Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative

Folks are talking about Henry's appearance in Teen Second Life. This post will grow as we discover more and add them here.

The first blog post came from Alan Levine at the NMC campus, who organized both the conference call feed into Second Life and the simulcast event in the main grid. His post outlines in great detail the technical components required to pull off this event. Hopefully, we will find the time to write a companion piece, about what it took on our end. To be honest, it took a lifetime of multitasking to pull this one off!

Mariel, a teen from Mexico who is part of the World Fit For Children Festival, representing UNICEF's VoY site, posted on her blog about her experience.

One of the most extensive descriptions comes from Amy Jussel, at shapingyouth.org, who gives a thorough analysis of the very idea of the event, quotes in full VoY youth Mariel's blog post about her involvement with the World Fit For Children Festival, and asks the question, "What happens when teen thought leaders around the globe are given tools to literally shape the world around them?"

Here's one from N-Ten Connect:

Global Kids and UNICEF teamed up to host the "World Fit for Children" contest on the island. Groups of teens met up on the online island to attend a workshop covering a diverse array of global issues that UNICEF addresses, such as hunger, education, child sex trafficking, and genocide in Darfur. Then Global Kids teams each built an exhibit in Second Life that addresses one or more of the issues. Entries were judged by a group of teens selected to represent UNICEF.

This contest was just one way that Global Kids is engaging with teens in Second Life, and they are getting rave reviews from the participants. Teens who take part in programs on Global Kids Island are encouraged to blog about their experiences and provide feedback through online surveys. Many participants express real excitement about exploring social issues, a sense of empowerment, and a realization that they can affect social change. One teen wrote, "I am going to make a difference in the world, and I will have all of you to thank for giving me that big push!"

Beth Kanter blogged about the event as well here and offers some good quotes from the talk.

Eliane Alhadeff, once again, has written an excellent blog giving an overview. Read her post here.

The Young Adult Library Services Association wrote a good overview of highlights of what Henry had to say.

A german blog called Computer Game Studies often covers our work. According to Google translation, they wrote:

On 20 December took place in Teen Second Life “A World fit For Children festival”. Under participant inside was also Henry Jenkins, which put a kesse sole in a Avatar particularly made for him on the virtual parquet. A video worth seeing in addition is digital on the side global Kids' to that Media initiative. Teen Second Life is a version of Second Life with a restriction of age from 13 to 17, particularly developed for young people. Adults are permitted only in exceptional cases.

However, I especially appreciated the sentence that followed:

According to the data of the developer company lime trees labs the system is supervised by woman employees of the company (recognizable from the surname "lime trees").

Apparently the teen grid is run by a woman named "Lime trees"!