Global Kids' Online Leadership Program

Chris Collins, who writes about exploring the metaverse as her avatar Fleep Tuque, wrote a recent post bringing to light lots of new examples of how living and playing the ludic life is becoming ubiquitous.

When Game Devs Engineer the Real World – You Brushed Your Teeth, +5 points!

...Alas, I’m still waiting for virtual worlds to vindicate me, but having gone through this combo-pity-scorn routine a few times, I’m not shaken by the current state of attitudes about virtual worlds, augmented reality (why would you want to look at DATA on top of the REAL WORLD on your PHONE, what’s wrong with you?!), or most of the other technologies I use that cause people to look at me askance and with wary eyes. (Twitter???? Whaaa???)

She uses Barry Joseph's keynote from SLedCC 2008 as her jumping off point to make her point and even coins the term Ludic Luddites for those that do not yet accept the ludic life shift.

What DOES cause me great concern, however, is that these Ludic Luddites have no clue about what’s coming.

I have to give all due props to colleague Barry Joseph (SL: GlobalKids Bixby) from Global Kids, an organization that does great work with youth in New York City, for introducing me to the concept of a “ludic life” at his keynote address at SLEDcc 2008.

Continue reading "[In the Media] Playing la vida Ludic" »

Posted by joyce at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week the MacArthur Spotlight blog featured an article written by mac Montandon titled Teens in Virtual Worlds Learn Civic Lessons That Are Anything But Dull which highlights some of our work in Teen Second Life as an example of an engaging way of learning civics.

High school kids from Washington, D.C., involved in the Witnessing History project, certainly appeared motivated by the immersive aspects of working in the virtual space of Teen Second Life. The project was produced in conjunction with Global Kids and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

It was there that a handful of students curated an exhibit where visitors assumed the role of reporters–replete with fedoras and notepads–to learn how bystanders reacted to the horrors of the 1938 Night of Broken Glass pogrom at the outset of the Holocaust.

Continue reading "[SL] The Power of Virtual Civics Education" »

Posted by joyce at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those that were not able to attend the simulcast or real life event, it has now been uploaded to Youtube by the MacArthur Foundation.

It was a neat event to be involved with, bringing together some of the leading figures in the digital media and learning field from the National Writing Project, the Digital Youth Network, Media Education Lab, and the MacArthur Foundation, together with a couple of hundred real world participants, and another 150 or so participating via Second Life and the web.  It's great seeing the kind of innovative work being done with youth across a range of social media, around the United States, in a variety of formal and informal settings.

Due to the time, I was only able to transmit a couple of the questions submitted from the virtual audience, which you can see here.  More pics from the virtual event are here.

Thanks, everyone, who came and participated! And thanks to the National Writing Project, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation for involving Global Kids in this great event.

Posted by Rik at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This past week saw the closing of a fellow long time organization running programs in TSL, Eye4You Alliance, which was run by the Charlotte Public Library

Through the years, there has been a lot of crossover between teens in our programs in Teen SL and those at Eye4You, and in fact I learned of it's closing from the prolific teen blogger Daniel Voyager, who took part in both GK Island and Eye4You.

We are sorry to see our friend's and collaborators leave this virtual worlds space and wish them luck with future projects.

They have end of project update on their site at http://eye4youalliance.youthtech.info/.

Posted by joyce at 4:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Friday was the conclusion of the "I Dig Zambia" virtual summer camp, co-organized by the Field Museum and Global Kids. I Dig Zambia was a two-week camp that brought together 19 teens from Chicago and New York to learn about paleontology, biology, and Zambian culture and politics in the virtual world of Teen Second Life.

Now that our teens have solidified their Second Life skills and learned how to work with their teams across cities during the first week, we ramped up our activities to be more intensive and collaborative.  It was by no means an easy week for our virtual campers, but I think it was engaging, surprising, and often fun.

This blog entry follows up on my previous post about Week One of IDZ. What follows is a recap of some of the main activities during Week Two of I Dig Zambia and an overall summary of IDZ. Read on...

Continue reading "[IDZ] I Dig Zambia Wrap-up: teaching about Africa and science using virtual worlds" »

Posted by Rik at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was the last day of the "I Dig Zambia" virtual summer camp, and I have been reflecting on how our Global Kids teens participated in the program.  For the past two weeks, eleven of our Global Kids teens have been going through a virtual summer camp in Teen Second Life with eight other teens in Chicago to learn about science and society in Zambia.  It's been a really amazing experience for all of us.

That said, I think there were some significant differences between the two teams of students that played a part in how they participated and what they took away from the experience.  

Continue reading "[staff] Do virtual worlds support or hold back marginalized youth?" »

Posted by Rik at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have been negligent at posting about how the "I Dig Zambia" virtual summer camp is going because we've all been so busy working on the camp all week.  Building upon the successful "I Dig Tanzania" camp last year, "I Dig Zambia" is a two-week intensive summer camp that brings together 11 teens in New York with 8 teens in Chicago to learn about evolution, biology, paleontology, and social and cultural issues in Zambia.  The camp takes place within the virtual world of Teen Second Life, with the New York teens logging in from Global Kids headquarters and the Chicago teens participating from the Field Museum of Chicago.

It's been an outstanding and challenging first week, both for our kids and the educators. Here's a recap of some of the cool activities we had our high schoolers engaged in.

Continue reading "[IDZ] "I Dig Zambia" Week One Wrap-up: Fossil Digs, Grassroots Soccer, Comic Strips, and Mass Extinction" »

Posted by Rik at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After tonight's successful public premiere of the Virtual Video Project's 2009 film "Discovered" at the Sony Wonder Theater, we are proud to announce the online release of this serious issue machinima. Created by 15 Global Kids teen leaders over the course of the school year, they decided on the subject matter, wrote the script, created the avatars, recorded the voices, shot the footage, and edited the final cut you see here.

We are so proud of our GK filmmakers for their amazing work, creativity, and commitment on this project! Read more about "Discovered" and the Virtual Video Project here.

Posted by Rik at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a reminder that tomorrow, July 1, fifteen New York public high school students will premiere their film Discovered. Discovered is a digital "machinima" film produced in Second Life that explores the powerful issue of child sex trafficking through the fictional story of one Mexican teenager. This is the final product of a year-long, intensive digital filmmaking program called the Virtual Video Project (VVP), an after-school program conducted by Global Kids, Inc in NYC. The students gathered regularly during the past year to learn about film production, human rights, and virtual worlds, culminating in a serious issue machinima film produced entirely by the youth filmmakers.

Come to the premiere of Discovered to meet the youth filmmakers and discover how digital film can be used for global issue awareness and civic engagement.

Event Details:
When: Wednesday, July 1st, 6pm-8pm
Where: Sony Wonder Technology Lab [550 Madison Avenue at 56th St.]
What: Meet & Greet Filmmakers, Premiere of Discovered, and Q & A with students

For more information, see http://www.DiscoveredMovie.com or please contact Shawna at 212-226-0130 x 143 or email: shawna@globalkids.org.

The full text of the News Release follows....

Continue reading "[vvp] Global Kids Youth Leaders Premiere Second Life Machinima "Discovered" Tomorrow in NYC!" »

Posted by Rik at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GK's own youth leader Nafiza was chosen to be part of Edutopia's online Youth Portraits series, in which they feature the digital worlds of various teens.

Digital Youth Portrait: Nafiza

Edutopia's portrait includes an interview of Nafiza along with short video pieces on her, her work in GK's OLP programs and what it is like to have digital media play a close relationship in her day to day life.

There are also sections, within Edutopia's feature on Nafiza, where other videos spotlight using digital media to learn world affairs and highlight the work Nafiza and other youth leaders put in within the VVP program to produce the 2007 and 2008 program short films "A Child's War" and "Race to Equality".

Learning World Affairs Through Digital Media

To visit Edutopia's full youth profile on Nafiza, click here.

Posted by joyce at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)