Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative

Finally, just a few weeks off schedule, we opened Global Kids Island. It has never closed since. And as Blue had predicted, the teens poured in. Within the first four weeks, a thousand teens visited, some for just a few moments and some who made it their new home.

I have not yet described how the essay contest worked in the lake and volcano region, in large part because, until it was done, I had no idea what it would be like. As I mentioned earlier, with no time to storyboard, I simply communicated my intentions and the Magician's interpreted, adapted, and built.

Now that it was done, please allow me to first describe the idealized step-by-step experience we intended the average teen to take and then express the grave concerns I had about it ever working.

1. Teen arrives on GK Island, receiving a notecard of welcome, and a translator ring that when worn decodes the gibberish spoken by the talking rock, talking tree and talking bat.
2. Teen begins to explore and learns they can not fly.
3. If they leave the lake region, and fly back in, they will discover the volcano and that they are denied access.
4. The talking rock entices the teen to seek the Earth Throne.
5. Wandering around wind-blown trees and a giant lake, the teen discovers a giant lakeside rock chair.
6. Upon sitting on the earth throne, a giant spinning globe rises out of the lake. One of thirteen questions is posed about global digital media.
7. With the proper answer, a ruby necklace is offered along with temporary access to the volcano.
8. In searching for the volcano, a talking tree helps to show the way.
9. Leaving the lakes region for the volcano region, the power of flight returns. The teen flies high above the volcano then drops down through the boiling lava into a hidden cave.
10. The cave, filled with crystals, bats, stalagmites and stalactites, asks to be explored. One bat asks to be "petted" on the head. When the right bat is selected, the teen receives a Global Kids t-shirt, a notecard with instructions for entering the essay contest, and encouragement to click on a crystal.
11. When the correct crystal is selected, the teen receives a giant virtual envelop, pre-addressed to Global Kids, with instructions that detail how to write an essay and put it in the envelope.
12. Once the essay is in the envelope, the teen clicks on the envelope. with a burst of light, the envelope disappears, the teen receives an iguana containing a notecard about how they are endangered, and Barry Gkid receives the essay.

Phew!!!

I was very concerned when I first experienced the twelve lengthy and complex steps I just described. Did flying really need to be turned off? Did access to the volcano need to be so strict? Couldn't the talking objects give more explicit instructions?

Essentially, I was afraid it was all too much. Now that we had built it, I felt a pull to make the process as dumbed down and short as possible. But the Magicians were clear. Teens love to explore. Mystery creates interest. Appropriate challenges engage. We don't need to explain the rules of the experience, or tell them what they will find; modern games teach them that part of the fun comes from figuring out the rules on their own. And all good games attract a community, which becomes a shared repository of knowledge and experience; the first visitors will be the most adventurous and leave information clearing the way for those who follow.

I learned many lessons from the Magicians and their design, most importantly: complexity stimulates engagement; games are not played in isolation and, most importantly, never underestimate youth.

Teens Mark World

While the Magicians were correct, and the teens tore through the lake and volcano region, we were not prepared for the intensity with which the teens tried to mark the territory as their own.

First, let me explain the concept of building. Building is the term used in SL to describe the creation of an object. The object can be as simple as a flat billboard or as complex as a flying car or fighting robot. The owner of a land decides who can build on it. An owner can leave build on in one region, say the Volcano region, but off in another, say the Lake region. As few teens actually own land in SL, they are desperate to build and express their ideas. Public areas, called sandboxes, allow anyone to build and, every few hours, all objects there are deleted.

By mistake, GK Island became one giant sandbox. The build had been left on. The result? By the end of the first day, it was littered with tiny boxes, hovercrafts embedded in the side of the volcano, and more. Each item, one at a time, had to be deleted, one tedious build at a time.

Some builds sort of fit into the island.

Here is the talking tree, set on fire. Is this destructive vandalism (the fire is like Moses’ burning bush, eternal but destroying nothing), a respectful contribution, or a creative critique of the island (the tree is a few feet from other trees aflame at the bottom of a lava flow)?

Andrew became the model par excellence of a teen building items on GK Island not for their own ego, or to be difficult and attract attention (like building a platform that blocked entry into the hidden cave, or turned it into a three story suburban house), but to contribute what he could to what the island currently offered.

Here is Andrew building a box to count the characters of any submitted notecard. This would be a useful tool to help teens meet the length requirement of the essay contest.

These were some of my favorite and least expected teen builds: game cheats.

These 3D arrows pointed to various objects to touch in order to advance towards the end of the experience we had created. I had imagined teens might post advice or shortcuts on message boards. I had never imagined they would, or even could, stay within the game's medium to add meta-commentary to the island. These Click Here arrows, floating in the sky, were often paired with floating text placed at strategic locations, to direct teens to the next arrow.

Game players often write walk-through for games. In this case, they created a walk through within the game itself, interwoven as it were with the very experience to which it referred.

What do teens learn who created these arrows, or the teens that follow them? Do they learn to hold in their mind and maintain a critical distinction between the world as it is and its meta commentary? And if so, does that better prepare them to create critical distance from and analysis of their lives offline? Does it further prepare them for the digital world they are inheriting?

I always waited a few hours before deleting these builds, and always with a smile.

Most builds, however, had nothing to do with the island. GK Island, for these teens, was no more than free space.

Within a few hours two apartment complexes went up, a gothic church with a blood filled fountain, and a water park. And they were beautifully designed. It killed me to "return" them to their owners, to reject their contributions, but we had to set the right tone. The least I could do was give them an hour warning. Then I turned off build for most of the island to anyone outside the officially designated island build group.

We wanted to welcome their creativity in the service of GK Island and their initiative. It was more than we had anticipated, faster than we had expected, and we were unprepared and were caught off guard. The island had only been open for a few days! We knew once the contest was over we would have to address this in a more formal manner. But until then we needed a quick solution: we created a small area designated as the official sandbox. Build a robot. Build a house. Build whatever you want. But every few hours everything disappears.