[sl/leadership] GK Kicks off "Fireside Workshops" with interactive game on Globalization
Thanks to Dion Zabelin for creating this great poster!
As part of GK's TSL Internship Program, we'll be running the affectionately titled "Fireside Workshops" twice a month by the camp fire on GK Island. These global issues oriented workshops are modeled off of our face-to-face afterschool workshops that we've been conducting for 17 years in New York City public schools, but we get to add fun Second Life twists to these activities that are already interactive.
For our first workshop, we created a take on the classic workshop originally developed by Bill Bigelow in his book Rethinking Schools. It's called The Race to the Bottom, also known as The Transnational Capitol Auction (but try getting TSL residents to something with that name...)
More details and photos after the jump.
The idea in the activity is to place the participants in the role of different countries trying to compete against each other to convince a multinational company to build a factory in their country. In a face-to-face context, the activity is quite engaging, but in SL, there's a ton that we could add on to create narrative, add interactivity and just plain make it more fun.
To start with, the activity was housed in a massive factory. The businessmen wore suits and kicked their feet up on tables. The bids that each country put together to present to the company were made using combinations of crates of different sizes and colors that represented types and levels of regulations. There was even a facilitator running around in a t-shirt that said "Voice of the People" on it, urging country representatives to think about the implications that different choices had on their citizens. Check it out!
Thanks to all those that played, and we're looking forward to seeing how this new addition to GK events in-world develops!
