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We hope everyone thinks good thoughts for us going into the first annual Knight News Game Awards ceremony Wednesday night as part of the Games for Change Festival. Some of the Playing 4 Keeps student designers will be showing Ayiti: The Cost of Life off to the crowd before the winner is announced.
Wish us luck!
With all my time here I've met tons of people. People I've come close with and worked with also. With all the time we have spent on this program it's been fun. When we leave from this program I will truly miss everyone here =]
When you're making a movie you have different sections of different things you need to get done. Since we are almost done with our movie, people are editing scenes or doing some promotional stuff. In the promotional team, you record a little clip about what the movie is about and a few facts about our topic, child sex trafficking. Me and two other girls are making fliers to distribute to our friends and family, to make sure people know about the screening of our movie. The movie will be screened at the Sony Wonder Lab.
Hello Everyone,
During the last couple of weeks I have been on the filming crew. The filming process is intense, the main reason is because people become very frustrated when Second Life has lag (even though it didn't bother me much ^_^). There is one scene in particular where we had so much lag that everyone was just laughing, it was the scene when the swat team was invading the brothel.
I prefer to film because I get to see how everything would look in a rough copy and like to see the ending result after people finish editing it. I consider it hard work but I actually don't mind it because it is worth the end result (also someone has to do it =]).
I can't believe the VVP movie is almost done. It feels like yesterday that we were just discussing the topics. Time definitely flies by very fast. The movie is going to come out absolutely amazing; I can't wait until July 1st to see the final outcome. The issue of human trafficking isn't very publicized; I want to see if our movie actually has an effect and whether or not people will actually do something about it.
Not only has VVP been amazing but the what Global Kids has given me throughout the year, has been, too. The National Service Learning Conference in Nashville, Tennessee was awesome. It was one of my favorite trips. Because of the annual conference and retreat, I met a lot of new people. I plan on continuing with Global Kids next year!
We're almost done with our movie on child sex trafficking! Basically, we're done with the intense editing and right now we're just tweaking whatever we've got. It's a little frustrating when we've got to redo some audio or re-shoot some scene in Second Life, but all-in-all, it's totally worth it! This has been the greatest experience of my life, like... ever!
WarriorGal
This new movie we're working on is turning out to be really fun. We were each able to have our own part in the creation of the movie. From editing the scenes to being the actors themselves, we all have a hand in the process. The filming was a complex process even though it might look simple on the outside.
I had quite an experience with the movie making process. The editing was a hard part because of the amount of work needed to make the scene as perfect as possible. The filming was also a great experience, as I was able to get into a position where I had to cue the various actors to do their parts in my scene. Also being the actor is very fun, being able to watch your character be filmed then see them from a different angle in a more cinematic view is quite a pleasure.
Overall the movie making process is quickly coming to a close, and hopefully our premiere of the movie will generate many positive views on our movie. It is a little bit of a shame that the many viewers of our movie will not see the large amount of work behind the scenes that we have done, but it is still a pleasure to see that our movie is coming together.
This is the first time we got to get the whole film done. The whole movie was hard to make because of the whole editing. It was a killer, do this and do that. Even fix this and fix that it was such a drag. i hated it but, in the end it made the movie great. it was something I never did before and I would do it again.
It was a hard job to do but in the end I couldn't do it without my friends. They had help me move along on this long program. I think without them I couldn't move alone and I would never get anything done so its great to have friends to help :)
Below is a brief video from the final Global Kids' final training for the New York Public Library for the Playing For Keeps Capacity Building Program.
More info about this program at http://www.playing4keeps.org.
On March 27, Global Kids held its annual youth-organized conference at Baruch College that brought together 300+ youth and educators from around New York City. The theme of this year's conference was Global Health, with the slogan "Be the Vaccine!"
One of the most remarkable parts of the 2009 GK conference was the live video documentation of the event. Six Global Kids leaders filmed the event "guerilla style," which was then edited on-the-fly by GK staff, resulting in a compilation video about the entire conference that was shown during its closing session. It was a perfect example of the Global Kids's participatory learning approach, having our youth film the conference on their own and for everyone to enjoy the footage that their peers shot. We hope that you enjoy it as well.
Thanks to our guerilla videographers Fio, Jessy Jo, Chanel, Tawana, Amana, and Grace and our MCs Lindsey, Leon and Ashley!
RezEd Special Podcast Episode 33 - Live from Engage! New Platforms and Tools for Virtual Worlds
The thirty-third RezEd monthly podcast, produced by Global Kids.
RezEd Special Podcast Episode 33 – At the Engage! Expo held in New York from March 10 – 11, 2009. This episode features live recordings from the Engage! Expo where Rik Panganiban and a GK leader interview participants at the Expo.
Show Notes:
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We are happy to report that the public launch of MacArthur Island in Second Life was very successful. The launch featured a live conversation between the avatars of Jonathan Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation, and Cory Ondrejka, co-founder of Second Life now at EMI. Over 150 avatars, plus another 20-some viewers of the live webcast, gathered to participate in this discussion on the future of virtual worlds and philanthropy.
Mr. Ondrejka and Mr. Fanton both spoke very well from their respective and unique positions as a virtual world visionary and a philanthropic pioneer. They described quite movingly the potential of these technologies to promote the public good, spur new kinds of collaborative action, and capture people’s imaginations towards a better future. And Connie Yowell of the MacArthur Foundation did a fantastic job moderating the discussion, fielding to Mr. Fanton and Mr. Ondrejka a wide range of questions from the virtual audience.
Click on the image above to see the video archive of the whole event, graciously provided by our friends at Treet.tv. Or visit MacArthur Island yourself at this teleport link.
The whole event was quite the team effort, involving most of the Global Kids Online Leadership Program staff, several programmatic, communications and technical staff at the MacArthur Foundation, the virtual world video producers at Treet.tv, and master machinimatographer Draxtor Dupres.
Best comments from audience:
Darren Hayes of the Learning Forward blog posted recently an entry on his thoughts on the Games for Change Toolkit, including thoughts on one of Barry's presentations and his experience playing Ayiti.
You can read his thoughts below or the full entry on his site.
The Toolkit 4 Making Social Issue Games produced by Games for Change is a terrific primer on the state of the industry on serious or social issue games development. This toolkit provides a series of video presentations by leading proponents in the serious games arena and is a great way to start thinking about what’s out there and what’s possible.In one of the presentations within the toolkit Barry Joseph, Director of the Online Leadership Program for Global Kids, talked about the planning and production of a game called Ayiti, the Cost of Life. “Ayiti” is the Creole word for “Haiti.
In the game itself you have a family in a village in Haiti and you need to guide them through a series of activities over the course of four years where the family members try to earn money on the farm or at various jobs, you try to provide education for the children, stay healthy as long as possible, and generally confront the “cost of life.”
There are some remarkable aspects to this game and it’s development process that go far beyond just the programming and playability factor. Here’s a few things that I took away from reviewing the presentation by Joseph on the development of the game, as well as from playing the game itself:Youth Inspired
Urban students participating in a Global Kids initiative identified the key idea of the game to address Health and Education as a global human right. They chose the place the setting of the game in the country of Haiti, which has the highest rate of infant, under-five and maternal mortality in the Western hemisphere, and where only half of primary school-age children are enrolled in school.Collaboration
Global Kids, a non-profit organization dedicated to building leadership and global citizenship skills in urban young people partnered with game developer Gamelab, through funding provided my Microsoft, during a year-long iniative to design and develop the entire curriculum and game experience. Global Kids also developed workshops with support materials for teachers that help young people integrate and act upon what they encounter in the game.Learning by Engagement
The game is a great example of social issue games where instead of just learning about social issue statistics, or seeing images or even watching video presentations, you are immersed in the challenge itself. While playing the game I was faced with making very difficult choices like, the father needs to work in the factory to make money to help his family survive, but he has come down with tuberculosis. Or there is only enough money to send one of the three children to the local school, and the other children have to work on the farm, or the family and community is devastated by a hurricane and have to rebuild their lives.Challenging
The game is challenging, both on a social level and in the gameplay itself. It’s difficult to win, as it should be, since it’s based on very real and terribly difficult challenges families living in poverty in Haiti face every day.
We were very sorry to see our long-term partner, and digital advisory member, GameLab close its doors this month. GameLab partnered with Global Kids on the powerful game Ayiti: The Cost of Life and over the years published numerous game titles.
It may be the end of an era, but its also the start of something new and we look forward to what comes next for those behind GameLab.
Others commenting on the passing of GameLab:
On Thursday, the VVP teens finally finished filming our scenes for the movie. It took so long to shoot one scene. Second Life kept crashing while we were filiming so we had to hope and wait to get started. Filming isn't easy but it was fun. Now we have to finish editing all our scenes and add sound effects and other stuff we need.
Hi, my name is Viveca and I am blogging about my Human Rights Map. This project is about events around the world that violated the rights of humans. I did mine on the Genocide in Rwanda, a tragic event that took place in 1994 during April.
I used three types of media: a photo, a video, and an article. I used the photo to show my audience the pain and aftermath of the genocide. I used the video in order to show people what the Rwandans went through during that blood-soaked month and I also used the article to give readers some text on the events that occurred that month. I chose this topic because I knew a lot about the genocide and I felt as though I should do a map about it.
While doing this project, I was able to get some more info about the genocide and why it happened in the first place. This project sort of made me sad at first because of all the tragedy and agony that surrounded this horrific event.
Hi guys! I am doing a blog about the Prospect Heights Campus Wikipedia Page. Basically, the whole Media Masters club took pieces of the school's information such as its racial make-up, its historic background, the schools inside of Prospect Heights, and other bits of information in order to make a page about the school on Wikipedia. We were split up into partners so that we could work on gathering the information in the different categories. Me and my partner Krystal were working on getting info about the racial breakdown of each of the schools inside PH. I really liked doing this project because it allowed me to learn more about the school I'm currently attending. This project also allowed me the chance of helping contribute to the creation of our personal website and I was very happy to be a part of it. 
It is so difficult to understand sometimes. Like the times in math class, I know the teacher is explaining problems correctly, but I can't understand a word she is saying. Numbers have never been my thing. if I'm feeling pressured I just can't concentrate. When I'm getting instructions for editing a scene, it kind of goes in one ear and out the other sometimes, so I have to ask the GK adults to explain again. I hope I get the scene right today.
I only learned about NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program about a year ago, from my friend Sonaar that who had then just started a graduate degree there. I'd thought of the program as focused on engineering, and Sonaar, a fellow meditator, writer and tech enthusiast, didn't exactly evoke engineer. He was straight liberal arts to me. But then, I didn't know much about the program.
Since then, I've had the opportunity to check out their seasonal show, now for the second time, and gotten a real sense of the incredible spirit of creativity, innovation, experimentation, playfulness and collaboration that characterizes the program and its students. At the show there are tons of projects, ranging from innovative interfaces, tech art, pro-social technologies, mobile applications, wearable technology, robots making art, and much more. Some seem immediately ripe for either venture capital, application in the classroom, or installation in a museum. Others are more whimsical, and might never make it to a broader public, but will inform the discourse around interactive media. It's a real playground for those interested in the next generation of odd, interesting and thought provoking technology. You can check out the photos I took from the show in the slideshow below, but for full effect you should check them out with my notes on my flickr stream.
Last month, my colleague Amira and I had the opportunity to speak to several coordinators of Neighborhood Network sites around the country. Neighborhood Networks are onsite, multiservice technology centers aimed at promoting self-sufficiency for residents of assisted housing.
Giving this talk was a good reminder to me of how the older "digital immigrant" population sees Web 2.0 in relation to young people, and how innovative the work we do at Global Kids really is.
Neighborhood Networks coordinators meet annual at Regional Technology Assistance Workshops to network with each other and learn strategies for maintaining sustainable centers and promoting resident self-sufficiency. Amira and I got to speak at one of these workshops in Dallas to about 150 Neighborhood Network staffers. It was a totally different population than we have ever dealt with at the Online Leadership Program.
Amira and I were tasked with giving an hour and a half keynote session on "Technology Trends: A Look at the Future." We decided to focus our talk on "Participatory Learning and New Technology," discussing how Global Kids integrates digital media and Web 2.0 into our youth development framework. I am used to have 5-10 minutes to give the Global Kids Online Leadership Program talk, so having 90 minutes was both daunting and refreshing.
Amira and I took an educated guess that this audience was likely to be more daunted by and frightened of Web 2.0 than appreciative of what it can provide for their residents, particularly their teenage residents. So we spent a good chunk of our time explaining what Web 2.0 is and exploring some of the fears and concerns associated with these tools. I saw a lot of head nodding when I talked about MySpace as being a dangerous space full of predators, video games as full of senseless violence, and YouTube as a distraction from studies.
Then we presented the Global Kids perspective on Web 2.0 and participatory media, which basically turns on its head a lot of the traditional fears and concerns. I.e.:
Clearly this blew the minds of a lot of our participants.
One person in the audience remarked she blocks access to MySpace and FaceBook at her technology center, but now she is rethinking the wisdom of that. Another person described how she had to restrict YouTube because kids were watching videos of other kids at their school beating each other up. One coordinator explained that they tend to only have very young kids and adults use the technology center, but that their teenagers have "better things to do" because they don't offer anything that interests them.
It was really amazing seeing these technology center coordinators think in new ways about how their youth could use these tools for beneficial purposes.
I'm hopeful that these coordinators of technology centers will develop programs at their sites that help their young people be more skillful digital citizens, media producers, and seekers of knowledge. Global Kids ou course has our own programs and curricula and media that we are happy to share. But we are just one of many, many other great organizations around the country that could be helping these Neighborhood Networks out.
With 1,400 Neighborhood Network sites around the country, the possibilities for changing the lives of thousands of at-risk young people using these digital tools is really tremendous.
Over the course of April and going through to the beginning of May, Global Kids, in partnership with Common Sense Media and Harvard's GoodPlay Project, held the first ever cross-generational online dialogues about the promise and perils of the digital age. I'm happy to share that the dialogues were a success, generating over 2,500 posts in over 200 distinct topics from over 250 registrants. Also, to our knowledge none of the teen participants run away from the dialogues, slamming their bedroom doors behind them and yelling "You just don't understand me!". :D That's to say that we were impressed both by the depth and nuance of the discourse as well as the civility and mutual respect shown by both sides. Yes, it is possible to actually talk about these issues!
We're now going to start the process of analyzing the content of the dialogues with the aim of sharing a set of takeaways with the public about what it means to be engaging in cross-generational conversation on these issues. In the meantime though, we figured we could direct people to full content of the dialogues so that they could see for themselves. The participants were broken into three smaller groups, following these links will bring you to the content of each group.
Enjoy!
Tabitha had 20 tickets to the Mets game, so i tagged along with her and with some GK kids, Megan, Jessy Jo, and Abraham. On our way into the subway, we met up with Tabitha's boyfriend, Tom!! He was very friendly. Then when we got to the stadium, Tabitha's other friends came.
This was my first time going to see a baseball game so I was very nervous. When I saw the field, my eyes popped! I thought it was a painting at first. The game was exciting and I can't believe there were so many home runs.
Thanks Tabitha for buying us fries, pretzels and bringing us to the game!!! :D
During my last vvp session this past Friday, one of my trainers Tabitha invited all of VVP students to a Mets game! She had extra tickets and was generous enough to share the joy. Even though I'm more of a Yankee fan than a Mets fan, I was excited to go because it was my first baseball game, ever!
I had a blast at the game, and before we left, we all got to sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game with the crowd. I enjoyed seeing all of us singing and just having a good time. 
WarriorGal
If you haven't gotten a chance to read Barry Joseph's latest post to the MacArthur Spotlight blog on his thoughts on emerging trends in virtual worlds, you can check his post out below or on the MacArthur Spotlight blog.
MacArthur grantee Global Kids reflects on six trends in virtual worlds around learning and philanthropy.By Barry Joseph
As RezEd enters its second year of funding from MacArthur, we thought it would be helpful to outline several trends we have seen emerging that affect learning and virtual worlds.
Trend 1: Media Tired...
The press grew tired with its love/hate relationship with Second Life, the preeminent virtual world in the public sphere, moving from wide-eyed adoration to cynical disdain. Recent signs, such as cnet’s ”Second Life Strives for a Second Wind” and Gigaom’s ”Second Life Starts to Grow Again,” suggest the pendulum might be swinging back.
Trend 2: ...Educators Inspired In the meantime, educators have been as productive as ever in their innovative uses of virtual worlds. While once primarily found in the halls of academia, reports now come out regularly touting the educational impact of virtual worlds in K-12 and informal learning institutions.Trend 3: Tear Down the Walls
While we are still far from achieving a state of interoperability amongst virtual worlds, allowing an avatar to move from one world to another, virtual world/Web 2.0 integration has continued full force. New worlds like the New Zealand-based SmallWorlds.com allow users to bring their social networks and social media into their virtual world. This advance promises a new array of educational opportunities, as the possibilities for participatory learning increase.Trend 4: Few Points of Entry
Entry points for learning institutions are few and far between. Although there are a few standout examples of learning institutions partnering with commercial developers (WhyReef comes to mind, the site created by Chicago’s Field Museum that received 40,000 visitors in ten days). More often, however, large commercial worlds are more interested in top-down, cause marketing, like Habbo Hotel’s new green-awareness campaign.Trend 5: Roll Your Own
In response to the lack of entry points, many institutions and enterprising educators are making their own. For example: Raph Koster’s Metaplace, the highly anticipated web-based, virtual world creation platform, invited educators into its closed-Beta last fall. Quest Atlantis at Indiana University is moving beyond the U.S. to scale in classrooms around the world, which itself is built atop the educator-friendly Activeworlds. The Immersive Education Initiative launched the Education Grid, built atop Sun Microsystem’s Project Wonderland. IBM launched its proof of concept project The Virtual Forbidden City.Trend 6: No Holy Grail in Sight
While far from the holy grail of virtual worlds, all eyes are still on Second Life. And Second Life is in a state of flux. In the past year, nearly every major leader has stepped down or left Linden Lab. In January, Philip Rosedale suggested in an interview that we would soon see the end of Teen Second Life. This led to speculation about the creation of a new educator’s grid. Just this month Linden Lab announced a new technology to allow organizations to run their own private Second Life grids, behind their own firewall.RezEd will explore these and other trends this June 10th - 12th at the first RezEd conference, held within the Games, Learning and Society Conference.
RezEd.org, the online hub for learning and virtual worlds, has just entered its second year. It was funded through the first HASTAC competition, building on Global Kids’ prior work in virtual worlds made possible through support from the MacArthur Foundation, and continues now through support from a recent MacArthur grant.
Cable in the Classroom has released the latest issue of Threshold Magazine. It goes out to 40,000 schools. This issue was coordinated by our partners at the M.I.T.s Project New Media Literacy. Global Kids was involved in three of the articles, each available for free as a pdf download here.
The first one, Henry Jenkin's "'Geeking Out' on Democracy," states the following:
Global Kids, a New York after-school organization, has been using Second Life to bring together youth leaders from around the world in a virtual playground where they can imagine and stage solutions to real-world problems. Global Kids used machinima-a technique to create realtime digital animation-to document the story of a child soldier in Uganda and circulate it via YouTube and other platforms to call attention to the plight of youth in the developing world.Much like the HP [Harry Potter] Alliance, Global Kids is modeling ways we can bridge the gap between participatory culture and participatory democracy.
The second is an article co-written by GK's own Rafi Santo, descibing a day in the life of our innovative Media Master's program: "Mastering New Media."
Finally, the third, "The Future of Participatory Culture: A Threshold Forum," is an edited transcript of GK's Online Leadership Director, Barry Joseph, in dialogue with Henry Jenkins, Daniel T. Hickey, and John Palfrey discussing the rise of digital media and what it means for our students, our schools, and education in general.
Please check it out and help spread the word about this fantastic resource.
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52 to 48 was the best project that I had to do. The best thing is that my picture had to be online so other people could see it... people from around the world. I like the fact that other people had to come sharing their work online, sharing their feelings about what they think about the election. Everybody came up with a way to show their feelings, some people had babies, people kissing, fathers and sons. The amazing thing thing is that everybody should a strong feeling about the election, everybody states that 52+ 48=100.
Hey!! So last year I produced a radio documentary on what I love the most..chicken!! But its more than just me talking about my love for chicken. I drove into the investigative journalism world and tried to uncover the origins of the stereotype surrounding African-Americans and chicken. I dont want to tell you too much about what's said and what I found out because I want you to listen to it yourself but its worth the listen. Let me know what you think!! Thanks!!
http://www.wnyc.org/radiorookies/shortwave/kaskazi.html
We are excited to announce that on Monday May 18, the MacArthur Foundation will be officially launching MacArthur Island in Second Life with a public forum featuring Foundation President Jonathan Fanton and co-creator of Second Life, Cory Ondrejka. Ondrejka and Fanton will be discussing the future of virtual worlds and philanthropy, and then taking questions from the virtual audience. An informal reception will follow.
Virtual world / web simulcast services provided by our friends at Treet.tv.
Head to the Foundations sim (click here to teleport.) on May 18 to participate!
MacArthur Island in Virtual World to Open with Public Forum on May 18
On May 18, to mark the launch of MacArthur Island in the virtual world of Second Life, the Foundation will host an event featuring the avatars and live voices of Foundation President Jonathan Fanton and co-creator of Second Life, Cory Ondrejka. The discussion between Ondrejka and Fanton will consider the future of virtual worlds and philanthropy. This public forum also will be broadcast as a webcast to standard internet browsers.
For those with avatars, a visit to MacArthur Island will offer a way to understand MacArthur’s grantees and work, via interactive 3D exhibits on issues ranging from biodiversity to human rights and education. The island is also open to other foundations and nonprofits for events and activities in the public interest.
The investigation into virtual worlds and philanthropy is led by Global Kids and the Network Culture Project at the University of Southern California, with support from the MacArthur Foundation.
For more information:
Details on the webcast, the event, how to attend the event as an avatar, and how to visit the Island are available on MacArthur's Spotlight blog.
To learn more about MacArthur's digital media and learning initiative, visit our website.
RezEd Podcast Episode 32 - includes an interview with Dan Hunter and Barry Joseph holds a conversation with Peggy Sheehy and Darren Towers.
The thirty-second RezEd monthly podcast, produced by MediaSnackers with Global Kids.
A quick discussion with Dan Hunter regarding the State of Play (conference series). There's also a dialogue with Peggy Sheehy and Darren Towers who discuss virtual worlds in middle schools with Barry Joseph of Global Kids.
Show Notes:
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*Note: We have concluded our CTC VISTA process
Work with Global Kids through the national CTC VISTA program! Gain experience in the media literacy field, helping to develop and implement game design in the New York area. Games-based learning has been proven to be a powerful way to learn. The project would be focused around this aspect, game design, helping to develop the curriculum that GK would then use to teach other educators how to incorporate game design into their programs and educational institutions. The VISTA member would help to implement this curriculum in trainings for both GK staff and for the staff at the educational institutions, gathering the materials necessary and answering questions that may occur that are focused on the curriculum. In order to make this program successful, the VISTA member would work with GK staff to help promote this program to other learning institutions, such as libraries, museums or schools.
Eligibility and Qualifications: Any US citizen or legal resident 18 years of age or older is eligible to become a VISTA. Experience with game design, strong analytic and persuasive writing skills, ability to research, a comfort with young people, internet savvy, highly resourceful, the ability to take initiative and work independently as well as collaboratively, an interest in alternative educational models or youth development and a background in Web 2.0 technologies and gaming is required.
The big picture: The CTC VISTA program is "the domestic Peace Corps." It is national service. It is community service. It is a chance to take on a project that will have a lasting impact; to develop needed community resources. One of the most attractive things about being a VISTA is that you have the opportunity to make a very measurable impact in a very specific period of time.
Benefits: VISTA volunteers receive a modest living allowance stipend of $11,000 for the year. They receive either a $1200 cash stipend or $4725 education award, which can be used to pay for tuition at many universities or to pay off student loans, at the completion of service. Most student loans can be deferred during service. Basic health insurance coverage is provided. CTC VISTAs attend a national media or technology conference. VISTAs benefit from the ongoing support of a network of 50 VISTAs working on media and technology projects across the country.
To Apply
Interested candidates should apply via email and email alone. Candidates are encouraged to identify a serious game of interest and write 1-2 paragraphs describing how effectively the game design builds awareness around a social issue. Email resume, cover letter, and game review, to olpjobopenings@globalkids.org (either as a zipped or stuffed file) with "P4K Programmer" in the subject line. We encourage applicants to pay particular attention to the cover letter, addressing why the candidate is interested in the position, poses the required skills, and what role it plays in the narrative of the candidate's career path. In addition, please let us know where you learned of the position.
To find out more about the P4K program you will be working on, please visit:
http://www.playing4keeps.org/
To find out more about the CTC VISTA program, please visit:
http://apply.ctcvista.org/node/289
Global Kids, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to a policy of equal treatment and opportunity and do not discriminate against employees or applicants for employment on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, citizenship, mental or physical handicap or disability, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, military or veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law. We continue to support and promote equal employment opportunity, human dignity, and racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity.
I am constantly being asked by people either one of two things.
In response, perhaps to throw fuel on the fire, I thought I would collect some of my favorite tweets from April and collect them in a bitstrip comic (so everyone can now ask: "Why are you making digital comics..."):
Now, on to some analysis of the "why waste time on this when I am suppose to be working," tweet by tweet:
This weekend I went with Shawna and two of the incredible GK Teen Leaders from the Media Masters program to the conference "Learning in a Participatory Culture", put on by our partners up at MIT, Project New Media Literacies.
For me, the event was characterized by a number of things that are marks of a great conference:
And more than anything else, I just enjoyed seeing the creation of a participatory culture of pedagogy. Educators coming together, connecting and sharing and participating in a movement that will hopefully change the way that education happens in the 21st century. I know that in many ways, it already is.
If you're interested, you can check out the presentation that Shawna and I gave about the Media Masters program below, which outlines a lot of the strategies that we've used to bring new media literacies into the afterschool setting. I've embedded it below, but to get the full context, view it here to see it with notes.
Also, check out the posts by GK Leaders Monel and Shonette with their thoughts on attending the conference.
The Conference at Massachusetts was amazing! They had people from different places sitting together learning about Global Kids Media Masters and other types of media workshops. The best part of the trip is that we went to a Afghanistan restaurant couple blocks to the hotel, the food was delicious, the hotel was splendid but I was a little unhappy because we could only stay for one night but I totally enjoy that night. My favorite part of the Conference is that I had to tell people about Media Masters, it felt really great and I enjoyed learning about some other part of the workshops like Wikipedia.
The fun part was that I was asking people questions about the conference. One of them was What are you expecting to gain from this conference? It was really fun coming from Brooklyn, New York to Cambridge, Massachusetts. I'm very happy and thankful that Rafi and Shawna and Global Kids make their decision to take me on that trip it was wonderful. Thank You
Hello again.
Today my blog will be about the conference at MIT I attended today.
As you may already know, MIT's Project New Media Literacies is actually a partner for the program of Global Kids I attend called Media Masters.
Two of the students who attend that after school activity were chosen to attend it.
We left New York at about four and made it to Boston at around ten that night where, after checking into our hotel were taken out for some Afghani food, which I actually found quite good.
We arrived at the conference at around eight the next morning and were assigned cameras which we used to video the conference and do brief interviews with people attending which we conducted in between workshops.
The conference revolved mostly around a project called New Media Literacy.
This is actually a program that focuses on how media can be integrated in the classroom and has an actual curriculum for teachers to follow should they choose to partake in the program.
The first thing that was done as the conference started was the introduction of the program to us. that introduction included a basic breakdown of its would be role as well as many examples of its uses and the skills that can be obtained by students through the use of this program, many of which Monel and I had already known through Media Masters.
We then broke apart to attend workshops that were done through out the day. I attended one in which the leaders of that particular workshop spoke of how the NML or new media literacy program could be used in the classroom and particularly in geography.
It was actually quite insightful to be given a focus upon which we could base our discussion though I do admit I forgot most of the intro to it but I do remember the discussion we had and it amazed me how much of what we do in media masters could be compared to the situations and topics we were given like appropriation and collective intelligence.
After lunch I went to a workshop held by Rafi and Shawna, who run the Media Masters program, in which they spoke of what media masters was about and of some of the projects we have done it our time in the program. Monel and I were really active participants in that one.
I then went to a follow up workshop of the first one I attended in which we discussed geography and mapping and the boundaries one crosses in media and how maps are actually interrelated to the prospect of play through board games which usually contain a map as the base of which one must follow though out the game.
The conference ended with another discussion on how New Media literacy can be used in daily life and in school, given by Henry Jenkins.
All in all it was fun and very informative.
