Global Kids' Online Leadership Program

The year 2008 was a remarkable period for the Online Leadership Program at Global Kids. It is challenging to even pick just a few standouts: An AIDS orphan in Ugandan exchanges text messages from her cell phone with a dozen teenagers in Teen Second Life; high school students conceive and produce a web-based game about local heroes during Hurricane Katrina; youth produce a seven-minute long animated movie about racism as an obstacle to education around the world; a high school class in Brooklyn uses a virtual world to learn about and create their own simulations about science; hundreds of young people across four virtual worlds watch Kofi Annan receive a major human rights award; incarcerated teens use a virtual world to learn how to create positive change in their real community; youth in Chicago and New York City collaborate online with paleotologists on a fossil dig in Tanzania; nearly 1,500 educators share knowledge and advice on how to use virtual worlds for education.

Global Kids would like to mark the new year by presenting a brief flyover of some of our major accomplishments over the past twelve months.

Continue reading "OLP's 2008 Year End Review" »

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On Wednesday December 17, Scenarios USA and Global Kids will be hosting the virtual premiere of the three youth-written short films produced by Scenarios on the subject "What's the Real Deal about Masculinity?". Taking place on both the Teen Grid and Main Grid of Second Life, both youth and adult residents will be able to watch excerpts from the three films, listen to a live interview with two of the youth writers, and ask questions about the films.

DATE: December 17, 2008
TIME: 12:30pm PST / 3:30pm EST
LOCATIONS : Machinima Island , Teen Second Life (teleport link)
International Justice Center, Second Life (teleport link)

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View the Virtual Premiere of the movies live here:

This stream will be active during the event only.

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Scenarios USA is a New York-based nonprofit that that uses writing and filmmaking to foster youth leadership, advocacy and self-expression in under-served teens. Scenarios USA asks teens to write about the issues that shape their lives for the annual "What's the REAL DEAL?" writing contest. The winning writers are partnered with some of Hollywood's finest filmmakers to transform their stories into award-winning short films. 15 million people a year watch the Scenarios USA films at film festivals, on television and in high schools nationwide. Scenarios USA believes that by valuing youth and listening to their opinions we can have an impact on promoting healthy relationships and lowering the rate of HIV, STDs and pregnancy among teens. For more information, see the Scenarios USA website.

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We had a very successful Second Life conference on education in virtual worlds yesterday.  This was the first virtual conference sponsored by RezEd.org, the social network for virtual world educators. The RezEd conference featured a panel discussion with educators working in Second Life, Google Lively and Dizzywood; a "birds of a feather" breakout session; and a fun social mixer to close out the evening. With 60+ avatars from a range of institutions and backgrounds, this was a perfect example of how virtual worlds can enable networking, collaboration, and learning in an immersive and ludic environment.

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Update November 24: One of our speakers Ryan Clemmens tells us that he was informed 30 minutes prior to speaking at the RezEd conference on November 17 that Google was closing the Lively virtual world at the end of the year. Thus, this was probably the last public address on Google Lively before it was publicly announced on November 19 that it was shutting its virtual doors.

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Continue reading "[rezed] RezEd's first virtual world education conference a success!" »

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On Monday November 17, Global Kids invites you to "Real World Impact From the Virtual World" in Second Life. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the USC Network Culture Project and Global Kids invite you to a sneak preview of a new Second Life sim that features MacArthur programs and grantees. The event will be held on November 17, 2008 from 1-5pm PST.

Join us to learn about how groups use virtual spaces like Second Life to build real opportunities -- preserving native peoples' cultures, creating accessible spaces for people with disabilities, helping obese people make healthy life choices and teaching underprivileged youth about paleontology and science.

This interactive series of events will take place on Foundations Sim (click here to teleport) and the neighboring archipelago that includes the Network Culture Project, Justice Commons (click here to teleport ) and Aloft Nonprofit Commons (click here to teleport).

The full schedule follows...

Continue reading "Sneak Preview of MacArthur Foundation's new Second Life island on November 17" »

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On Friday, October 24, we had a really neat event at the Global Kids' International Justice Center in Second Life, featuring digital artists / activists Peggy Weil (Ping Rau in SL) and Nonny de la Peña (Nonny Writer).  Thirty-some avatars logged in to listen to Nonny and Peggy talk about their innovative art installations in SL that explore themes of due process / Habeas Corpus, immigration, nationalism, and civil liberties. 

You can listen to the audio here:

A more complete report on the event follows...

Continue reading "[IJC] Using Virtual Art for Political Change: report on talk and tour with digital artists Peggy Weil and Nonny de la Peña" »

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Can virtual art stimulate real-world political action? Find out on Friday, October 24, as digital media artists Peggy Weil (Ping Rau in SL) and Nonny de la Peña (Nonny Writer) discuss how they are using 3D artwork as a form of political expression and civic engagement. At the Global Kids' Justice Center (click here to teleport ) from 10-11am PST on October 24.

Peggy and Nonny have been involved in a number of ground-breaking digital media projects that explore the intersections of art and politics, from "The Redistricting Game" that Peggy designed to "Unconstitutional" a documentary of civil liberties in America post 9/11 produced by Nonny. They will talk about their latest explorations of political artwork in SL, from the "Gone Gitmo" project to the "Mauerkrankheit/Wallsickness" installation that was an Annenberg Public Good Merit Award winner. Then we will teleport over to their exhibits to get a guided tour from them!

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Yesterday, August 13, Mr. John Washburn, convenor of the American NGO Coalition for the ICC, spoke at the International Justice Center in Second Life to an attentive and energetic group of avatars. Mr. Washburn talked about the importance of the International Criminal Court to the United States and his views of what the next US president should do to support this important human rights instrument. Later John took questions from the audience.

To hear John's address, click the player below:

Continue reading "[IJC] John Washburn speaks on the ICC and the US Presidency at the Justice Center" »

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Today I helped organize a pretty successful mixed-reality Global Kids event, featuring Dr. Francis Deng, the UN Special Representative on Genocide, speaking about Darfur and the UN's response to situations like these. The Online Leadership Program of Global Kids, which I'm a part of, is making concerted efforts to coordinate our work more closely with other Global Kids' programs that focus on New York teens.  While Second Lifers know about Global Kids as being innovators in virtual world education, our main work is face-to-face with thousands of real world teens in 25 schools in the wider New York City area.

My colleague Shawna and I developed a quick-and-dirty way of taking a program organized by the Global Kids Summer Institute at the Council on Foreign Relations and bring it into Second Life and Teen Second Life. 

Continue reading "[staff] Streaming Diplomats: the challenges of working with real and virtual teens and adults" »

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Press conference in Rome held by the Coalition for an ICC, July 1998. Credit: CICC.

Ten years ago today, the world took a historic step from impunity toward accountability by creating the International Criminal Court.  On July 17, 1998 in Rome Italy, 120 governments of the world signed into being the Rome Treaty on the International Criminal Court, "one of the most important advances in international law and human rights since the adoption of the UN Charter in 1948" according to my old boss Bill Pace of the Coalition for the ICC.The International Criminal Court is a permanent human rights tribunal based in the Hague, Netherlands, whose mission is to hold accountable those who commit the worst offenses of justice in the world, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

I was privileged enough to be there in Rome for the treaty conference, at the time serving as the communications coordinator for the Coalition for an ICC.  I was responsible for the communications going into and out of the conference to our hundreds of allied organizations and activists around the world, including writing a daily newsletter and email blast to our constituents.  It was perhaps the most important thing that I have ever done in my 20 year career as an activist organizer.

Today the ICC is doing remarkable things and having a broader impact around the world that we may not even be able to assess in this generation.  Notably:

• This week, the ICC prosecutor applied for the indictment of Sudanese President Sudan Omar al-Bashir on genocide charges -- the first arrest warrant against a sitting head of state.
• Last week, former Congolese Vice President and rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo was arrested in Belgium and transferred to The Hague in the first arrest issued for the investigation into human rights violations in the Central African Republic.
• The ICC is also proceeding with prosecutions against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo and Congolese warlords Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui.
• The prosecutor is looking into situations in other regions, including Afghanistan and Colombia.
• With the addition of Suriname earlier this week, the number of countries who have ratified the treaty is at 107!

These are amazing times. I'm so proud to have been able to have been able to play some small part in getting us to this point. And to be working now on the International Justice Center, a virtual space to support the ICC.

Visit the Coalition website for more on this significant achievement.

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NEWS RELEASE

Global Kids
137 East 25th Street New York, NY 10010
www.globalkids.org
212-226-0130

Contacts:

Jonah Kokodyniak, Global Kids, 212-226-2116, Jonah@globalkids.org
There.com: Aimee Yoon, Dotted Line Communications, aimee@dottedlinecomm.com, 646.678.4980
Second Life: Peter Gray, Lewis PR, secondlife@lewispr.com, 415.992.4434

For Immediate Release:

Virtual Worlds Collaborate to Spread Kofi Annan’s Message About International Justice: Global Kids Plays Lead Role in Bringing Event to Online Communities

On March 20, 2008, spearheaded by Global Kids, Inc., a unique collaboration amongst virtual worlds, which combined report audiences of over 10 million users, streamed live from the Waldorf Astoria where Kofi Annan received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s first award for international justice. While Annan spoke before a live audience of 1,200 people in New York City, hundreds more watched and discussed the live speech across four virtual world communities, creating the largest massively multiworld simulcast to date.

At events coordinated by Global Kids, Inc. within There.com, Whyville, Second Life and Teen Second Life, virtual world residents, both teens and adults, viewed the MacArthur Foundation awards ceremony in which Mr. Kofi Annan received the first MacArthur International Justice Award of $500,000 to be distributed to a non-profit of his choice. During the live presentation, the virtual audiences, led by Global Kids staff with support from the virtual worlds companies Makena (There.com), Numedeon (Whyville), and Linden Lab (Second Life), engaged in vigorous discussion and debate.

A demonstration video can be viewed at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tEtDEdyf3bM and samples of the teen responses can be read at: http://tinyurl.com/6bn62x.

Continue reading "[media] Virtual Worlds Collaborate to Spread Kofi Annan’s Message About International Justice: Global Kids Plays Lead Role in Bringing Event to Online Communities" »

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