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" »

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On Friday, February 12, Global Kids and the National Youth Leadership Council launched "The Salam Project," a month-long effort to support young people to learn about the conflict in Sudan and what they can do to promote peace there. The kick-off event took place in the virtual world of SmallWorlds, where a Sudanese peace activist and two Global Kids youth leaders, spoke about their work to educate others about the conflict and support peace in Darfur. Since then, we've had a great response from the SmallWorlds community to the project.

Most exciting is the "mission" we created to go along with the project, an online game that teaches you about the country of Sudan and the conflict there. Since the launch in February, the Sudan mission has been played more than 8,000 times!

We also launched another mission on service learning which we highly encourage people to play. To get started in SmallWorlds and play both missions, head to the Salam Project website. It's free and only takes a few minutes to register and go in-world!

Continue reading "Update on Salam Project: 8,000 Plays of Sudan Mission in SmallWorlds!" »

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A December Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning blog post, featured how using digital media and virtual worlds to engage you in education of civics issues.

Say the word “civics,” and most people will likely conjure images of well-meaning citizens trudging to the polls to do their democratic duty, soberly pulling levers behind dim curtains for city council members on local election days.

Civics, that is to say, rarely inspires rapture.

But that may be changing as kids, thanks to digital media, are first encountering civic issues in engaging and, yes, dynamic ways, both through school curriculums and on their own.

The article goes on to highlight Global Kids civics based Witnessing History project.

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.

Continue reading "Teens in Virtual Worlds Learn Civic Lessons" »

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This past Friday, Global Kids produced an online event for the National Youth Leadership Council on how young people can support the peace process in Sudan.  Occurring in the youth-oriented virtual world of SmallWorlds, about 50 avatars participated in a live video talk by a Sudanese peace activist and two Global Kids youth leaders, the first live event of this kind in SmallWorlds.

The virtual participants learned from the speaker that there were a lot of ways that they can help the people of Sudan: first by educating themselves, then educating others, supporting Darfurians and Sudanese, and pushing for policy changes.  The Global Kids leaders explained that there was a lot that you can do from wherever you are, whether its a fundraiser, a movie screening or supporting Sudanese in your community.  A special curriculum was released at the same time at Sudanpeace.ning.com for educators who want to help their young people engage in service projects for Sudan.

NYLC and Global Kids is hoping that hundreds of young people all around the country will engage in service projects over the next four weeks in support of Sudan.  Then on March 25, three of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" will speak live online in SmallWorlds to find out what actions took place.

For more information and to participate see Sudanpeace.ning.com. Or you can check out the virtual Sudan center yourself online by registering at SmallWorlds.com and then going to this link.

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Many of us know about the deadly conflicts that have devastated the North African country of Sudan. What you may not know about is what you can do in your own community to support peace in this wartorn country. On February 12th, you can take a virtual stand for peace in Sudan at the "Salam Project" kick-off event.

Continue reading "Join the Salam Project: Virtual Service to Support Peace in Sudan Starting February 12!" »

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On behalf of Global Kids, a leading nonprofit in the field of virtual world education, we would like to invite your organization to apply to participate in a series of free professional development trainings in virtual worlds for nonprofits.

Continue reading "Applications Open for Virtual World Professional Development Opportunity in March!" »

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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" »

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• Digital Democracy
• Eyebeam Art and Technology Center
• Facing History and Ourselves'
• International Center for Transitional Justice
• Jacob Burns Film Center

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Earlier this month, the social networking platform Ning announced it's Apps Platform program and among the initial batch of featured Ning Apps listed in it was the virtual world SmallWorlds.

Well, if you haven't checked this out yet, RezEd.org, set up it's own embedded SmallWorlds members lounge for members of RezEd to be able to interact and chat in 3D while logged in to the RezEd network. Look's like we were even the first to add it to our Ning network page as reported by Virtual Worlds News:

Ning Network Creators can now add the SmallWorlds app to their network. For SmallWorlds, this means instant increased visibility should any of the Ning groups choose to add the app to their landing page. According to SmallWorlds, educator network GlobalKids was the first to add SmallWorlds to its Ning page.

You can visit the RezEd Educator's Zone here.

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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" »

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