Some of those who have picked up the release include:

• http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=13980
• http://blog.missiontolearn.com/2008/09/serious-game-hurricane-katrina/
• http://www.hurricane-katrina.org/2008/08/global-kids-to.html
• http://latifaz.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/hurricane-katrinatempest-in-crescent-city/
• http://www.care2.com/news/member/590300383/863594
• http://noladder.blogspot.com/2008/08/jeudiflags-up.html

And of special note...

• A ninth grade English writes that the game is "an accessible way for English Language Learners to begin learning about the disaster."
• Clark Boyd, who covers technology for the BBC/PRI radio program, "The World" and has covered Global Kids work in the past, wrote about our new game on his blog.
  

  
  Tempest in Crescent City is "a great example of a project designed to get kids interacting with technology. And by interacting, I don't mean playing video games. I mean making games... Tempest in Crescent City an excellent example of persuasive gaming -- games that are designed to be fun and challenging to play, while at the same time putting anyone who plays it in someone else's shoes."

  Clark Boyd's post on Tempest was even twittered about:

  

• The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch picked it up as well, which led to numerous financial sites mentioning it.
]]> tag:www.holymeatballs.org,2008://1.3144 2008-08-29T03:05:08Z 2008-08-29T17:05:01Z
We are happy and proud to announce the successful launch of the game Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City and it's supporting social networking website www.tempestincrescentcity.org The launch party took place at the Global Kids office. Carole opened with a...
Radhika holymeatballs.org We are happy and proud to announce the successful launch of the game Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City and it's supporting social networking website www.tempestincrescentcity.org


The launch party took place at the Global Kids office. Carole opened with a warm welcome to all the students, parents and funders. Barry went on to speak about the program. Jay talked about the game design process. Radhika spoke a few words on the online community. Otis shared his experience at the GLS conference and walked us through the game. We had our funders Mary from Microsoft and Ward from AMD say a few words as well. Rest of the time our youth and parents played the game, ate lunch and shared their thoughts on the program.







Click here to see some photos of the event.

]]> tag:www.holymeatballs.org,2008://1.3143 2008-08-28T13:04:44Z 2008-08-28T13:12:04Z
To mark the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, youth leaders for Global Kids, Inc. have created an online community and game in conjunction with Game Pill, Inc., AMD and Microsoft Corp.’s Partners in Learning where young people can engage...
Rik http://globalkids.org To mark the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, youth leaders for Global Kids, Inc. have created an online community and game in conjunction with Game Pill, Inc., AMD and Microsoft Corp.’s Partners in Learning where young people can engage in and experience the ongoing relief efforts in New Orleans.

Global Kids, the foremost nonprofit in New York City dedicated to educating urban youth about civic engagement and international affairs, and Game Pill, an innovator in online games development, have created a socially conscious game and web site, “Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City” (www.tempestincrescentcity.org). This is the second game developed by Global Kids youth following the highly successful Ayiti: The Cost of Life (costoflife.org), which educates players about the obstacles to education faced by children in developing countries. Ayiti has been played worldwide over 1.5 million times and serves as a new model for games that address serious issues to increase youth awareness and involvement.

The full press release follows...

]]> NEWS RELEASE
137 East 25th St. New York, NY 10010 www.globalkids.org 212-226-0130
Contacts: Sofia Oviedo, Global Kids, 212-226-2116, Sofia@globalkids.org
Tom Mariam, Mariam Communications, 914-939-4294, Tom@mariam.biz
For Immediate Release:

Media Alert *** Media Alert *** Media Alert


August 27, 2008, New York, NY – To mark the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, youth leaders for Global Kids, Inc. have created an online community and game in conjunction with Game Pill, Inc., AMD and Microsoft Corp.’s Partners in Learning where young people can engage in and experience the ongoing relief efforts in New Orleans.

Global Kids, the foremost nonprofit in New York City dedicated to educating urban youth about civic engagement and international affairs, and Game Pill, an innovator in online games development, have created a socially conscious game and web site, “Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City” (www.tempestincrescentcity.org). This is the second game developed by Global Kids youth following the highly successful Ayiti: The Cost of Life (costoflife.org), which educates players about the obstacles to education faced by children in developing countries. Ayiti has been played worldwide over 1.5 million times and serves as a new model for games that address serious issues to increase youth awareness and involvement.

Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City is a comprehensive social networking website featuring an educational “game” experience where participants are encouraged to act in support of New Orleans residents. The site provides links to a variety of relief groups as well as information about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina including multiple timelines, analysis of media coverage, and supporting articles for all information presented. The site also features multiple curricula about Hurricane Katrina including Global Kids’ own workshops for teachers to use as educational tools. Visitors who join the site become part of a social online community and contribute to forums about Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the continuing reconstruction.

The site was developed during the past school year by Global Kids Youth Leaders from Brooklyn’s Canarsie High School, who selected the topic of Hurricane Katrina. They worked with Game Pill to create an educational game within a social networking site that focuses on the local heroes that emerged during the disaster while educating its players about the essentials of disaster readiness.

WHAT: Hurricane Katrina 3rd Anniversary Press Conference and Launch Party for “Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in the Crescent City” social networking site featuring educational “game” experience in support of New Orleans residents

WHO: Global Kids Executive Director Carole Artigiani
Joined by: Online Leadership Program Director Barry Joseph
AMD representative Ward Tisdale
Microsoft Partners in Learning representative Mary Cullinane

WHERE: Global Kids Headquarters
137 East 25 Street, NY, NY

WHEN: Thursday, August 28, 2008
12 Noon – 2 PM

“Game Pill is proud to be involved with Global Kids in this effort,” said Mike Sorretini, head of Game Pill. “We hope that the site serves to educate, enlighten and show the facts of Hurricane Katrina in an interactive and dynamic medium.”_

“AMD Changing the Game initiative is taking an expertise that the company has in the gaming industry and marrying it with our focus on education. Through gaming, we are giving kids a medium that they really enjoy, and giving them an opportunity to work with a team of their peers to actively collaborate and develop a positive game with social content,” said Ward Tisdale, Director of Global Community Affairs at AMD.

“Global Kids’ work on engaging teens through the Hurricane Katrina site showcases an incredible vision for using technology to develop life-long social activists and responsible citizens,” said Mary Cullinane, Director of Innovation and Business Development for Microsoft U.S. Education, “and it is aligned with Microsoft’s Partners in Learning engagement with students and teachers who live and work in New Orleans as they tirelessly rebuild and redesign their beloved city.”

Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City was developed through Global Kids’ Playing for Keeps (P4K) program, which receives support from AMD and Microsoft’s U.S. Partners in Learning Mid-Tier Grants Initiative. The game's main character is Vivica Waters, a young woman from New Orleans who moved to New York after surviving the storm. The game takes place in Vivica’s dream, where she searches for her mother during the storm and helps her neighbors as the hero she wishes she could have been. The site will increase students’ awareness and understanding of the need for development and improved coordination of local community resources in support of rebuilding efforts. It can be used within a classroom or after school setting.

Global Kids, Inc. (www,globalkids.org): Founded in 1989 and an independent nonprofit since 1993, Global Kids educates and inspires urban youth to become successful students and global and community leaders by engaging them in socially dynamic, content-rich learning experiences. Through its leadership development and academic enrichment programs, Global Kids educates youth about critical international and domestic issues and promotes their engagement in civic life and the democratic process. Through professional development initiatives, Global Kids provides educators with strategies for integrating experiential learning methods and international issues into urban classrooms. Over ninety percent of the high school seniors who participate in Global Kids’ leadership program graduate from high school. About the OLP: Global Kids, Inc. is a nationally recognized leader in using digital media to promote global awareness and youth civic engagement. Global Kids’ Online Leadership Program integrates a youth development approach and international and public policy issues into youth media programs that build digital literacy and STEM skills, foster substantive dialogues, develop resources for educators, and promote civic participation.

Game Pill, Inc. (www.digitalcreations.com): Game Pill Inc. is an interactive studio that specializes in online game development and interactive marketing. Based out of Canada, Game Pill is a small boutique studio of animators, programmers and art directors. Game Pill Inc. has entertained audiences in many mediums including touch screen kiosk development, online experiences and most notably online games and e-learning. Game Pill has mainly worked bringing the properties of Fortune 500 companies to life and currently in the process of creating their own properties for licensing.


Advanced Micro Devices (www.amd.com) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. About AMD Changing the Game: This is an initiative of the AMD Foundation, designed to help youth at the middle and high school level harness the power of digital games with social content, while learning critical education and life skills. Through the process of developing and playing their own issue-themed games, AMD Changing the Game participants will develop essential skills in science, technology, engineering, and math, also known as STEM skills. Attention to these critical developmental areas will in turn help participants expand their future educational and professional opportunities as citizens of the 21st Century.

Microsoft Partners in Learning (http://www.microsoft.com/education/pil/partnersInLearning.aspx): Microsoft Partners in Learning grants are designed to support and grow proven, successful programs that positively affect K–12 public education in the United States through the innovative use of technology and that can be brought to a broader scale. Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

# # #


]]> tag:www.holymeatballs.org,2008://1.3090 2008-07-29T16:16:43Z 2008-07-29T16:28:35Z
Brock from the Greenville Forward blog lends an account in a recent post on himself and his coworkers experience playing Ayiti: the Cost of Life, after they were cued in to it by a recent Nonprofit Times article. Anyway, I...
joyce www.holymeatballs.org Brock from the Greenville Forward blog lends an account in a recent post on himself and his coworkers experience playing Ayiti: the Cost of Life, after they were cued in to it by a recent Nonprofit Times article.

Anyway, I called to Russell and asked him what he was doing. No answer. So, I called again. Still no answer. But, the beeping and the bomping kept coming. Now, it was accompanied by sounds from Russell. "Aw..." "Oh yeah." "Whoops." "Uh Oh." started to echo in the emptiness of the first floor on Manly Street. Well, now my interest was up. So, I walked out and saw Russell intently working on something on his computer. He looked up and said, "Man, this is cool. You gotta try....", but his sentence faded out as he went back to the thing on his screen.

Eventually, he stopped and told me about this article he read that talked about kids designing online games with Game Lab, a NYC-based game development company. Students at South Shore High School developed Ayiti: The Cost of Life , detailing a family, living in Haiti, struggling with poverty. You live as this family for 4 years and have make choices as to where you work, how you work, whether your children go to school, how many go to school, what to do when someone gets sick, etc. You are also faced with challenges like Hurricane Season and Dry Season. My family made it to Year 4 when I lost the son to Cholera and the father to Diphtheria. Once the father was gone, the game was over. The oldest daughter could not care for her younger sister alone. Especially, when she was so sick from working as a Rum Distiller for so long, just to help feed her family.

Thanks Brock for playing and taking the time to write up your experience!

]]> tag:www.holymeatballs.org,2008://1.3081 2008-07-17T18:31:40Z 2008-07-30T05:08:28Z
The Non-Profit Times recently posted an article online focusing on games being used to change kids ideas of nonprofits and spotlighting Ayiti as a good example of such. Building Vs. Blowing Up Games aimed to change kids' idea of nonprofits...
joyce www.holymeatballs.org The Non-Profit Times recently posted an article online focusing on games being used to change kids ideas of nonprofits and spotlighting Ayiti as a good example of such.

Building Vs. Blowing Up Games aimed to change kids' idea of nonprofits By Michele Donohue

Choose whether your child goes to school to learn or works in a rum distillery to make money. Decide whether a bicycle or medicine is more important to spend precious resources on. These are decisions most of us don't have to make every day - but they are the choices you have to make in the game Ayiti: The Cost of Life.
Ayiti: The Cost of Life demonstrates poverty in Haiti.

Ayiti simulates choices people in Haiti have to make - health or wealth, education or jobs - and is just one of the many games emerging from the growing social and health game sector.


The rest of the article, after the jump, or you can view it online here.

]]> Nonprofits and academic institutions are increasingly interested in using interactive game play to drive their missions home - from ICED, which stands for I Can End Deportation, from New York City-based human rights organization Breakthrough, to the United Nations (U.N.)

Foundation's Deliver the Nets about battling malaria, which kills a million people each year.

"The emphasis behind the game was to give people something fun to do but also to educate them about the role of the U.N. and how hard and challenging it can be to get these nets, but at the end of the day what a big difference they make," said Katherine Miller, director of communications at the U.N. Foundation. In Deliver the Nets, players must find people to give bed nets to before the sun goes down. The game was launched in conjunction with World Malaria Day on April 25 and a bed net was donated for each of the 16,000 people who played the game in the first month. "We thought that it was also an excellent way to educate people about the challenges of delivering these nets and where they go," said Miller.

The games might make social problems more tangible to the player - children and adults alike - but most nonprofits have to keep the budget and mission in mind. Small single-player games can reach $100,000, with costs easily jumping from anywhere between $250,000 and $1 million or more for increasingly sophisticated games, depending on the developers, project time and design.

"We never make a program when there isn't a need. We want to be careful about how we are spending donor dollars," said Joan Ford, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation based in Los Angeles. Starlight Starbright has created several games that help children understand sicknesses they might be battling, such as asthma, sickle cell anemia and diabetes.

Ford said that the organization used research and proven modular learning techniques to develop fun, creative games that most importantly made impact on the children. According to Ford, researchers "found a difference in knowledge, self-efficacy -- when you are sick you get hopeless about it and it's not hard to get there -- increased self responsibility and compliance reducing in symptoms," in children that played the health games Starbright Starlight developed.

The idea of using games to teach health and social change - instead of stealing cars or battling aliens - is a relatively new concept, and nonprofits are trying to figure out how much impact games can have on people.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., announced that $2 million in grants would support 12 research teams figuring out if different health game techniques can have proven results through its Health Games Research program at the University of California in Santa Barbara. The grants are awarded, up to $200,000, on a one- to two-year basis to further research the effectiveness games may have in healthcare.

"Our vision is that in the coming years we'll have a thriving marketplace of well-designed, compelling, interactive games that draw on this evidence base to become highly engaging and effective tools for improving the health and healthcare of all Americans," said Chinwe Onyekere, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program officer for the Pioneer Portfolio, which promotes innovative projects in the future of healthcare.

The projects chosen for the grants vary in demographic, technology medium, and health topic -- from a mobile phone game to promote healthy eating habits for young adolescents to implementing an action-adventure driving game to improve cognitive functions for adults older than 65.

The grant work will help researchers "understand more deeply how people respond to interactive games and how we can design effective health games that can engage, motivate, empower and support players as they achieve better health habits and health outcomes," said Dr. Debra Lieberman, communication researcher at the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research at the University of California.

"I think we need more proof that this is possible and that the game can be fun and at the same time be useful in the world," said Colleen Macklin, Parsons The New School of Design chair of Communication Design and Technology in New York City.

Parsons' Communication Design and Technology department announced in December a joint initiative with Games for Change (G4C) to create PETLab, a game design research lab for prototyping social change games. G4C started in 2004 as part of the Serious Games Initiative aimed at providing information about social change through games, under the financial sponsorship of the nonprofit Digital Innovations Group, Inc.

The G4C's annual festival invites gaming professionals, nonprofits and academia to discuss how games have, and will, affect the social sphere. PETLab was made possible by a $425,000 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant and will create games using the Microsoft Xbox development platform. The organization already plans to work with MTV's Think.MTV.com, a youth-driven activism community.

Suzanne Seggerman, G4C co-founder and president, said that a majority of mainstream games fail, and that rate increases for social issue games. But, she said, PETLab will help build base information about game design and provide low-cost methods and small game prototypes.

"I think that we're really at the infancy, but we're really beginning to see some of the change that's possible," said Seggerman. NPT

]]> tag:www.holymeatballs.org,2008://1.3067 2008-07-16T18:54:42Z 2008-07-30T05:07:20Z
So, I'm positive you all heard about the GLS conference (Games, Learning and Society) in Madison already and basically, I just wanna shed some light...(or darkness)...on what a "hell" of a good time I had. Let's see now, with all...
p4kOtis So, I'm positive you all heard about the GLS conference (Games, Learning and Society) in Madison already and basically, I just wanna shed some light...(or darkness)...on what a "hell" of a good time I had.

Let's see now, with all the hotel accommodations, free food, interesting meetings, (including the last one featuring Barry Joseph, Rafi Santo, Jay Bacchuber, and yours truly [(:]), what more do you expect from a conference where the theme is GAMES, GAMES,....AND MORE GAMES!!!...?

Not to mention, you guys missed a hilarious rendition of "Sabotage" by The Beastie Boys covered by the funny...i mean, musical genius himself...(Say Nothing) Barry Joseph! (What?, No Applause, Oh Well) Anyway, all was well, but i don't really wanna have the heart to tell about the chicanery that came about when the P4K gang and I were leaving because it isn't really that important.

]]> Anyway, we had ourselves a hell of a time and we had a lot of laughs....and I gave the best presentation I have ever done, (being as it stands, I have never done so). But all the credit for that presentation doesn't all go to me. Let's hear for the three that have already been mentioned in this blog:

Jay Bacchuber
Rafi Santo

and give a round of applause for the man, who, if he were not here, I would get cold feet and ditch the presentation to play video games (HA!)

Barry Joseph

(crickets)
Oh come on
That wasn't fair

(Applause, Standing Ovations, etc)

Thank You
-Otis

]]> tag:www.holymeatballs.org,2008://1.2870 2008-06-26T21:39:18Z 2008-06-26T21:50:32Z
Yesterday saw the publication in the Wall Street Journal of the second ad to be published as part of AMD's launch campaign of their "Changing the Game" initiative. Check it out below!...
joyce www.holymeatballs.org Yesterday saw the publication in the Wall Street Journal of the second ad to be published as part of AMD's launch campaign of their "Changing the Game" initiative. Check it out below!




]]>

]]> tag:www.holymeatballs.org,2008://1.2841 2008-06-26T06:17:00Z 2008-06-26T06:25:46Z
Listenup.com launched on their site this week Youth Media in Practice (YMiP). YMiP is a comprehensive guide to youth media education, serving as an interactive canon of media, language, pedagogy and dynamic research. YMiP encompasses "Projects of Change," an online...
joyce www.holymeatballs.org Listenup.com launched on their site this week Youth Media in Practice (YMiP).

YMiP is a comprehensive guide to youth media education, serving as an interactive canon of media, language, pedagogy and dynamic research. YMiP encompasses "Projects of Change," an online gallery of the most promising practices in our field, a Practitioners Curricula Gallery, Glossary and access to archived resources at listenup.org/ymip.

Further information from the site:

YMiP is generously supported by Adobe Youth Voices, the Adobe Foundation's global philanthropic initiative, which provides breakthrough learning experiences using multimedia tools that enable youth to explore and comment on their world. Listen Up! is truly grateful to the contributing partner organizations for their visionary leadership, dedication to groundbreaking work with young people, and sharing their methodology with the field. Thanks to a truly collaborative effort, educators can grow capacity within the 21st century classroom through the interactive resources curated at YMiP with "Projects of Change."

]]> tag:www.holymeatballs.org,2008://1.2840 2008-06-25T05:46:29Z 2008-06-26T06:15:42Z
Elena Haliczer, of Games For Change, sent us this amazingly fascinating report about her experience playing and discussing Global Kids' Ayiti with youth in Guatemala at a summit of Central American youth leaders and senior leaders in Central America, many...
joyce www.holymeatballs.org Elena Haliczer, of Games For Change, sent us this amazingly fascinating report about her experience playing and discussing Global Kids' Ayiti with youth in Guatemala at a summit of Central American youth leaders and senior leaders in Central America, many of whom were working in government but who had had backgrounds in, for example, guerrilla military groups:



I realized I never got back to you about my experience playing Ayiti with a group in Guatemala. G4C was asked by the Project on Justice in Times of Transition to talk about games (and unexpectedly social media since nobody else was talking about it, which made me happy since that is my particular expertise) on a panel on using creative strategies to engage youth in social causes.

The event itself "Leaders of the Present/Lideres del Presente" was a summit of Central American youth leaders hand-picked by PJTT and senior leaders in Central America, many of whom were working in government but who had had backgrounds in for example, guerrilla military groups.

The two major themes were youth violence and natural disasters, as those were the two issues all Central American countries face.

The group of young leaders came from fairly diverse backgrounds. Some were lower class, former gang members or guerrilla group members, who'd decided, either upon being sent to and getting out of prison, or through other experiences, to fight for youth like them, to keep young people out of the same situations.

]]> Others were middle to upper class, with parents who were academics or working in government. Many of them had studied or were currently going to college in the U.S..

After our panel, which was pretty good--Wendy Luers, who is one of the founders of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition, asked me to do a follow-up workshop, which is when we played Ayiti.

We had about twenty attendees to this little impromptu affair. I explained G4C's mission, the festival, upcoming network, and then we did some game play. I thought they'd really connect with Ayiti because most of my participants were from impoverished backgrounds, or were working directly with those who were.

Their reactions were fascinating. I took them through two years, coaching them initially on possible outcomes I'd seen by making certain decisions, and letting them make their own without coaching in the second year.

Most of them felt initially that either education, or money were the best strategies for playing the game. They wanted to educate the kids, but soon decided they should educate the parents instead.

When it came to buying things at the store, they went for the home remedies and shoes immediately since those were the things many of them had depended upon year to year to stay healthy, saying that books would only work in an imaginary household where the parents would have energy to invest time in getting the kids to read, or where any of them could read at all.

School they either felt was a luxury or completely useless, and actually a short argument ensued about who had gone to school and who hadn't to greater or lesser real-life impact. Then there was a discussion of the availability of education in their countries, and frustration expressed at the fact that most of it is Catholic education and therefore aligned against traditional indian practices and culture and the root of the erosion of ethnic cultures in their countries.

Game play, in short provoked some really thoughtful discussions and expressions of real-world problems---which is the point of course.

We finished two years and discussion turned to the format of the game. Many of them were concerned about the fact that the game is a digital, web-based one. That it would require a computer. Many of them work with people who have no access to computers or internet. Internet penetration is fairly low in rural parts of Central America. Most people can't afford computers, and even in the cities, the majority of people head to internet cafes which are often prohibitively expensive. However, most people have cell phones.

The two formats that ended up being the most popular among the workshop attendees and also the following one-on-one's I did with people, were either cell phone games or board games, and the ideas that began to take shape rested within those formats. Other formats that appealed were card-based and a few event/festival games.

In terms of Ayiti, people were interested in the characters and got emotionally involved with the family. They liked the music and the design. They wanted to see more grit, but quickly noted as they played that the situation was communicated well enough and enough to make people care about the issue.

Elena

]]>