Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative

A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor focuses on video games that let you play with topics taken from the news around us. It spotlights Tempest In Crescent City as an example.

Another featured news game, “Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City,” developed by Global Kids and Gamepill, focuses on how residents and the government coped after the 2005 storm hit. Players walk through New Orleans after the hurricane, communicating with neighbors and reporters to find a family member.

Read the full article here.

Posted by joyce at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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!

Posted by joyce at 3:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hot off of Business Wire, AMD just sent out a release about the launch of their new educational toolkit entitled "Let the Games Begin" which is focused on helping organizations create games on topics of social issues. This is all part of their latest support of games based learning and projects like our Playing 4 Keeps game Tempest in Crescent City which was sponsored by their Changing the Game initiative.

Let the Games Begin Toolkit Captures Content from 2008 Games for Change Festival 101 Workshop

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the availability of Let the Games Begin: A Toolkit 4 Making Social Issue Games, which helps nonprofit organizations to create social issue games on such topics as the environment, energy consumption, poverty and health. Produced by Games for Change with support from the AMD Foundation’s AMD Changing the Game initiative, the toolkit includes examples of successful games with social content as well as in-depth presentations by key game-design experts.

Much of the content focuses on materials that went into the development of Global Kids' renowned Ayiti: The Cost of Life. You can download the free toolkit online at www.gamesforchange.org/toolkit.

Posted by joyce at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you haven't already checked out the review that was written by the Conscious Gamer blog site about Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City, it is definitely worth the read and offers up a good game play summary.

According to Tempest's website, the three main goals for the game were 1) Teach players about how everyday residents of New Orleans acted heroically to help each other. 2) Emphasize what are perhaps the two most important priorities in any disaster: communication and use of local resources, needs, and knowledge. 3) Draw attention to the continuing struggle in New Orleans as residents fight for housing in 2008.

Tempest did a good job at 1) and 2), highlighting how many residents helped each other during the rescue efforts by sharing food, shelter, medicine, tools and hope. I appreciate the game's positive portrayal of the survival efforts during the disaster because at the time it seemed like all the mainstream press wanted to focus on stories of "looting", "pillaging", "general chaos" perputrated by people of color. Although Tempest was created in 2007 after the Katrina converage had ended, I believe the positive portrayal of all Louisiana citizens both white and people of color sends a subtle, yet very powerful message to players that everyone can be a hero.

Unfortunately in terms of 3), the focus on the continuing struggle for housing, I didn't get the sense that the game raised that issue other than the fact that Vivica is not living back home in Louisiana even one year after being evacuated. A whole new game to focus on the contining struggle for housing and infrastructure could be useful because it's a multifaceted issue facing many communities both in the US and internationally.

Read the full review here.

Posted by joyce at 5:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

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

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

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

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

The Berkely Beacon published a recent article entitled Pushing Buttons: What's in a game? Education, for starters, should play a part. In it they go through their thoughts on serious game and the importance of keeping a fun sense of game play regardless of subject matter. They also bring up Tempest:

Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City: Developed as part of Global Kids’ Playing 4 Keeps Program, which uses and teaches kids how to build games as a way to promote learning, citizenship and social awareness, this Web game has players helping and rescuing neighbors during the Katrina crisis. It does a decent job in both the gameplay and message department, has a great comic-book look and tries to give the player some motivation through a storyline.

Read the full post here.

Posted by joyce at 1:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The blogosphere has been a buzz lately with posts about our latest Playing 4 Keeps game, Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City.

Gamasutra covered launch of Tempest in a recent post as well as a kids focused parenting site

And a review from a local New Orleanians' blog. Although not as familiar with "serious games" and somewhat unsure how to respond to a game about a subject matter so close to home being addressed in a game, it still is an important read to get a response from someone more local to the tragedy. Read the full post here and a further response here.

Posted by joyce at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The NonProfit Times posted a recent article by Michele Donohue entitled "Philanthropy Games By And For Kids And Donors" which spotlights our Playing 4 Keeps (P4K) program along with the release of the game Tempest in Crescent City.

Read the article below or on their site here.

Poverty in Haiti, fumbling rescue efforts during Hurricane Katrina, medical racism against prisoners are topics that are barely thought about by teenagers.

But Brooklyn teens thought that these sensitive, complex issues needed exposure, and create games to do just that.

"We give them free reign to decide what topic they want to pick, and they inevitably pick the most difficult topics you could imagine," said Barry Joseph, director of the Online Leadership Program at Global Kids, a New York-based nonprofit that teaches urban youth how to develop and create online games that highlight social issues. The nonprofit's Playing 4 Keeps after school program has kids meeting twice a week after school to talk about global topics and develop a social game. "You have to figure out how to generalize [the issue], so it works in the game context, without trivializing it," said Joseph.

Continue reading "[P4K] NonProfit TImes spotlights P4K, Tempest & Ayiti games" »

Posted by joyce at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our game Tempest in Crescent City was promoted recently in the School Library Journal's "The Buzz section:

Katrina Game

An educational game and social network about Hurricane Katrina involves young users in the personal stories of New Orleans residents and ongoing efforts toward reconstruction. Created by nonprofit Global Kids in conjunction with Game Pill and Microsoft's Partners in Learning program, Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City features related curricula. Visitors who join the site become part of a social online community and contribute to forums about New Orleans. "Global Kids' work on engaging teens through the Hurricane Katrina site showcases an incredible vision for using technology to develop lifelong social activists and responsible citizens," says Mary Cullinane, director of innovation and business development for Microsoft U.S. Education. tempestincrescentcity.ning.com.

View the original post here.

Posted by joyce at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "[In the Media] ENCORE JOURNEY: From women's history to Global Kids" »

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some of those who have picked up the release include:

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

And of special note...

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

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

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

  

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

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

We are happy and proud to announce the successful launch of the game Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City and it's supporting social networking website www.tempestincrescentcity.org

The launch party took place at the Global Kids office. Carole opened with a warm welcome to all the students, parents and funders. Barry went on to speak about the program. Jay talked about the game design process. Radhika spoke a few words on the online community. Otis shared his experience at the GLS conference and walked us through the game. We had our funders Mary from Microsoft and Ward from AMD say a few words as well. Rest of the time our youth and parents played the game, ate lunch and shared their thoughts on the program.

Click here to see some photos of the event.

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

To mark the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, youth leaders for Global Kids, Inc. have created an online community and game in conjunction with Game Pill, Inc., AMD and Microsoft Corp.’s Partners in Learning where young people can engage in and experience the ongoing relief efforts in New Orleans.

Global Kids, the foremost nonprofit in New York City dedicated to educating urban youth about civic engagement and international affairs, and Game Pill, an innovator in online games development, have created a socially conscious game and web site, “Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City” (www.tempestincrescentcity.org). This is the second game developed by Global Kids youth following the highly successful Ayiti: The Cost of Life (costoflife.org), which educates players about the obstacles to education faced by children in developing countries. Ayiti has been played worldwide over 1.5 million times and serves as a new model for games that address serious issues to increase youth awareness and involvement.

The full press release follows...

Continue reading "Global Kids to Launch Online Community and Game, “Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City,” to Raise Youth Awareness on Eve of 3rd Anniversary of Katrina" »

Posted by Rik at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global Kids own Barry Joseph will be speaking at the upcoming Games Learning & Society Conference 4.0, July 10-11. This admittedly engaging and fun conference is about real-life people playing real-life video games, and what they learn from doing that. The attendees are always a great mix of academics, educators & designers all interested in games and how they can enhance learning, culture, and education.

Info on Barry's panel:

The Future Is Invading! or Games as Youth Media: A 6 Year Review

In 2002, Global Kids (GK) in New York City first began its efforts treating games as a form of youth media. Rather than treat games strictly as a tool for developing technical or workplace skills, GK sought to determine if both gameplay and game design could be used to develop the skills necessary for youth to become empowered and impassioned global citizens and community leaders.

This interactive session will look back at the past 6 years of the program, sharing best practices and revealing embarrassing gaffes, while situating this reflective overview within the larger social and cultural context of both society's response to games and the emergence of this latest games-based learning pedagogy. Play games. Watch late night TV. Hear from youth. (p4k.globalkids.org)

SPECIAL BONUS: Join the official launch of the latest game to emerge from Global Kids — Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City.

GLS 4.0 will be a great conference and not to be missed! (Where else can you play Rock Band while listening to amazing panelists speak.) There is still time to register to attend and there is also a waiting list for PK-16 educators to receive scholarships to attend for free.

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

On June 4th, 2008, NY1 did an excellent piece on the 5th annual Games For Change Festival. Global Kids is never mentioned but two of the Global Kids Youth Leaders, one staff member, and our latest game - Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City - appears twice!

Check it out below.

Posted by joyce at 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)