who use computers on the job earn 43% more than other workers. What can we possibly do without computers these days? Definitely not work based on shocking but not really shocking statistic. If it's for a fact that workers who use computers for their job earns approx 43% more than the other workers, computer class should be a mandatory class to take in high school. This will give students the opportunity and skills to use for better paying jobs. Despite the fact that computers are a dominant technology in most of the American household, there are still few who do not have an easy access to them in and out of America. This is a very sad problem because these people without computers will not have the opportunity to get a job that will pay them more for knowing how to operate computers. This divisions created by the people who have acess to computer and people who do not is the digital divide and which greatly affects people, in this case job opportunities.

Posted by VVP Jeannie at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Tuesday, we talked about digital divide.

What is Digital Divide??
The digital divide is the gap between people who can use the computer and computer education and those who can't. One thing that surprised me that, White households are far more likely (83%) to own a computer than Blacks ( 46%) or Hispanics (47%).The main reason is that, white people are having better jobs than Blacks or Hispanic. In contrast, many of these Blacks or Hispanics are immigrants and most of them don't get to study here. So they have odd jobs.They can"t afford to buy a computer. Since the whites have highly paying jobs, they can even afford to buy themselves more than one computers.

Posted by VVP Sabina at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In class Tuesday we saw a movie clip about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. The movie showed how he helped others who were gay and also other minorities to take a stand too. Then we read about the digital divide, the separation of technology. One of the facts showed that the most people who use the most technology are people in Europe. I was really surprised that they used the most technology because I thought North America used the most technology. I learned that not a lot of people hsve never used a computer before.

Posted by VVP Kimberly at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The other day, I read this fact about the Digital Divide that really struck me:

These are the number of people online, as of May 2002, in Europe (185.83 million), Canada & USA (182.67 million), Latin American (32.99 million) and Africa (6.31 million)

To be honest, I thought that the USA was more technologically advanced than Europe. I mean, I don't see Europe coming out with the latest iPod or the newest skinny laptop every couple of years. Before I read that fact, all I thought Europe came up with (with the good stuff, anyway) were fast cars and flashy clothes. I didn't know there was a TECH side to the glamor we all know as Europe. The thing that kind of shocked me is that tiny, little Europe beat out both Canada AND the US, by about a quarter million people (maybe even more than that). I don't know what world I've been living in, but I always thought America had more technology than Europe.

Posted by VVP Janet at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two days after the election, the Virtual Video Project students wrote their views about Obama being elected the next president of the United States.

Click on the photo to see a larger version.

Posted by Krista at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two days after the election, the Virtual Video Project students wrote their views about Obama being elected the next president of the United States.

Click on the photo to see a larger version.

Posted by Krista at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"In today's world of work, 60% of jobs require skills with technology; people who use computers on the job earn 43% more than other workers."

I always believed that labor workers earn more than those who rely on technology because manual labor requires more hidden talent and skill. I think that in today's age, although not everybody may have computers or any internet access at home, such availability is everywhere-libraries, school, etc. It shocked me that the statistic shows that people who use computers on the job earn more.
True, people need to adapt to changing times, and in world of technology, knowing how to use computer is certainly useful, if not required. But the fact that these people earn more is still a shocker. Manual labor is something that is very extraneous and demanding. Unlike sitting in chairs and moving fingers and eyes around the screen, manual labor involves the entire body (unless your job is to deliver computers). I always thought that jobs that had high risks of bodily injuries paid the most, not sitting in a cubical staring that the screen all day.
This statistic made me realize that human achievements without the aid of computers is no longer appreciated and it saddens me that people are not given the proper pay as they should.

Posted by VVP Christine at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I sit here right now its extremely hard for me to imagine my life without technology, let alone computers. It’s my way of communication and practically the only resource I have for gaining information. The world is based around computers. It allows everyone to expand themselves, and I also believe that it’s a great learning experience. I read an article on the percentages of people throughout the world that have internet access. I wasn't shocked to find out that 182.67 million are online in the US and Canada alone. I was however surprised to see that so many don’t use the internet at all. People that earn less than $15,000 per year do not own computers. I feel like being able to get on a computer and use it for your advantage is a great privilege. Knowing that there’s so many out there that don’t have computers within their reach made me think. Maybe I don’t have to rely on technology so much. But my question is; is the ability to use the internet and connect to millions a positive or negative effect on those that do have access?

Posted by VVP Edelyn at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'd been looking for an excuse to use this great video on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for a while now, and yesterday I finally got a chance to. It was in a fireside workshop I did in Teen Second Life I titled "Know Your Rights!" which was kind of a 101 on human and civil rights, what the difference is between the two, and the struggles to defend them historically as well as up to this day. (The workshop, as is the case of many of the firesides we do, is actually a riff off of a classic GK face to face workshop on the same issue called "Youth, Understanding Rights and Civic Participation").

Conducting it in SL allowed me to more easily add the video as a nice appetizer to the subject, and I knew that SL teens, being more design oriented than average, would enjoy its clean aesthetics. It led into a substantive discussion on the differences between civil and human rights (civil are granted by the state, human are implicit in being, well, human), and I was impressed by the number of teens that participated that were able to articulate the difference between the two.

Our main activity was called "The Prioritization of Rights", and in it teams had order the US Bill of Rights in terms of importance. One of the things that I found most interesting in hearing the teams present their opinions was how much variance there was between the groups about which rights they felt were most importance. Freedom of speech and religion were often towards the top, while I think I only heard freedom from cruel and unusual punishment in the top five once. It really highlighted how hard it is to rank rights that are so basic, which is, of course, the point of the activity.

We closed off with a more broad based discussion about the nature of rights and how they're valued (or not) in different parts of the world, and whether certain ones are given more attention or priority than others. Inevitably, one of the teens brought up the recently passed Proposition 8 (which bans gay marriage in the state of California), and talked about how in his opinion that was a violation of basic human rights, and others from the group chimed in about whether they felt it should even have been on the ballot considering it takes away rights (most felt it should not have been). It was really heartening to see teens looking at the world through this lens of basic human rights and evaluating what they saw on that basis. We'd live in a better world if everyone did the same.

Posted by Rafi Santo at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hey, it’s WarriorGal again. Before I begin my post, I'd like to start out by letting ya'll know that the only times I am usually able to post is on Saturdays or if I get to GK early. Anyways!!
When we talked about the Digital Divide some time ago, I learned something new! White households are far more likely to own a computer than Blacks or Hispanics. I didn't know that! I'm Hispanic, and everyone I know who is Black or Hispanic owns a computer. Well, I do live in the city after all. Maybe if I check out another place on the globe I'll be able to notice the Digital Divide. Gotta go... see ya! :)
~WarriorGal

Posted by vvp JessyJo at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On November 4th, 2008, many teens came together to discuss various issues regarding the presidential election led by Lee Soothsayer and myself. Despite not being able to vote, they still had ideas to carry the event for hours. When considering the idea to host a debate in teen second life, questions come up about whether or not teens are mature enough to discuss topics that are generally taken care of by adults. After hearing what some teens had to say, it was clear to me that the answer to the previous question was yes.

Even emotional topics, such as abortion and the minimum wage were discussed by the group of teens. Some other topics discussed included the Iraq War, the US economy, education, taxes, healthcare, and energy. As people started coming, the discussion really picked up into a fully fledged debate. The great thing was that everyone had respect for each other, and so the debate had not gone out of control.

For discussing the war in Iraq, we had used the agreement scales to put forth our opinions. For the most part, teens seemed to be against the war in Iraq and that America should pull out. With abortion teens were pretty much split with the idea of banning it. One argument was that it should be the choice of the person giving birth as it is part of them. The other side had put forth the argument of, what if the country’s best president could have been born, but was instead aborted. Pretty much for every topic discussed, there were enough people on each side to put forth valid reasons of argument.

After running this event with Lee Soothsayer, we both feel that teen second life is a perfect place to hold debates because teens have a huge amount of ideas and opinions to put forth, and after all, we are the future of the world.

Posted by Nate - SL Intern at 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As Teen Second Life continues to fail to deliver on its potential, I am as frustrated as ever by the lack of competition. But today I learned of a bright light in the distance.

While there are many interesting and entertaining virtual worlds, and a handful with good opportunities for education, few offer ANY combination of affordances that make TSL such a powerful learning environment, such as:
- The ability to create items from scratch and direct them with internal code,
- The ability to sell or trade objects and afford the new owner the ability to modify them,
- Ownership of the intellectual property within their creations, etc.

Most youth-oriented worlds share a common set of tools - avatar creation, object collecting, communication tools, currency, a personalized "home” - but only Linden Lab has created a powerful tool for collective creativity, empowering its users/residents with tools required to construct the world around them and give shape to their dreams and desires.

That is, perhaps, until now (or some time in 2009), when Lego Universe is revealed, which to the best of my knowledge is a combination virtual world/MMOG (that is, it will be a creative, social space but also contain a larger narrative with points and missions).

The video below offers some concept art:

These short previews all look great but the second of the bunch, however, is the one that interests me the most, depicting one avatar building a car followed by a second avatar collaborating on its construction. Can it be that Lego can successfully transplant what has been so successful in the physical world into their digital equivalent online, one which is so desperately needed and is so well aligned with both virtual worlds and participatory learning?

On one hand, it is somewhat surprisingly easy to overlap the concept of building with Legos offline with building with prims in Second Life (the basic building blocks). And for those who might not be aware, Lego has a very active fan community who like to build and share what they build; the web site for Lego Universe takes good advantage of this community and interest in participating by offering numerous opportunities for fans to post photos of their own designs for items within the Universe.

Second Life is, in large part, defined as well by its community of engaged individuals sharing their creations. Second Life's toolset, powerful as it is, tends to be accessible to only the most dedicated. Lego bricks, however, are so easy my two year old plays with them.

Lego, in addition, has the advantage that most brands in virtual worlds do not - Second Life is so hard to describe because we have few lived examples with which we can relate it to; brands like McDonalds and Disney’s Cars have little to say about the core mechanics of virtual worlds, the very things one does when logged in. Legos, however, are all about building, a mechanic which translates so well to a virtual world, so immediately intuitively relatable, it has the power to tip in ways Second Life and few brands can.

If Lego can leverage their existing fan community and offer collaborative creation tools and ownership rights as powerful as Second Life's but with a user interface as simple as connecting Lego blocks, the potential for a new vibrant community for participatory learning might be right around the corner, build one virtual brick at a time.

Posted by Barry at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Robert Sherman has been a long time supporter of Global Kids through his position as a program officer at the Surdna Foundation.

To acknowledge his recent change from the Foundation to Mercy Corps we created this visual thank you for planting so many of the seeds at the base of our work at Global Kids.

Thanks Robert!

Posted by joyce at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We recently had a online wiki review of our Second Life curriculum, which while not totally glowing in nature, was a very lovingly crafted, thorough overview of it.

You can read the review here.

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

I feel really great about this 2008 election. It's the first time that I actually participated and cared about who becomes our president. I'm not sure why, maybe its because I'm older since the last election or because I know this election would make a huge difference and impact on everyone. On November 4th I watched Barack Obama win and become the president of the United States of America. I listened to his speech and I saw the thousands of people that united. They were all different races and many probably had different beliefs. I noticed that people have opened their eyes to see that we need a change in this country, and in order for that change to take place, they voted. I am glad to have been a part of history.

Posted by VVP Edelyn at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is my test entry for the blog
I hope this works lol

Posted by VVP Hector at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I feel that this year’s election was a very important election. I feel that Obama wining was cool. I feel that history was made because this is the first black president in 2008
I hope for a change that I think only Obama can bring to the white house. I feel that he can bring together the whites and blacks and all races to come together to make a change
well that’s what I think!

Posted by VVP Chris H. at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This year is my second year at Global Kids and this is my first blog for the new term. Today we did something called sentiment wall where we talk about how we felt, what we hoped, worried, and believe will be the outcome of Barrack Obama. Also today we had participated in a game which involved everyone counting altogether but one at a time. The game mostly kept us trying to be quick but not too fast at speaking.

Posted by VVP Christopher at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, I'm the WarriorGal. Today I came to GK a bit late so I missed the "sentiment wall," but from what I heard, it was about sharing our ideas of the post election. I'm a Republican and I didn't really want Obama to win, however I really didn't want McCain to win either. It is time for a change, and I do believe that we can. That is why I support Obama more than I support McCain. Another reason I did not like McCain was because I really dislike Palin. I will miss President Bush, but I'm looking forward to the change Obama has promised us. Well, bye-bye!

~WarriorGal

Posted by vvp JessyJo at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings, earthicans. Today is Thursday, November 6th, and Election Day was this past Tuesday.

One reflection I have about that night was how all New Yorkers seemed so united. I wasn't alive when Americans landed on the moon. I wasn't alive when JFK was assassinated. I'm really glad I was able to experience a moment that was so historic. :3

Never in my life have I seen so many people go through so many emotions in a matter of minutes. Crowds of people were shouting, and screaming, crying, and (the occasional) booing.

Huzzah!

Posted by VVP Megan at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi, I am Sabina. I am a high school junior. This is my second year in the Global Kids Virtual Video Project.
Today in VVP, we made a sentiment wall where we shared our ideas about the post election. I think Obama will bring an economic change in America. America is in a huge debt crisis right now and many people are losing their jobs. It's very important to get out of this economic problem. However, it's going be very to tough for Obama to make a change in the American economy. After creating the sentiment wall, we played a counting a game. It was fun. Now I am very tired and can't wait to go home.

Posted by VVP Sabina at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I worry that Obama will be assassinated before or after he becomes president of the US, due to his race. Not only that but I also worry for Obama's family, and I also worry what people might think of Obama if he can't fix all of the problems Bush has left for him. I hope Obama can fix it and bring great success to our great nation. =]

Posted by VVP Keenan at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think the sentiment wall was a great way to let people share their opinions on the election results. Everyone had diverse views making the exercise worthwhile.

Posted by VVP Bryan at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In VVP we created a sentiment wall about our feelings on Obama as the new president. When doing this activity, I got to see what other people were thinking; with this I saw that many people were joyful for this moment. There were things I noticed that people were worrying about.

Posted by Linette B. at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey guys!

Want to know what we did in Global Kids? First thing we did was that we had to write something about Barack Obama. One thing that I wrote about was that Barack Obama will create a great change in the United States. One thing that was hard for me was when we were playing the number game. It was hard for me because we had to call out a number without looking at each other.

Posted by VVP Jamila at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How do you feel about the sentiment wall activity?

The sentiment wall is a wall where we put our opinions on the post election on sheets of paper. It could be how you feel, what your hopes are, what you believe and any worries you have about the new president. I wrote about my hopes for our country. My hope was that Barack Obama will keep the promises he made during his election campaign and in his speeches. Then we played a counting game. It was fun.

Posted by VVP Kimberly at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi I am Jeannie ~
I think that so many Americans are worried about Obama and speculate about him being assassinated. Since he is the first black man to run the presidential office, people tend to relate him to other famous leaders in the past, who were as radical as Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther king Jr.
But since we are so alerted by the possible danger he faces, there should be plenty of security protecting Obama and his family. No one should attempt to assassinate him when America is already facing such a hard time.

Posted by VVP Jeannie at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On November 4th Barrack Obama made history. I feel that Obama has a lot of stress that is put on him because of our recent president Bush. I also think that there are many people who want change and there are also many others in this country who are not ready for a black president. My teacher Mr. C. did not believe that there was going to be a black president until the next generation. I support Obama even though I am not registered to vote because in my opinion OBAMA is ready for the challenge and will give this country a BETTER reputation.........


this was submitted by: ur gurl TAWANA

Posted by VVP Tawana at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The sentiment wall was a good activity to see how everyone felt about the post election. It was nice to see people that never talk felt about it, instead of the usual extroverts. Also, it gave me a good way to not think of these fresh faces as strangers; in a way, their opinions reflect who they are.
As for my own opinion, I really hope Obama isn't like Bush; with his foreign policies (especially the Bush doctrine), the old president messed up America.
One of the memorable statements I read today on the sentiment wall was, "I worry people are putting too much dedication to Obama." Although I support Obama all the way, I agree with the author and really hope he'll keep his word and go through with what he promised while he was campaigning.

Posted by VVP Janet at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well the activity was ok. It was fun to see everyone’s ideas and thoughts whether it was about the president or just how we feel about the year. It was pretty easy to understand, just pick a beginning like "I think" or "I hope" and let the words roll off from there. I kinda wish we could have spent a little more time on it. It felt too rushed like it didn't matter. Ah well maybe next time we do something similar we can focus just a little more on it. Hope for the best.

Posted by VVP Evin at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well today in virtual video project we had our own time to write on the sentiment wall.
We had to write about the post-election and how we felt about it, and everyone had their chance to write what they felt regarding to the election. I found this really interesting because we could write something without feeling scared or anything

I found this activity easy because I expressed what I felt about the election and I also learned what my other fellow mates thought about the election.

YAY! OBAMA! 08'

Posted by VVP Jennifer at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi, today is my second day in Global Kids and one of our activities that we did was about what we think, feel, hope, believe, and worry about the post-election, and about the world and the president. As a group we chose one that we felt was an issue or a proud moment or thought. I said that I think Obama as the new president will bring change into our world and into our money issues. But besides what I wrote on the Sentiment Wall, I feel that maybe we as the people will find the heart and help one another change this big issue we’re suffering from, along side with the new president

Posted by VVP Chanel at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are starting our blogs today! This is some pretty exciting stuff.

Now comes the question…
"How do you feel about the Sentiment wall?"

I feel that the many kinds of opinions expressed were all valid things. The fears of the economy seemed dwarfed by the type of renewed hope most people had from the election of Obama. This new hope seems to me a great light in the darkness that our country is going through right now. While much of the wall was hopeful, a few ideas were some very important concerns. The current economic problems of our country are still something that is affecting everyone. Someone expressed that they were concerned that Obama would have his name slandered from the things Bush did and how much of the blame would shift to the person having the responsibility of cleaning the mess, now Barrack Obama. Yet despite these concerns, I have many hopes that Obama is the right choice and that he will fix America to the best of his efforts.

Posted by VVP Yuzo at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The election was pretty recent and who knows what is going to happen
At Global Kids, we made a sentiment wall finishing sentences with....
-I think
-I feel
-I hope
-I believe and
-I worry

I chose “I hope…”. I hope that America becomes a better place (being really corny). With a new president, I am hopeful that he can make major changes in the country. I think focusing on economy is really important right now (I could be wrong.)
Some says America is in debt to some countries. I hate it when someone forgets about the debts made (personal experience).

Posted by VVP Helen at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is the first day of coming to VVP on a school day, and I am very, VERY tired . The game that we played by counting off numbers, was very fun and interesting. I admit, however, that the game got more stressful because there was no other way to make sure who was going to speak next as part of the game. We also discussed the posts on the sentiment wall. I posted, "I think that because Bush created a huge mess in America's domestic and foreign policy, Obama is going to struggle and take blame while cleaning up Bush's mess". I think that it was very interesting to see how many people were hopeful for the new president-to-be. But I believe that we should be careful not to depend too much on Obama because such high hopes can lead to great disappointment (since there were speculations before the campaign that whoever the next president will be, he will struggle A LOT).
Still, I'm happy that the eight-year reign of Republicans in the White House, and the eight-year rule of Bush's Administration will come to an end.
To add to the sentimental wall: I hope that Sarah Palin does not run in the next presidential election.

Posted by VVP Christine at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we the kids at GK made a sentiment wall, sharing how we feel about the post election and the new president Barack Obama. Most of us talked about what we hope and what we worry about. I personally feel like I can believe in Obama and his decisions, and I'm proud that the American people trusts Obama with their fate & future.

Posted by VVP Denise at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi, the name is Luis. Well when we started on the sentiment wall today it was different. It was the first time I’ve participated in something like that so I felt kind of dumb. But the whole thing was easy because we wrote whatever came in to our minds, and it gave us a way to see other people’s ideas in the program. Also it was a different kind of activity so it kept me thinking. I guess there is nothing else to say now and I’m out of ideas

Posted by VVP Luis at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As we blogged yesterday, yesterday in TSL we coordinated a mock election. With the help of many amazing teens including Ryan Dayton, who scripted a grid-wide voting system, and Victoria Hanfoi, who put together non-partisan candidate fact sheets to place near the polls (not to mention staying online all day yesterday teleporting people to vote!), we managed to hold what we think might be the first ever mock US Presidential Vote in a teen virtual world.

After teens voted, many stopped in and participated in a GK Intern run event by Lee Soothsayer and Nate Kongo; an open mic/debate about the race and the issues related to it. (Look for a blog post from them soon!) It was incredible just to be a fly on the wall during the event, listening as teens debated really touchy issues from abortion to the war in an incredibly civil way.

Oh? What's that? You want to know who won the TSL mock election? Oh, right! Here are the results:

358 Votes Total

John McCain/Sarah Palin: 91 votes. (25%)

Barack Obama/Joe Biden: 245 votes. (68%) - WINNER!

Chuck Baldwin/Darrell Castle: 2 votes. (1%)

Bob Barr/Wayne Allen Root: 7 votes. (2%)

Cynthia McKinney/Rosa Clemente: 2 votes. (1%)

Ralph Nadar/Matt Gonzalez: 11 votes. (3%)

Thanks to all who voted, and next time hopefully you'll be of age to do it in real life!

Posted by Rafi Santo at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm excited to announce to the blog-o-webs today the launch of GK's newest project, the Media Masters afterschool program! Media Masters, or M(2), is our first attempt at creating a face to face afterschool program that has students utilizing a wide range of participatory media and Web 2.0 tools (as opposed to focusing on one medium) to gain leadership and media literacy skills in the context of addressing global and local issues.

We're working with our incredible partners at MIT's Project New Media Literacies to take the activities that they've been developing in their Learning Library to promote new media literacy acquisition and adapt them to GK's style of global issue education in the afterschool setting.

As part of the program, teens involved will be creating a ton of different types of media ranging from more traditional photos and video to things like comics, online maps and wikipedia entries. Make sure to watch the Media Masters section of this blog to see things as they post them. At the end of the year, the teens will be putting together their Digital Portfolio of these media artifacts, which will be paired with a Digital Transcript that we give them, the combination of which will display their "media mastery".

We're incredibly excited about this pilot program, which is very much a big experiment for us. And we're thrilled that MIT will be researching the whole thing, to help us see clearly how the experiment goes. We'll be checking back frequently with updates. Wish us luck, our first session at the Prospect Heights campus in Brooklyn is this Friday!

Posted by Rafi Santo at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

On Monday November 17, Global Kids invites you to "Real World Impact From the Virtual World" in Second Life. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the USC Network Culture Project and Global Kids invite you to a sneak preview of a new Second Life sim that features MacArthur programs and grantees. The event will be held on November 17, 2008 from 1-5pm PST.

Join us to learn about how groups use virtual spaces like Second Life to build real opportunities -- preserving native peoples' cultures, creating accessible spaces for people with disabilities, helping obese people make healthy life choices and teaching underprivileged youth about paleontology and science.

This interactive series of events will take place on Foundations Sim (click here to teleport) and the neighboring archipelago that includes the Network Culture Project, Justice Commons (click here to teleport ) and Aloft Nonprofit Commons (click here to teleport).

The full schedule follows...

NOVEMBER 17 SCHEDULE:

1:00PM PST: Real World Impact from the Public Good Community Challenge: Challenge awardees share their lessons learned. Hosted by USC Network Culture Project

2:00PM PST: Tours of the Foundations Sim will be led by avatars from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation at Foundations sim (click here to teleport)
Panel and discussion on Alliance Building in Virtual Worlds hosted by Nonprofit Commons (click here to teleport)

3:00PM PST: "Dropping Knowledge: How Virtual World Educators Are Changing Lives" Panel Discussion on Using Virtual Worlds for Learning, hosted by RezEd.org at Justice Commons (click here to teleport )

4:00PM PST: "Birds-of-a-feather" Breakout Sessions and Social Mixer hosted by Global Kids at Justice Commons (click here to teleport )

Posted by Rik at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey guys!
After a long time, I got to talk about my experience at Global Kids.
First off all how is everyone doing? Hope you’re all great. .
So I spoke at the Machinima Festival. We were nominated from the movie we made, titled "Race In Equality". Even though we didn't win the award we had a lot of fun, and had the experience talking in front of people. It was my first time speaking in front of a public audience. It was about 60 people that attended. First, I was too shy to talk in front of them, but after I did my self-introduction it made me realize it was not a big deal at all to talk in front of people. It’s like you are telling a story about the things you get to do in Global Kids and the things you have learned.
Speaking in front of people was a tough decision for me. But from now on I can speak not only in front of 60 people but more, like the whole world.
Thanks to all our last year’s Global Kids friends for making this machinima so great. It’s okay we didn’t win, cheer up guys.

Posted by VVP Jamila at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings! Hope this finds all of you energetic and well. Staff reflections are a great way to see how the OLP staff are thinking. For my first month here, it was great reading through the team’s thoughts to get a feel for how OLP and GK in general works.

There has been a lot happening in the past month: Tabitha went with some GK teens to a Machinima Festival at the Eyebeam Center, Amira and Meghan have started up a new round of D.I.D.I. initiatives and new ideas have been spinning with the start of the new school year.

See below for a brief description of each staff member’s October reflection.

• Rik considers some of the key policy challenges in telecom and digital media faced by the next US President within his post, “Digital Media challenges for next U.S. President”.
  
• Tabitha shares first-hand experience with a stranger at the recent Machinima Festival in her reflection “Sometimes it takes a stranger's nod of approval”.
  
• “Does What You Don't Know Hurt You?” In this reflection, Shawna ponders how we, both trainers and teens alike, decide which global issues to explore in the age of limitless information.
  
• In "A virtual world instead of a chalkboard" Amira reflects on video about the challenges of beginning new programs this month with local high school students involved in the D.I.D.I. Initiative.
  
• Krista looks at her arrival to Global Kids and her first impressions of the organization and OLP in “Global Kids - starting Fresh”.
  
• Meghan reflects on how young people learn the nuances of expressing themselves text chat in “Is he just playin’?”, and how to compensate for what's missing when compared to voice communication.
  
• In “Is Obama Modeling a Vision of Youth Engagement via it's Xbox Campaign Ads?”, Rafi comments on the phenomenon of the Obama campaign entering play spaces to get out the vote, and what it might mean for the way an Obama presidency could support unorthodox methods of youth civic engagement.
  
• Barry recounts his "moment of inspiration" in “From Tech Geek to Social Reformer” that led him to leave his for-profit career for a life in non-profits.

To see all Global Kids’ OLP staff reflections, check out our blog at holymeatballs.org or click here. Thanks for reading and keep an eye out for next month’s blog!

Posted by Krista at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings! Hope this finds all of you energetic and well. Staff reflections are a great way to see how the OLP staff are thinking. For my first month here, it was great reading through the team’s thoughts to get a feel for how OLP and GK in general works.

There has been a lot happening in the past month: Tabitha went with some GK teens to a Machinima Festival at the Eyebeam Center, Amira and Meghan have started up a new round of D.I.D.I. initiatives and new ideas have been spinning with the start of the new school year.

See below for a brief description of each staff member’s October reflection.

• Rik considers some of the key policy challenges in telecom and digital media faced by the next US President within his post, “Digital Media challenges for next U.S. President”.
  
• Tabitha shares first-hand experience with a stranger at the recent Machinima Festival in her reflection “Sometimes it takes a stranger's nod of approval”.
  
• “Does What You Don't Know Hurt You?” In this reflection, Shawna ponders how we, both trainers and teens alike, decide which global issues to explore in the age of limitless information.
  
• In "A virtual world instead of a chalkboard" Amira reflects on video about the challenges of beginning new programs this month with local high school students involved in the D.I.D.I. Initiative.
  
• Krista looks at her arrival to Global Kids and her first impressions of the organization and OLP in “Global Kids - starting Fresh”.
  
• Meghan reflects on how young people learn the nuances of expressing themselves text chat in “Is he just playin’?”, and how to compensate for what's missing when compared to voice communication.
  
• In “Is Obama Modeling a Vision of Youth Engagement via it's Xbox Campaign Ads?”, Rafi comments on the phenomenon of the Obama campaign entering play spaces to get out the vote, and what it might mean for the way an Obama presidency could support unorthodox methods of youth civic engagement.
  
• Barry recounts his "moment of inspiration" in “From Tech Geek to Social Reformer” that led him to leave his for-profit career for a life in non-profits.

To see all Global Kids’ OLP staff reflections, check out our blog at holymeatballs.org or click here. Thanks for reading and keep an eye out for next month’s blog!

Posted by Krista at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Young people under the age of 18 usually don't get to experience the joys of voting in the United States.  But today teens on the Teen Grid of Second Life can head to Global Kids island (click here to teleport) to vote for their favorite presidential candidate. A virtual voting booth, created by teen Ryan Dayton, will be automatically tabulating votes for the next 24 hours until midnight PST.  Other voting booths will be scattered across the Teen Grid today as well.

UPDATE 11:30 pm EST:  Here's the poll numbers so far - TSL Mock Election Statistics: 358 Votes Total
John McCain/Sarah Palin: 91 votes (25%). Barack Obama/Joe Biden: 245 votes (68%). Chuck Baldwin/Darrell Castle: 2 votes (1%). Bob Barr/Wayne Allen Root: 7 votes (2%). Cynthia McKinney/Rosa Clemente: 2 votes (1%). Ralph Nadar/Matt Gonzalez: 11 votes (3%).

Posted by Rik at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As part of our ning social media site for our P4K game, Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City, we have launched this past week new curriculum workshops. They include an online and an offline workshop.

Tempest in Crescent City Online Workshop Global Kids workshop to be used in conjunction with Tempest in Crescent City.

Tempest in Crescent City Offline Workshop
Global Kids workshop which can be used without playing Tempest in Crescent City or as a supplement to the online workshop.

You can find out more details at http://tempestincrescentcity.ning.com/educators where you can download both workshops in their entirety along with other resource materials focused on Hurricane Katrina. We would love any comments or thoughts on them as well.

Posted by joyce at 6:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to the Sandbox Summit for announcing the release of the first seasonal report from RezEd.org.

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"Race to Equality" was nominated for Best Student Work at this week's 4th Annual Machinima Festival, held at the Eyebeam Center in New York. I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel along with three of last year's participants, not to mention possibly three of the most shy kids out of the bunch, to shed a little light on the process of making the film and what their first-hand experience was like.

What I learned most about yesterday's experience is that it takes just one person, to make all the difference.

Since September 2006, I have been involved with the Online Leadership Virtual Video Project after-school program. I met a woman who came up to us after our presentation, and looked me in the eye to thank me, well, us really, for what the film did for her and what it has done for her career. She further explained that she was a professor and was new to machinima; she showed the film "Race to Equality" to her students as an example of socially conscious machinima, and what the young filmmakers are doing at Global Kids. We were utterly flattered by her generous feedback.

The kids were shaking the woman's hand shortly after, beaming with pride. This was their first time meeting a stranger, a "fan" she called herself, and what better way to end the day than with that type of good feel feedback. I guess sometimes it takes a stranger's nod, a sign of approval, to feel like I am doing something right with the kids, something good for the world, and it feels great.

To see more photos, click here

To see short video clips from the event, click here.

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Recently on the HASTAC, The Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory blog, Sheryl Grant writes on RezEd.org, virtual worlds and Global Kids programs like I Dig Tanzania.

In the I Dig Tanzania summer camp, students were part of a guided experience, using avatars to bridge gaps of distance and understanding with the help of educators and mentors. Given how easy it is to be invisible and anonymous online, virtual worlds can sometimes raise ethical questions -- for youth and adults alike. Like anything that we do with kids, positive mentoring and best practices play an important role, themes that run through RezEd's community.

It has some great quotes from James Paul Gee, and our own Amira Fouad and Barry Joseph.

"Virtual worlds are not escapist fantasies but a new way to extend our lives and our sense of self. How can virtual worlds expand our lives in new ways," asks Joseph, "What social affects arise as a result, and are these results desirable?" It will be communities of practice like RezEd and pioneering groups like Global Kids that will help determine the answers.

Click here, to read the full article.

Posted by joyce at 2:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RezEd Podcast, Episode 19- Ryan Clemens discusses testing Google's new virtual world, Lively, with students at Arizona State

Featuring a podcast interview with Ryan Clemens, technology support analyst principal for Arizona State University, discussing Google's new interactive virtual environment, Lively and how a group of students spent several months testing the platform.

Show Notes:

0.00—0.24 intro
0.25—3.27 RezEd news from Amira and Rik at Global Kids (any news or events can be submitted to rezedinfo@globalkids.org)
3.28—4.59 intros with Ryan Clemens
5.00—6.10 what is Lively?
6.11—8.37 its functionality
8.38—14.09 what Arizona State University has been doing with it (press release link)
14.10—15.45 who else is using the platform
15.46—17.08 what Lively offers which other virtual worlds don't
17.09—19.10 future
19.11—19.20 thanks
19.21—22.28 Amira and Rik detailing the upcoming events for the RezEd community (any news or events can be submitted to rezedinfo@globalkids.org)
22.29—22.37 outro

Download the episode here.

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