Global Kids' Online Leadership Program

In August, Global Kids graduated its first cohort of nonprofit staffers who participated in the Virtual World Capacity Building Program, a four-week introduction to virtual worlds and their applications for civic and cultural institutions. These four organizations -- the Vera Institute of Justice, the Adler Planetarium, Architreasures, and the National Writing Project -- had almost no experience with virtual worlds prior to the program, but by the end of the four-week course were able to speak cogently and insightfully about how these digital tools fit into their larger institutional missions. Over the course of the four-weeks, these staffers explored a number of different virtual worlds, created avatars for themselves, learned how to build 3d objects and bring in multimedia resources, and engaged in in-depth conversations about the strengths and challenges of working with these new media tools. (You can see a report about this first Virtual Roundtable.)

Over this next year, Global Kids will work with 15-20 more civic and cultural institutions to expose them to the possibilities of virtual worlds for their work. This initiative grew out of Global Kids ad hoc work with other public institutions over the years -- including UNICEF, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Youth Leadership Council -- helping them to think strategically about synthetic worlds and create educational projects in these spaces. Through the support of the MacArthur Foundation, we are able to formalize this orientation to virtual worlds, and scale up our reach to more nonprofit organizations curious about how to use these digital tools.

Continue reading "Virtual World Capacity Building Program" »

Posted by Barry at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“To transform the core, start at the edge.” -- John Hagel and John Seely Brown

The Edge Project is part of Global Kids recent support from the MacArthur Foundation to expand the capacity of civic and cultural institutions to use new media as innovative educational platforms that engage youth in learning and promote youth civic participation. More specifically, the Edge Project is interested in civic and cultural institutions bringing cutting edge digital media into their youth educational programs. It is equally interested in where this type of programming - due to technology, its pedagogical implications or both - is a disruptive force challenging the educators and/or the institutional cultural to work on the edge of their comfort level. There is a balancing act they must undertake, being receptive to how new media challenges their current educational culture and practice while, in turn, challenging the educational potential of new media through interacting with that very culture and practice. At the end of the day, we want to better understand the following questions: how do institutions find their balance working on this edge and do different types of institutions respond in different ways?

Working from a strength-based youth development model, Global Kids' programs are designed not to address deficiencies but to build the capacities of young people. As such, we privilege the existing skills, knowledge and dispositions youth bring into a program. What we may do less successfully, however, is address and help youth think about where they are developing these strengths when outside our programs. They may navigate their distributed learning networks, moving from home, to school, to after school program, to personal media, and to home once again, without ever becoming aware of how any of these nodes connects to the others. While the Edge Project focuses on learning institutions, at the same time we want to look at similar issues from a youth frame of reference. How do young people understand and situate themselves within their individual learning ecology? Where do they view themselves as directing their learning and where as mere subjects to forces beyond their control?

Finally, bringing the frameworks together, we want to better understand how an educational program using new media can afford youth new opportunities to leverage their learning from other spheres. Is there something specific to new media tools, or the pedagogies they engender, that create more flexibility and openness for youth to bring in existing knowledge and practices? How can these forms of participatory learning programs support youth to strategically shape and navigate their learning network? Finally, how can civic and cultural institutions leverage and understand how youth learn across their personal ecology and how does that shape their own understanding of their institution's role within this network?

Continue reading "Introducing the Edge Project" »

Posted by Barry at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)