Global Kids' Online Leadership Program

Yesterday we held our second Playing 4 Keeps training for the New York City Public Libraries. After completing the first half of the curriculum, they are now prepared to facilitate the second.

The librarians are SO fun to work with. They came up with a great idea during the Game Company Roleplay - you have to guide President Obama past the ghosts of dead presidents out to get him - and spent the afternoon creating their own serious game design paper prototype - Project Princess, a brilliant, hilarious game about media consolidation and the lack of an African-American Disney princess.

We covered ways to teach youth to search for information online and we received really valuable feedback about how they are adapting the programs to meet the specific needs of their sites (e.g. ask all the processing questions at once) and details about how the programs can be improve.

I can't wait to see in June what their students create to present at the first New York City Digital Youth Summit.

The following video is from the Game Company Roleplay. In this activity, everyone pretended to be part of a game company, making a game. The video is the final part, in which the "game producer" makes a pitch about the game development to the "client".

And enjoy, in reverse chronological order, the tweets from the participants, after the jump...

Tweets from the Participants at P4K Training at NYPL

Posted by Barry at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here at Global Kids, we have special love for the Game for Change conference, some of that comes from helping co-found it once upon a time. So to share some of that love, we are passing along the latest news on the conference.

Registration has opened for the upcoming 2009 Games for Change conference. This year our own Barry Joseph will be speaking at three sections of the conference - on assessment, on civic engagement, and on our P4K capacity building program. In addition, if you attend, you might get to see him participate in an Iron Chef style game design competition.

Games for Change full release follows below, and after the jump:

The 2009 Sixth Annual Games for Change Festival registration is open and the full schedule announced! Please join us at Parsons The New School for Design in NYC for our annual event which explores the growing movement and emerging field of games for social change and civic engagement.

A recent Pew Report showing that 97% of teenagers playing games, noted that "some particular qualities of game play have a strong and consistent positive relationship to a range of civic outcomes" making games perhaps one of the most powerful media of our day for learning and civic engagement. The Annual Games for Change Festival brings together the world's leading foundations, NGOs, game-makers, academics, and journalists to explore this potential and how best to harness games in addressing the most critical issues of our day, from poverty to climate change, global conflicts to human rights. And some of these new games are being played by (literally) millions of people of all ages.

Called "the Sundance of video games" for "socially-responsible game-makers" we're promoting a new genre of video game - games to change the world - for the better. Join us!

We are pleased to announce our opening keynote speaker this year will be Nicholas Kristof, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the The New York Times, scheduled for 9:15am on May 28th.

A fireside chat with leading scholars Jim Gee and Henry Jenkins is scheduled on May 29th at 10:00am.

And a conversation between Lucy Bradshaw, Executive Producer, Spore, Electronic Arts and N'Gai Croal, Newsweek will be the closing keynote.

Featured panelists and speakers include:

Sasha Barab, Professor in Learning Sciences, IST, and Cognitive Science, Indiana University

Ian Bogost, CEO of Persuasive Games and author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism

Heather Chaplin, journalist (NPR, NYT) and author of Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution.

Nick Earl, General Manager of Electronic Arts Redwood Shores Studio

Mary Flanagan, Director of the Tiltfactor Lab

Tracy Fullerton, Assistant Professor, USC, Interactive Media

Judith Helfand, Independent filmmaker

John Nordlinger, Senior Research Manager, Microsoft

Ian Rowe, former head of Public Affairs at mTV

Katie Salen, Executive Director, Institute of Play; Associate Professor, Design and Technology Department, Parsons The New School for Design

Seth Scheisel, New York Times game critic and technology journalist

Kurt Squire, Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison

Constance Steinkuehler, Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison

Clive Thompson, Contributor, The New York Times, Wired

Eric Zimmerman, Award-winning game designer, Co-author of The Rules of Play

Among many others.

You will find our usual excellent blend of provocative panels, informal working groups, funders meetings, ample networking opportunities and the ever-popular Expo Night where you can see - and play - the new games firsthand. In addition The Knight Foundation is supporting the first Knight News Game Award ceremony, where the best news games will be featured and awarded prizes.

Check out the festival site here.

And don't forget the pre-festival workshop for newbies on May 27th. Back by popular demand!

Let the Games Begin: 101 Workshop on Making Social Issue Games, (2008 MacArthur Foundation's DML Competition award-winner) This workshop is a soup-to-nuts tutorial on the fundamentals of social issue games. Appealing to those who are new to designing learning games but passionate about social issues, the workshop will feature leading experts on game design, fundraising, evaluation, youth participation, distribution, and press strategies. The 101 Workshop on Making Social Issue Games is made possible through the generous support of the AMD Foundation.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Posted by joyce at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Collective Intelligence is the ability to pool knowledge with others toward a common goal while judgement refers to the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information.

You are probably wondering how Wikipedia comes in to this. We had a group project in which we had to create a Wikipedia page on Prospect Heights Campus. All of the students involved in his had to 'collect' information on all the schools in Prospect Heights Campus and while doing so use their 'Judgment' to ensure that the information was credible, get where I'm going?

Once everyone had information on their assigned topics we then began to put the information on the site and below is the result.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_Heights_Campus#Brooklyn_Academy_for_Science_and_the_Environment

Posted by Shonette - GKm2 at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My memory on this is a little fuzzy but when we decided to create a wiki page on Prospect Heights High School Campus for our collective intelligence topic I was excited. Prospect Height Campus did not have a wiki page and we wanted people to know who we are!! So we broke it down in to sub-topics, like the different schools and themes, what the school was like in the past and some of the great things we're doing here. I was co-in-charge of the History section and the High School for Global Citizenship (my high school) and I was shocked by what I learned.

The first thing I learned and was completely shocked by the the fact that Prospect Heights was an all girls school when it first opened and went by the name of The Girls' Commercial High School (which I think now is not a bad idea!!). I also later learned that HSGC's prinicpal, Mr. Rau's grandmother attended The Girls' Commercial High School. Another shocker for me was the fact that Prospect heights high school ranked twelfth most violent among New York City's 125 high schools in 1990 by the Board of Education!! and it became one of the first schools to have scanning and full time police. I learned a lot about the other schools but it felt good to rep my school and make sure people know what great things are coming from HSGC!!!!

The process of putting it together was fun!! everyone had something they were in charge of that way the work load wasn't too heavy on any one person. We also get to check each other and correct things. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that wikipedia needs almost like proof of what your saying is true so we had to do a lot of research on things we already know. But it makes sense, you don't wan people give false or bad information. Over all this was fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_Heights_Campus

Posted by Amana GKm2 at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I played another game. This one deals with life in Haiti and what one must do to survive in such an environment. Because of the country's current economic status and the fact that it is often a victim of many natural disasters it is difficult to make opportunities for yourself.

As the game begins you must choose out of four, what type of strategy you will have during the game. Whether it is to obtain money, to remain healthy, to obtain education or to keep happy, that will be your main focus in the game.

Unfortunately as the game continues you will find that the strategies will begin to overlap until, as per my experience, you will begin to focus more on obtaining money because that is what you will need to keep your family happy, healthy and able to get an education.

The concept of this game is to enable you to experiment with the characters so that you will figure out how to achieve your main objective.

Despite the fact that I cannot remember the exact site should one decide to type in ayiti games on google search you will find it.

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

I have been working on a wikipedia page that myself and other classmates did. We all gathered information and made a page for Prospect Heights Campus , which is a high school located in Brooklyn New York. The school was formerly one whole high school but after certain problems the school was converted in four (4) small schools. The building houses Brooklyn School for Music and Theater , Brooklyn School for Science and the Environment, International High School at Prospect Heights and the High School for Global Citizenship.

This task was quite interesting because we all had to gather information and we had no idea what kind of information the other person had gotten so there might have been several versions of the same information . Also we learned information about our schools that we didn't know and also information about the previous school in the building and what had happened that made the school close down in the first place.

This was fun to do anyway, and by gathering our information we used other sources to get information also, to put on our pages. In the end our information was useful to make the page successful for everyone to visit . If you are interested you can visit wikipedia and type in prospect heights campus to learn more.

Posted by Shonell - Media Masters at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we looked at situations related to human rights around the world and my specific situation is the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in India. I hadn't heard about this before today (most likely because it happened long before I was born) and learned a lot. It truly is a tragedy. To put it simply, a pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal, India released extremely dangerous chemicals and caused the death of an estimated 8,000, with many still suffering from the effect of such a disaster. I looked at print and video media that was record then and ones that looked back on it but no matter how you look at it, its very sad. This tragedy led to the creation of The International Medical Commission on Bhopal which aimed at responding to the long term health effect and aiding those who have been hurt. That plant exposed nearly 500,000 people to the dangerous gas and even though this took place December 3, 1984, people are still suffering from brain skin, lung and other serious health issues.

You can click on the placemarkers in India in the map below to learn more.

View Mapping Human Rights Globally Through Transmedia in a larger map

Posted by Amana GKm2 at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So today, we did our first voice recording and filming. I thought that voice recording would be easy but it is really hard to get emotional as the character's emotions. My voice just comes out dull and plain. Also, the filming process is harder than I thought. Everyone has to work together in Second Life, and unfortunately, Second Life lags A LOT. For a 5 second scene, my group probably spent about half an hour trying to find the right positions. Hopefully the pace speeds up soon and we'll be able to finish filming by June.

Posted by VVP Christine at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RezEd Podcast Episode 31- An Interview with Constance Steinkuehler and Conversation with Mimi Ito and Henry Jenkins on Participatory Culture.

The thirty-first RezEd monthly podcast, produced by MediaSnackers with Global Kids.

Featuring an interview with Constance Steinkuehler, Assistant Professor, Curriculum & Instruction for University of Wisconsin – Madison plus a dialogue session with Mimi Ito and Henry Jenkins.

Show Notes:

• 0.00—0.24 intro


• 0.25—3.45 RezEd news with Rik and Amira at Global Kids (any news or events can be submitted here)


• 3.46—4.02 intros with Constance Steinkuehler


• 4.03—4.55 why educators should know about learning in virtual worlds


• 4.56—6.05 impact on educators


• 6.06—7.25 transformative elements


• 7.26—9.27 one thing which is exciting


• 9.28—9.40 thanks / outro


• 9.41—10.31 intros to Mimi Ito and Henry Jenkins


• 10.32—12.28 post-Pokemon generation (MI)


• 12.29—15.06 pop culture in digital realm (HJ)


• 15.07—17.28 communicating through digital productions (MI)


• 17.29—20.29 participation gap (HJ)


• 20.30—22.56 capacity building through use of new media (MI)


• 16.55—25.49 digital literacy connection with social action (HJ)


• 25.50—28.48 impact on young people across the world (MI)


• 28.49—31.07 impact on young people across the world (HJ)


• 31.08—32.11 sites of interest: Futures of Learning and Digital Youth Research plus Henry Jenkins' personal blog and Project New Media Literacies


• 32.12—32.15 thanks / outro


• 32.16—34.40 Rik and Amira detailing the upcoming events for the RezEd community (any news or events can be submitted here)


• 34.41—34.48 outro

Download the episode here.

Subscribe Now!

Subscribe to RezEd.org Podcast Series

To subscribe directly through iTunes:

Add to iTunes

Posted by joyce at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a neat little clip of Connie Yowell of the MacArthur Foundation welcoming the 2008 and 2009 winners of the HASTAC Digital Media and Learning competition, including myself and Amira from Global Kids. Connie always does such a great job synthesizing the broader historic trends, the cumulative impact of the various digital learning projects supported by MacArthur, and where we might be going in the coming years.  This is from the DML Showcase in Chicago on Friday, April 17 that I was honored to be at along with my colleague Amira. 

First off, congrats to all the winners of the 2009 Digital Media and Learning Competition, who are all gearing up to do really innovative and empowering digital learning projects around the world!  I'm blown away by the diversity of work -- from a project to empower civic engagement in Boston's Chinatown to an OLPC laptop-powered education project in rural Chiapas, Mexico, videoblogging in Mumbia, and 14 other amazing digital initiatives.

The 2009 DML Showcase was a very different event than last year's gathering of the 2008 winners that I attended.  Of course there were a lot more of us, with representatives of the 19 winners from this year, joining the 17 from last.  It was very intense and invigorating being among 50-some folks all doing something ridiculously cool and cutting edge in our field.  I enjoyed meeting the new cohort of grantees, as well as reconnecting with friends and colleagues from the Field Museum, Akili Lee of Digital Youth Network, Miquela Craytor of Sustainable South Bronx, Suzanne Seggerman of Games for Change, and many other cool folks I can't remember now.

Last year's showcase had a more informal, social mixer kind of vibe.  This year was a much more produced event, opening with a public performance by PLORK: the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, a dialogue on participatory learning between online community guru Howard Rheingold and cultural anthropologist Mimi Ito, short presentations and videos by various projects, and an exhibit area to showcase our work to each other. 

Amira and I were very busy during the event prepping for our presentation about our HASTAC-funded project RezEd.org that I think went very well. True to Global Kids, we weren't content to just do a simple talk -- we included a YouTube video, a machinima tour of the MacArthur Foundation's sim in Second Life, audio of an incarcerated teen reading a poem, and a live Second Life talk with Barry Joseph in avatar form. Then we rushed off to staff our booth for a few hours, giving the elevator pitch about Global Kids and RezEd, while also giving live tours of the MacArthur Foundation sim in SL.  Good times, good times.

Read about all the 2009 winners, or download the press release for more info on the HASTAC Digital Media and Learning Competition.

Posted by Rik at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Wednesday, April 8, 2009, Global Kids' Playing 4 Keeps youth created game CONSENT! launched officially in the Clemson Teaching Learning sim within the main grid of the virtual world Second Life.

The two hour event was attended by some three dozen avatars who got to be some of the first people within the main grid to play the game and many more who visited and played CONSENT! in the following days.

More info on CONSENT! after the jump.

We also received lots of great feedback and comments about CONSENT! and the game play experience. Below are a few comments left from players immediately after playing it via CONSENT!'s automatic posting of feedback to twitter.

Click here to visit and play CONSENT! within Second Life.

About Playing 4 Keeps

Since 2002 Global Kids has been a leader in the use of online games to promote global awareness, engaged citizenship, and 21st Century Learning Skills. Through the Playing 4 Keeps program, Global Kids trains urban youth to develop games about important social and world issues. Global Kids played a founding role in the creation of Games For Change, which is committed to supporting individuals and organizations to use digital games for social change, and Global Kids advises other institutions, such as IBM, on the creation of games and games-based learning curricula. In addition, Global Kids, staff and students speak and write regularly about this work in academic, non-profit and philanthropic settings.

CONSENT! was produced by the Global Kids Playing 4 Keeps program during 2006-2007 at South Shore High School, Brooklyn.

Youth leaders in the program at South Shore High School continued to gain hands-on game development experience by participating in the intensive after school program and by designing games using tools in the virtual world of Teen Second Life. The game they developed- CONSENT! - is an immersive experience that challenges its player to make difficult decisions while learning about six decades of medical racism targeting African-American male prisoners.

About the Game CONSENT!

CONSENT! is a first person, simulation game based on Harriet A. Washington's book "Medical Apartheid" (www.medicalapartheid.com) in which your avatar assumes the role of an African-American prisoner who has to make tough decisions about whether to choose to 'consent' and submit to medical experiments, which took place during the time period of the 1940s to the present.

The game was designed and developed by Global Kids youth leaders in the Playing 4 Keeps after school program at South Shore High School, NYC using tools in the virtual world of Teen Second Life. Additional building and scripting was also done by the teen-run TSL development company, Digital Refinery.

Find out more information on CONSENT! our blog or http://globalkids.org/?id=111

Media on CONSENT!

• CONSENT! - an introduction by Barry Joseph, Director of OLP, Global Kids
• A video tour of CONSENT! game in Teen Second Life

  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.

• Harriet A. Washington's book: Medial Apartheid and letter from the author on the game CONSENT!

The Playing 4 Keeps (P4K) program was made possible through the generous support of Microsoft Corporations US Partners in Learning.

To find out more information on our P4K program go to http://www.globalkids.org/?id=21.

Thank you to Clemson University and the generous use of the Clemson Teaching and Learning Services sim for display of CONSENT!

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

Today for VVP, we went to see the movie "Taken" starring Liam Neeson, after our long session. At first I was a little worried that the movie would be scary but it wasn't at all. The movie was basically about sex trafficking. Seeing the movie gave us a lot of ideas we can possibly put into our movie. One thing that I liked was seeing the father of the girl victim looking for his daughter, and he knew who to talk to in order to find his daughter. There was a lot of action throughout the movie.
Stuff we could put into our movie: Well, the traffickers dressed up just like any other person in the city. The traffickers were never alone. Some of the traffickers had beards. The victims were tied to their beds. I thought they were just put into a room where they could walk around and talk to the other girls, but not quite so.

In fact, the victims were drugged up the whole time. I thought that they would know what was happening to them but they didn't know what was going on around them at all...
The victims wore rags and not even revealing clothing like most people thought. The movie also said something like, someone has 96 hours for a chance to be found after they're taken/kidnapped.

Posted by VVP Kimberly at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Winners were just announced in HASTAC's Digital Media & Learning Competition. Global Kids received one of the first grants offered in 2008, to support RezEd.org.

The 2009 Award Recipients were drawn from two categories: Innovation in Participatory Learning ($30,000 to $250,000) and Young Innovators ($5,000 to $30,000). Innovation awards support projects that demonstrate new modes of participatory learning, in which people take part in virtual communities, share ideas, comment on each other's projects, and advance goals together. Young Innovator awards - designed to encourage young people aged 18-25 to think boldly about "what comes next" in participatory learning and to contribute to making it happen - will aid recipients in bringing their most visionary ideas from the "garage" stage to implementation.

More information at:
http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.5106073/k.A5AF/Award_Recipients.htm

We are especially excited to see one of the grants going to Alan Gershenfeld of E-Line Ventures, one of the members of Global Kids new Advisory on Digital Media. More info on his very cool project here.

Posted by joyce at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apologies to those who had anticipated our typical, Global Kids, constant reporting on our work for our new P4K Capacity Building Program. It's been awhile since we said anything, mostly because it has been moving forward fast and furious.

Since our last postings, the three NYC libraries have launched their programs, reporting about their work on the official program site, most with text, but some with video as well.

The Boston sites supported by MassIMPACT have now all been trained, 13 in all, and most should begin their programs by the end of the month.

Gamestar Mechanic is a fantastic learning and playing tool we have incorporated into the program. One site lead reported: "The students take to this like they were born to it.  We have had girls and boys doing this.  Some have 4 or 5 levels for a single game." Unfortunately, until a current bug is fixed, we were reluctantly forced to stop supporting its use in the program. We trust, however, this will be resolved before the end of this round of programs and Gamestar can be brought back into the fold.

Finally, NYC's culminating event, to be held at the New School/Parson at the end of June, is moving forward in partnership with MouseSquad, Petlab and others. It should be an exciting program for youth around the city, not just those in our game design programs, to show off their digital media projects from the year. Unfortunately, due to funding and size constraints, it will be closed to the 150 individuals involved in planning the event, but we'll do our best to keep everyone else up to speed!

Photo from the Boston training:

Posted by Barry at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are excited to share the news that our friends at the Field Museum of Chicago have teamed up with the tween virtual world Whyville to launch Whyreef: a virtual educational experience for young people to teach them about biodiversity and ecosystems. In Whyreef, you are challenged to observe different coral reefs and carefully record the species of animal and plantlife you encounter there, such as the spinner dolphin, the hawksbill sea turtle, and the humphead parrotfish. Beyond just basic biology education, the players will "work together to address environmental challenges threatening these fragile ecosystems" according to the press release.

Check out the recent RezEd podcast, where Barry Joseph of Global Kids interviews Jim Bowers, founder and CEO of Whyville, about the educational tools provided by this virtual world. And you can play the game yourself here. The full press release from the Field Museum and Whyville follows...

THE FIELD MUSEUM LAUNCHES A CORAL REEF IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD WHYVILLE.NET

Made possible with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, WhyReef brings the coral reef straight to kids and teens to educate them about reef conservation.

(Chicago, IL – April 13, 2009) – The Field Museum has expanded its tradition as one of the world’s great natural history museums by once again entering online virtual worlds—this time to inspire interest in and educate about coral reefs. The WhyReef project, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, uses virtual world simulation technology to actively engage the users of Whyville.net in an array of activities, ranging from assessing coral reef biodiversity to effecting change in an unhealthy reef. WhyReef went live March 30, 2009 and has received more than 40,000 visits in its first ten days.

The Field Museum chose to partner with Whyville because of its web-leading ability to engage young learners aged 8-16, with over 4 million registered users. Whyville citizens, Whyvillians, explore and compare two coral reefs, identifying the significant species in each and monitoring species populations under different and changing conditions. The activities have been a great success with over 270,000 identifications recorded. Like a real coral reef WhyReef has many colorful and charismatic species. Whyvillian favorites include the spinner dolphin, the hawksbill sea turtle, and the humphead parrotfish. Whyvillians also explore the complex system of “who-eats-whom” on the reef by playing the food web game, and will work together to address environmental challenges threatening these fragile ecosystems. This project highlights Whyville’s unique brand of collaborative and cooperative learning embedded in a simulated environment informed by The Field Museum’s experts on coral reef biology and science education.

In WhyReef, the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is used as a primary source for information about reef species. EOL, a free online encyclopedia, strives to make people more aware of the living planet through thousands of webpages that include text, images, maps, and videos. Exploring the underwater world through new media platforms like WhyReef is a terrific way to introduce children and families to a vital part of our planet’s ecosystem teeming with fascinating creatures and important environmental relationships.

“The kids in Whyville love the beach and the ocean, both in real life and in our virtual world,” says Dr. James Bower, Whyville’s founder and chairman of the board of Numedeon Inc. “WhyReef is an engaging way for them to learn more about ecosystems and marine life in general, as well as the complex issues involved in protecting nature under changing environmental conditions. We are very excited about this project.”

“The Field Museum has a long history of innovation in education and outreach programs, aimed at serving diverse audiences and improving the public’s literacy in science,” says Dr. Elizabeth Babcock, The Field Museum’s Director of Education and Libraries. “WhyReef is an important avenue for engaging families in learning about marine life and the consequences of biodiversity loss.”

About The Field Museum
The Field Museum is one of the world's great museums of science, environment, and culture and is a focus of public learning and scholarly research. It's a treasury of more than 23 million artifacts including ancient mummies, endangered plants and animals, and Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex ever found. Above all, The Field Museum is an unforgettable experience for visitors of all ages. Named for its founding donor, department store magnate Marshall Field I, the Museum first opened its doors in 1894. Today, it presides proudly over Chicago's lakefront Museum Campus, its majestic halls and exciting exhibitions welcoming visitors from around the world. The Museum is increasingly taking to the internet with its mission to increase public understanding of science. Recent innovative partnerships include the Encyclopedia of Life, an international consortium to create a website for every species on Earth (www.eol.org), and digital learning projects like WhyReef in Whyville.net and I Dig Tanzania in Teen Second Life, with partner Global Kids.

About Whyville
Whyville.net is the premiere educational virtual world for children. Launched in March of 1999 as the first virtual world for children, Whyville now has more than 4.5 million registered accounts. For ten years the site has successfully engaged its “citizens” to learn while having fun. In Whyville, children play, socialize, earn and manage virtual money, explore, design, eat, start businesses, dance, write, vote, campaign, and much more. Numedeon, Inc., the parent company of Whyville, was founded by scientists from the California Institute of Technology. The result of combining research and practical experience in learning and education with expertise in simulation, gaming, and virtual world technology, Whyville is a unique platform for learning and engagement. At greater than 30 minutes per log in, Whyville is the stickiest and most engaging of all virtual worlds (ComScore Media Metrics). A testament to Whyville’s dedication to education and safety, the site has won numerous media and parent awards, including a 2008 Gold Award for the National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Children’s Products Competition. Numedeon works with sponsors, like the Field Museum, to bring immersive learning experiences to the important but hard to reach 8 to 15 year-old “tween” demographic within the virtual world of Whyville.

About the MacArthur Foundation
The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society. MacArthur’s grantmaking in migration and human mobility seeks to improve the governance of international migration and supports research about the relationship between migration and economic development. More information is available at www.macfound.org.

###

Posted by Rik at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Multimedia & Internet @Schools magazine, in their recent March/April 2009 issue, wrote an article featuring our partners TakingITglobal: "The TIGed Program: A Model for Taking Classrooms Global." One section focused on where they supported us to distribute our Ayiti game to educators:

Case Study: Ayiti Online Game. Educators and TIGed chose to directly engage students in developing a thematic classroom and online educational game about life in Haiti. Youth at South Shore High School collaborated with partners Global Kids and Gamelab to develop Ayiti, a role-playing video game in which the player assumes the roles of family members living in rural Haiti. Players must balance various goals, such as achieving education, making money, staying healthy, and maintaining happiness while encountering unexpected events.

The Ayiti game is connected to a thematic classroom toolset, allowing educators to guide their students through an interactive learning experience that includes playing Ayiti. It is an example of a youth-driven project that effectively uses the skills of both educators and web developers to make the students' creative efforts a learning tool - one that speaks the language of youth while raising consciousness about global issues.

Posted by joyce at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a recent article "Iraq, the Videogame - War is hell. Should it be a game?", Wall Street Journal author Jamin Brophy-Warren writes on the upcoming game focusing on the Iraq War and the merits of serious games spotlighting real life events.

He also highlights other games, such as our own Ayiti, that effectively use serious subject matter and events as their base.

Videogames are not foreign to using real-life events as fodder. Many military games such as some of the popular Call of Duty and Medal of Honor series are based on past American campaigns during the various wars over the last century. The "serious games" movement, which often seeks to teach a particular message or idea, frequently draws on current events as well. MtvU, the college version of Viacom's MTV, launched a Web game called "Darfur is Dying" in 2006 to teach about the atrocities in the Sudan, and non-profit Global Kids and developer Gamelab created "Ayiti: The Cost of Life" that challenges players to keep a virtual family of five alive and healthy in Haiti.

You can read the full article here.

Posted by joyce at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tabitha shares this month the process of video filmmaking with the teens in the Virtual Video Project.....

Posted by tabitha at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, during spring break we came in to start revising some scenes. It's crunch time at GK and we really have to hurry up and get this movie finished, being that the program is over at the end of May. I can't wait to see the final production of the movie and see how all our hard work had paid off.

Posted by VVP Tawana at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Turning to the adage "better late than never", the OLP’s staff reflections for March are finally up!

A quick overview of what OLP thought about for this month: Rik talks about his trip to DC and how new digital media and online audiences need to be taken into account, Krista discusses her time at various conferences she attended this month, Shawna relays her debate about pedagogical ideas and student voice and Barry reflects on his participation with a design charette held at the New School in NYC.

Read the reflections below for a more in-depth description:

• In “WebWise 2009: Museums and libraries pursuing the innovative edge in a digital age,” Rik reports on his experiences at the WebWise conference in Washington DC and how museums and libraries should be responding to digital media and new online audiences.
  


• Krista discusses her experience with various conferences that she attended during the month of March in “A Time of Conferences”.


• In “Defending Student Voice,” Shawna reflects on why criticism can be a good thing when it comes to defending student voice.


• Barry talks about his experience with the first design charette he attended that brought together various MacArthur grantees to explore how learning in NYC could be transformed if we built a cross-institutional, youth-centered network using digital media, in “Notes from Wakatta”.
  

As always, thanks for reading!

Posted by Krista at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This past Friday we had a really interesting workshop looking at serious games that dealt with real world issues. Through the lens of a number of serious games we explored the concepts of play and problem solving through experimentation, simulation and how representation of systems can happen in a game context, and credibility and bias involved in games, just as with any other media form.

You can check out the student blog posts about the different games they played below this post, and some of the fantastic pictures that were caught from the workshop.

Posted by Rafi Santo at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On March 18-21, 2009, GK staff member Shawna Rosenzweig and Janet Nabila, a GK youth leader in the Virtual Video Project, attended the National Youth Leadership Council's 20th Annual National Service-Learning Conference at the Nashville Convention Center in Nashville, TN. Above is a youth-produced video from the event, highlighting different workshops, performances and service-learning projects that took place during the action-packed conference. The video was made by the students of New Foundations Charter High School, PA.

To find out more information about the 2009 NSLC, click here.

Posted by Krista at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The movie is coming along in VVP. I am enjoying making a movie on human sex trafficking. It has come to my attention that human trafficking had been happening in my very own backyard. People ignore the fact that sex trafficking is a big thing, and if their child is missing she/he maybe a trafficked victim. This makes me afraid for my life because one day I may be going to school and the next on the way to another country. Out of this film I hope to inform others on the works of sex trafficking.

Posted by VVP Tawana at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Within the last month I have been to several conferences, both through work and on my own time. The first conference I went to was held in Philadelphia and was a working conference that looked at the taxonomy of virtual worlds. This conference had many different virtual world platform developers, researchers, and educators using virtual worlds, among others, who were present. The topic surrounded the different roles that virtual worlds should play, especially within educational environments. I went to this conference with a colleague and we were honored to be accompanied by two GK youth, who were invited so as to incorporate the youth voice into the conference. The two youth who accompanied us were amazing. They carried themselves with poise and interacted well with all of the other attendees throughout the entire conference.

The second conference I went to was actually only one evening for a few hours and perhaps would be better classified as a discussion, but the important point that I would like to highlight was the fact that it was not youth-oriented. It covered global security, specifically looking at how certain events affect the United States. The entire evening was prepared by and geared towards adults, without any concept of youth being integrated into the discussion. The third conference I attended was the annual GK conference, which some of you may already know. The annual conference is developed and led by GK leaders, who are involved with GK programs, for other youth who are from around New York. The outcome of the conference was great – it was nice to see a place where youth came together from all over New York to discuss different global issues – in this case global health – and hear all the different voices, which in most cases, would be silenced in an adult-oriented conference.

I think it is challenging to not only create, but also maintain a youth-friendly environment at a conference, when most of the occupants are adults. After my multitude of conference events, I saw the value that youth added to the conferences. Youth have so much to say, bringing a fresh outlook and new ideas to an environment that in most cases concerns them. They should not be excluded from matters that affect them so directly. The youth who contributed at the conference in Philadelphia brought with them their experience on a topic that was looking at education within virtual worlds, something both are intricately involved with. Their voice, assuming it was heard, will make the outcome of such a conference that much stronger and incorporating their voice is something that more event organizers should strive to do.

Posted by Krista at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RezEd Special Podcast Episode 30 - RezEd Spring Meetup: Educational Implications of Mixed-age Versus Age-segregated Virtual Worlds.

The thirtieth RezEd monthly podcast, produced by Global Kids.

Featuring the audio from the first RezEd in-world meet-up, where Peggy Sheehy, Kelly Czarnieki and Lucky Figtree discuss the implications of integrating the Second Life Teen Grid into the Main Grid.

Show Notes:

• 0.00—2.42 intro


• 2.43—8.55 Peggy Sheehy talks about her views on educational implications for schools


• 8.56—9.29 Introduction for Kelly Czarneiki


• 9.30—13.32 Kelly Czarnieki discusses the educational implications for libraries and youth


• 13.33—13.54 Introduction for Lucky Figtree


• 13.55—18.45 Lucky Figtree touches upon her experiences with the Teen Grid and those who have graduated to the Main Grid


• 18.46—19.19 Rik Panganiban gives a short summary of what has been said thus far


• 19.20—22.59 Legal issues of having teens go onto the main grid


• 23.00—25.16 Overview of Linden Lab's views on the merger


• 25.17—27.34 Legal issues surrounding teens and adults with contractual relationships on the main grid if teen grid is merged into the main grid


• 27.35—30.00 How to get school administration approval for teen projects if on a mixed-age grid


• 30.01—31.09 A three-way area: a teen-only area, an adult area and a mixed area


• 31.10—32.43 Concluding remarks by panel


• 32.44—33.23 outro

Download the episode here.

Subscribe Now!

Subscribe to RezEd.org Podcast Series

To subscribe directly through iTunes:

Add to iTunes

Posted by joyce at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As we've grown here at the Global Kids Online Leadership Program, we've had incredible opportunities open up to us to do new work and connect with more youth. With that though, has come questions and challenges about how best to do our work and achieve our goals. In an effort to garner the expertise of some of the wonderful people that we've connected with in related fields over the years, we've put together the Global Kids Advisory on Digital Media.

The Advisory is comprised of a group of individuals from diverse sectors who will advise GK in utilizing new media and technology to educate young people about global issues and engage them in civic affairs. The Advisory is working with OLP to strengthen our resources and development so that we can address long-term challenges and goals. We're incredibly excited and thankful to have such a great group of individuals working with us. You can read about each of the members below.

Biographies of the Advisory Board

Nafiza Akter is an undergraduate honors student at Adelphi University in New York City, where she studies and works in their faculty center to provide technical support to academics and helps administer the school's Moodle learning management system. She is a graduate of Global Kids Online Leadership Programs, participating both via Second Life as well as face to face in a variety of capacities in New York.

Mariel Garcia is an undergraduate student in the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. She is interested in doing research in applied ethics (cultural policies and virtual media) and philosophy of law. She is a graduate of Global Kids Online Leadership Programs, participating via the web and Second Life.

Alan Gershenfeld is a co-founder and managing partner of E-Line Ventures, a ‘double bottom line’ company that produces digital entertainment that engages, educates and empowers.

Joe Kahne studies youth civic engagement and is the director of the Civic Engagement Research Group at Mills College. He recently completed a study with the Pew Internet and American Life Project that examined the relationship between playing games and youth civic engagement. see: www.civicsurvey.org

Eben Kaplan is Assistant Direct of Business Management for CFR.org, where he oversees business operations and marketing for the Council on Foreign Relations' website. Previously, as an editor of CFR.org, he wrote primarily about terrorism and homeland security. Eben also worked as a researcher at Foreign Policy magazine, and has lived and worked in Mexico. Eben graduated from Bard College with honors and a B.A. in political studies.

Alexis Menten is the Senior Program Associate for Education at the Asia Society, which is based out of New York, and has previously worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as a producer in the New Media Department.

Ken Miller is the President & CEO of Ken Miller Capital. He also sits on the Global Kids Board of Directors.

Alice Robison is an assistant professor of English at Arizona State University: she studies the literacy and learning practices surrounding social media and digital cultures, especially videogames. Alice recently served as the academic advisor to the New Media Literacies project at MIT, authoring articles, papers, and curriculum on media literacy and education.

Dominique Sindayiganza works for Global Kids as an educator trainer. Prior to working at Global Kids, he has worked as an Education Facilitator with the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center in the Bronx. Dominique also lived and worked in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he co-founded and coordinated Baobabconnections, a non-profit multimedia project for youth about globalization.

Robert Torres, Ph.D, runs a not for profit, designbydesign.org, that designs new school in NYC and is the Chief Design and Research Officer of the games-based school, Quest to Learn, scheduled to open this year. As part of his doctoral work at New York University, he has conducted learning assessment research of Gamestar Mechanic, a game designed to teach middle school students basic game design skills.

Eric Zimmerman is the Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer of Gamelab and Gamestar Mechanic. He has taught game design at MIT, NYU, Parsons, and SVA, and is the co-author of multiple books on game design and game culture.

Posted by Krista at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Join Global Kids this week, Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 2:00 - 4:00 PM (EST), 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM (SLT) in the Clemson Teaching Learning, (173, 212, 26) sim for the Second Life main grid opening of the game CONSENT! We will be holding tours of the game, discussing the TSL project & holding question & answer segments throughout.

IM Rhiannon Chatnoir for a teleport during the Second Life event.

CONSENT! is a first person, simulation game based on Harriet A. Washington's book "Medical Apartheid" (www.medicalapartheid.com) in which your avatar assumes the role of an African-American prisoner who has to make tough decisions about whether to choose to 'consent' and submit to medical experiments, which took place during the time period of the 1940s to the present.

The game was designed and developed by Global Kids youth leaders in the Playing 4 Keeps after school program at South Shore High School, NYC using tools in the virtual world of Teen Second Life. Additional building and scripting was also done by the teen-run TSL development company, Digital Refinery.

Find out more information on CONSENT on this blog or on Global Kids Playing 4 Keeps program site.

The Playing 4 Keeps program was made possible through the generous support of Microsoft Corporations US Partners in Learning.

Thank you to Clemson University and the generous use of the Clemson Teaching and Learning Services sim for display of CONSENT!

Posted by joyce at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently attended a conference on youth development in which a debate emerged around pedagogical approaches to teaching young people about serious issues. I was asked whether using youth-designed games to talk about serious issues trivializes the lives of those effected by the issue. Later in the conversation, it was said that Tempest in Crescent City, the third Playing 4 Keeps game about local heroic efforts in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, is nothing short of offensive. While my gut reaction was to get defensive, I soon realized this was actually a good thing. And this is why:

The goal of Playing 4 Keeps is not about the games. It is not about determining what's reality and what's not, or whether games can ever be used for learning. Playing 4 Keeps, as I see it, is about student voice. The game serves as a platform for these young people to speak out on an issue they feel passionately about. Taking a step back, and reflecting on the backgrounds of these young people brings to light another point. Traditionally, the adult demographic, let alone high school students, from such ethnic and/or socioeconomic backgrounds have been a silenced part of the population when it comes to civic engagement.

So what happens when they, or anyone else, has the chance to have their voice heard? They may choose to speak out about issues that seem too personal or too uncomfortable. They may say things that are deemed offensive or perhaps even flat out wrong. But that's ok. Part of having a voice and speaking out with that voice, is about having others listen and being able to listen to them. Listening to feedback, both positive reinforcement and negative critiques, is not only a part of the learning process, but civic engagement as well.

While I initially wanted to defend the participants in Playing 4 Keeps, I know this is the wrong response. The young people at Canarsie High School who participated in Playing 4 Keeps, have indeed succeeded. We see this through the group of forty adults who spoke up and engaged in an emotional conversation about their experiences and reactions to our nation's response to Hurricane Katrina as a result of Tempest. And this is just one example of one group's reaction...no one knows where the conversation will spread from there. These young people should be proud of themselves for taking the risk to speak out and know that people are listening, even when they disagree.

My takeaway from this conversation is that as educators, when we work to create opportunities for student voice, we need to be mindful of also creating opportunities to listen, not only for the young people we work with but for ourselves as well.

Posted by Shawna at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Janet Nabila, a GK leader in the Virtual Video Project, reflects on her experience at NYLC's National Service-Learning Conference in Nashville, TN.

Day One: Arriving in Nashville
Nashville isn’t what I expected it to be. I thought it would look like a farmer’s property or some form of barren wasteland. (Honestly, would you ever go to TENNESSEE for vacation?) I was shocked to see that I was wrong, and that Nashville was totally cool. The city is super ultra clean. Downtown Nashville has everything (significant sites, of course) in walking distance of each other. Although it emphasizes barbecue (yuck!) the cuisine was great. There are sandwiches here that are completely squished together! Anyway, the first day we arrived, Shawna and I did nothing but walk around. Although I was completely taken over by exhaustion by the end of the day, it was worth it. We went to see the Nashville Convention Center, the famous Rymen Auditorium, and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Day Two: A Full & Fun Day at NSLC
Oh, did I mention almost EVERY intersection of each street has a singing box? (Yes, quite literally.) They also have a lot of “honkytonks” here. Another thing I noticed were the open friendliness of locals. In New York, the cab driver is as quiet as a pin. In Nashville, the people force awkward conversation upon you, even if you give one-word answers. Anyway, the actual conference was amazing. Although the my amazingly comfy hotel bed had me distracted during morning plenary session, I still paid attention. After, we had workshop sessions. They were awesome! My favorite one was about the divide between funding for private schools, middle-class schools, and under- funded ones. The facilitator had us divided into three groups. I was in the under-funded one. We got trash thrown at us, were enclosed in an ever-closing square and crammed, had one textbook, mean teachers, and a test with questions like “what was the population of Russia in 1921?” The middle class was better than us. The private schools got a flat screen TV, video games, food, laptops, and all that good stuff. After, we learned that the facts about the funding divide. One thing I found interesting was that in Washington state, there’s a school that’s so under-funded that they have to regulate their usage of toilet and paper towels.

Day Three: Presenting Global Kids at NSLC
It’s my last night here; I’m absolutely exhausted but I think it’s worth it. I’d rather be here than sleeping in my Chemistry class anyway. The thought of going back to New York’s 30 degree just makes it worse! Anyway, we facilitated our workshops today. For me, it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it’d be. Shawna talked most of the time, which most definitely helped. One thing I learned about facilitating is that you shouldn’t read directly off the paper, because not only will participants not understand you but it just shows how you’re not comfortable speaking. I rephrased the question, based on what they said. The workshops were long and tiring but the experience was worth it at the end. I also noticed that if I cracked jokes, laughed, and smiled a little, the people paid more attention and didn’t text under the tables as much. I liked facilitating, and hopefully I’ll do it more. There was really no need to be so nervous, because the people didn’t know anything about the topic – but I did! One of my favorite parts of Nashville was this AT&T building that looked exactly like the one in Batman. It was awesome! I’m sad to leave my intersection-singing, Starbucks-at-every-corner, and over-friendly-locals city!

Posted by Shawna at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our storyline and dialogues are almost finished. The VVP teens have established a pretty solid story, we just have to add in a few scenes to the story and clean it up a bit. I'm looking for places in Second Life to shoot and buy stuff (props, clothing, etc). I think I know where I would want to film the movie. I just have to wait till we're up to the filming part.
Also great news.... my avatar is back to normal. For the past couple of months i have been a "ghost- cloud thing". I just clicked the put one of the buttons in my inventory and then my avatar figure appeared. I was so happy!!! And kind of dumbfounded that a simple click could just fix my avatar and not before. I think it was fixed but I never tried to do anything.

We still need an ending and we still need more props.
Keep up the good work everybody!!

Posted by VVP Kimberly at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Friday, Global Kids held its Annual Conference at Baruch College, gathering 600-some students and educators from around New York City to examine critical social issues, meet each other, and get activated.  This year's theme was "Global Health -- Be the Vaccine," featuring speakers and workshops on a wide variety of health-related topics. 

An important aspect of the Global Kids Annual Conference is that the day-long event is entirely youth-led.  Our Global Kids teen leaders are in charge of nearly every aspect of the conference, from the selection of the overarching theme, to the workshop facilitating, MCing, and entertainment.

This year, we tried something new: enabling a team of Global Kids teens to film different parts of the conference using Flip cameras and editing the best clips together into a mini-documentary about the conference that is shown at the closing plenary of the event.

There are a lot of aspects of how this was organized and created that my colleagues Barry and Joyce and I could talk about.  The one lesson that I want to focus on here is how the act of filmmaking got our youth more engaged with the event that they were at.

The reality is that even under the best of circumstances, being at a conference can get boring...  particularly if you are a teenager.  Listening to keynote speeches given by adults, going to workshops on complicated social and political issues, wading through the pages and pages of materials in the conference packet -- not necessarily the most exciting activities for a young person to engage in.  (That said, Global Kids conferences are very carefully designed to be exciting, engaging, and fun!)

So by giving our teen filmmakers specific "missions" (film 30 seconds of the most important points made by the 2nd keynote speaker, interview a teen participant about their impressions of the conference, capture 30 seconds of footage of teens discussing a social issue in a workshop...) we were helping focus our energetic teens on specific actions they could do while the conference was going on.  It gave them a reason to listen and observe more carefully what is going on around them, and think about how they might present it to someone else later.

A good sign that we were on the right track was how enthusiastic our teen filmmakers were to do video missions all during the day.  I had assumed that most of them would do a few shots in the morning and perhaps get bored of it and return the cameras to us before lunch. But all of them wanted to film during the entire conference. 

I suppose that I should not have been surprised.  It's fun to shoot video, particularly with a user-friendly device like the Flip.  I myself have observed that if I am at a conference  and find myself tuning out or falling asleep, I can increase my own engagement with the subject matter by taking notes, blogging, or taking video of the event.  

Taking the lesson a bit further, we often think of how we can deepen the engagement of our virtual participants at events that we are simulcasting from a real world conference.  Just parking your avatar in a chair and watching a live video or listening to an audio feed gets boring really fast.  So we are always thinking of activities we can be doing with the in-world participants to keep them tuned in to the content -- whether its posing questions in the text chat, having them debate one of the key points, or having volunteers paraphrase the speaker's comments in their own words.

Having virtual participants film short videos of the event, and then make those videos available to other audience members -- both virtually and in the real world -- might be a great way to engender deeper attention to the content of the conference.  The conference organizers might edit together the best videos into the "official" conference summary video to show at the end.  Or they might give prizes to the best videographers. 

My friend In Kenzo has actually already done this, with the "Visions of Global Justice" art opening that she and the USC Network Culture Project organized in March last year.  They created incentives for machinimatographers to cover the art opening, and they gave Linden dollar cash prizes to the best videos. Awesome stuff.

I'd love to try this for a future Global Kids virtual event.  

Posted by Rik at 6:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I played the McDonald's video game at mcvideogame.com but this wasn't the first time i saw or played it. I can across this came I think about a yea ago with my sister. At the time I wasn't thinking about the point of view or message behind it, I only wanted to win, and to win you had to bribe important people, lie and steal. I don't want to think that this is what McDonald's had to do to get to where they are now. Basically the game made it seem like McDonald's was bad for the people and in more ways than one. They steal land, they produce and sell unhealthy products, knowing the food is unhealthy but still selling it, treating worker unfairly, all while CEO's tried to figure out how the keep groups who were against the quiet. It really is a shame if McDonald's is really like this. But its hard because even as I tried to play fair the only way to keep things going to to not play by the rules.

This game definitely had a point of view. It was clearly created by a group who is against what McDonald's has been doing. But how could they have known all the aspect? I don't complete trust it. The entire McDonald system can't be so corrupt at every level and not have been caught and stopped. The game, like all others, allowed me to take control and see things from a different point of view. However how much of a choice you get to make is up to the makers of the game. Games are different from other forms of media because they allow you to take control and make the choices where as other forms to media, like documentaries or new articles just allow you to see what going on. With games their are choices but the understanding that each of those choices have consequences.

Posted by Amana GKm2 at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The game that I played was Hurricane Katrina Tempest In Crescent City. The different ways that the game represented information about the issue was by showing a family that moved from New Orleans to New York and by showing images of houses, streets, water, people screaming for help. Things that make my game different from documentary, news article, photograph, radio story, or other form of media are that I'm the one who being effected from the hurricane, I'm the one who take action in the game to save people and my mother.

I used experimentation in order to figure out how to succeed in the game by reading instructions how to play the game and by failing one time then after I know how to succeed. I couldn't get to the next level so I die at the first time then I realize that you have to talk to people get information and don't let any material hit you.

The game's point of view was to illustrate how you could help people who have being affected by Hurricane katrina.

Things in general that make my game different from a documentary are that my game is experimentation its is a form of problem that they create and that you could solve the problem on your own.

Posted by Monel - GKm2 at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just played this game called Profit Seed. This game represents the controversy between farmers, GM and Monsanto for their genetically modified seeds that are infecting the farmers crops. The game represented information about the issue by discussing it on the different boards as well as using the game itself as an infomercial.

I used "play" in the game by learning the controls and figuring out the goal of the game in order to succeed. Once I figured out the goal, it was pretty easy to beat the game.

The game's point of view is that genetically modified seeds are wrong. In other words, what GM and Monsanto are doing is going against the balance of nature and that it shouldn't be continued.

Games are different from a news article because instead of just reading a piece of paper, you get to put yourself into the position of the person that situation is directed towards. You get to experience what they're going through rather than thinking about it.

Posted by Viveca - GKm2 at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The game I is just played was McDonald's video game it represented big business and what types of things fast food companies would do to keep their company running. The game showed how land was taken for native people and how workers weren't happy with the working conditions. what is often showed on tv is Mcdonald's is a company that helps the community and values their workers (which sometimes can be true but only when someone says something about). there was a lot of experimentation in this game in order to succeed, you have to keep your customers, worker and animal rights people happy all at the same time to make money. To succeed i had to fail here ad there to figure out how the game worked. what makes games different form documentary news articles photographs and other form of media is that its all in one it provides photographs , historical contacts, and a character view point.

Posted by Neville GKm2 at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Serious games, what a way to look at games differently! Who would have thought that games could be so interesting and could be that related to issues today.
I played a game called DARFUR IS DYING on one of the web sites ad wow that was something that I have never expected before. The game represented some people of African descent that had to carry water form one area to another to get water and carry it back so that they can help the village. The strange part was that there were police that would capture them and carry them to a camp where they could be raped and put to work non stop which is inhumane. The game represented this issue in different ways because it showed how a family would try to make a living of some sort and then every time to got close someone would come and try to take that away from them.

The game was different from a documentary , news article and others because it gave me a personal experience about the issues that was happening . It personally had a toll on the way I feel , the fact that I was the person that had the chance to save someone or the whole village life and I either help them succeed or I failed and that was the horrible part of the game, knowing that these things actually happen in real life.

The game did have a point of view that it was trying to get across and that is that people might actually be suffering more than we think . The issues might be show something that the article might not show, that the people are actually trying to do some thing with their life but it not happening.

The idea or thought that makes the game different from a documentary is the fact that it made it more real. We had a chance to experience what was happening first had and it made a difference on how we felt . Either it be that we helped that family or we failed the family. It showed us that the issues are real and there are different ways to experience it, and take into consideration that the game might have a more effect on you than the article would have. It would show you a different point of view of the actual issues and something that the article does not do is giving a more fictional view of what is actually happening in the country.

Posted by Shonell - Media Masters at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well hello again. Today I'm logging about play, representation and credablity as said in the heading.

Another project from Media Master, we were to choose one of five games to play and then blog about how this affected our thoughts on the main topic of the game.

I chose Darfur is Dying, which is a very depressing game about the issues people in Darfur go through daily. Four of my 'children' were taken by militia while forraging for water before I decided to call it quits.

In Darfur there is a lack of food and water and that affects the survival rate of the people there, not to mention that te government and the military seem to be currupt and ed upraping the girls before beating them as well as the boys to death.

To be honest I was caught when ever I tried to get water so I did not win at any aspect of this game but my experimetation with the characters led to me getting closer and closer to winning every time. This is because I decided to 'run' and 'hide' in the direction that the game said wa sclosest to the water.

I believe that the game was trying to give more of an impression of political uprest and a need for help not only politicall but economically and agriculturally as well.

A game gives a more realistic piont of view to a situation that a documentary of news aritcle would paint in some ways and the fact is that more people would rather play a game than watch a documentary or read an article or even listen to a radio story about it.

And even though a picture is worth a thousand words those word are only on one point of view inseat of many like a game.

The link to this game is DarfurIsDying.com

Posted by Shonette - GKm2 at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)