There have been two really great reports released recently, one by The Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the other by the Asia Society. Both focus on implementing global and digital literacy into the educational strategies.
In the report released by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Game Changer: Investing in digital play to advance children's learning and health, it discusses the impetus of using gaming to help develop educational skills. The report states, "digital games offer a promising and untapped opportunity to leverage children’s enthusiasm and to help transform learning in America." To follow this up, they give recommendations and examples of various games which accomplish this significant task. One example used is GK's Ayiti, which is given as an example of one of the various health and learning games that demonstrates ways to transform learning. Ayiti is described as "a strategy game that asks, “What is it like to live in poverty, struggling every day to stay healthy, keep out of debt, and get educated?” Set in rural Haiti, players must manage the lives of a family of five, struggling with minimal resources to achieve a stable, safe, and healthy environment. The game is very difficult but provides win states and suggests that no problem is unsolvable."
It was also recommended to develop models or games, that best tap into community resources. "A number of promising afterschool models are already helping children from underserved communities become “tech savvy” and are developing innovative approaches to parent training that includes digital content such as games that can be used across settings. These models include the Intel-sponsored Computer Clubhouses, the Boys & Girls Club of America’s Club Tech, and locally-based youth-leadership programs such as Global Kids, One Economy, and Computers for Youth. National efforts to bridge school, home, and community uses of game technologies should learn from, improve upon, and scale-up these models."
The report by the Asia Society, Expanding Horizons: Building Global Literacy in Afterschool Programs, also discusses the importance of teaching global literacy within educational settings, to make sure youth of today are ready for what comes when they enter the growing global workforce. The report looks at how to prepare the youth through four different aspects, one of them being "Transforming Learning". In this section, various examples of how to integrate digital media into the classroom setting are given. "For older youth, many international organizations are starting to provide educational events in Teen Second Life. For example, Global Kids implemented the "I Dig Tanzania" summer camp, a program where youth in Chicago and New York followed a palentology excavation in Tanzania led by a team from the Field Museum of Chicago. Participants followed what the real researchers were doing through streaming video, asked questions over satellite phones, and then dug virtual fossils and assembled them together into an exhibit in Teen Second life. "
On page 54, the report discusses how to help youth find active roles, and uses GK's afterschool program structure as a good example of this. The report also mentions the use of various programs Global Kids runs in our afterschool programs including: the Power of Citizenry program, the Annual Youth Conference, Undesirable Elements, which is a youth-led theater program and our Playing for Keeps program, which works to integrate game design into serious issues, creating a serious game such as Ayiti, as examples of how to transform learning within afterschool programs.
Both reports are very interesting and well worth the read, so check them out!
