Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative

Christmas is a very common holiday around the world. We all acknowledge that almost every country celebrates it, but do we know how they celebrate Christmas? For this reason, I decided to build an exhibit to showcase how different countries celebrated Christmas. The countries that I had built an exhibit for was Mexico, Australia, Nigeria, Italy, India and Japan. Starting with Mexico, I took all the attendees around the exhibit room to talk about the different pictures that were up. After going around the room, I had announced a “contest”. The participants were to take a photo in second life regarding what Christmas meant to them. Anything and anyone (with their consent) could be used in the snapshot. The winner of the snapshot contest would have their photo put onto the wall in the exhibit. The snapshots were handed in, and so it was then time for a discussion. Teens answered questions about what they saw in the exhibit, such as the similarities between the different countries and the common themes of Christmas. Overall, the ideas of food, thankfulness and family were relevant in every single country.

Overall, I think event ran pretty smoothly with a minimal amount of downtime, except for the time given to produce a snapshot. The tour gave explanations of each photo to expand the general knowledge. The discussion towards the end of the event really made me realize that teens are able to understand any topic, regardless of the complexity. The questions weren’t just answered, but were expanded by the participants. If I were to do the event again, I would have had higher level questions ready for the discussion, also I would have addressed some ways how teens can help their society with the information they just obtained. I would do the event again in a heartbeat and thanks to all that came, and I hope you will be able to use what you learned for Christmas in 2009.

Posted by Nate - SL Intern at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, February 2, Global Kids held a special fireside chat on the Teen Grid of Second Life focused on HIV/AIDS in Africa. The workshop began with Rafi leading a small group of teens in an exercise to have them think about the links between poverty and HIV/AIDS, and the role of Western governments in the fight against AIDS. Then we streamed into Second Life a live phone conversation with Victoria, a teenager in Uganda whose life has been particularly affected by HIV/AIDS.

Victoria spoke about her family background, how she was able to attend the most elite school in Uganda and her plans for university. Victoria then discussed about how the Ugandan government and civil society have been dealing with a recent upsurge in HIV cases, using a variety of media and strategies. Click play on the media player above to listen to our conversation with her.

To help young Ugandans like Victoria to go to school and find a better future, please see http://leaduganda.org.

Posted by Rik at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello Everyone.

I'm going to share with you my review about my first GK Intern event.

I hosted it on Thursday, 4th of December 2008. The topic had to be Global Warming because I really do like the topic and stuff related with that. So I throught it would be cool to do something in-world about it for the TG Community to enjoy. The event was hosted at the GK Intern area on Global Kids Island, awesome place!. Before the event I managed to set up a few globes and uploaded a few pictures related to Global Warming along with additional details required for the event.

The event lasted for 1 hour and 20 minutes with many teen grid residents of the community joining in and debating about the past, present and future of Global Warming. I think in total there was around 20+ that attended the event which is great, because there was not many folks on the grid when I started. I was worried who was going to show up, but I managed to get the word out on time.

At 1:33pm SLT, the volcano went off during the event, at the abnormal weather stage. Could this be a sign or something else? lol

Here is the shedule of the Global Warming event
1pm SLT - Introduction of the Intern Event
1:10pm SLT - GK Guidelines
1:15pm SLT - Section 1: Background on Global Warming & Q&A
1:22pm SLT - Section 2: Global Warming Changes
1:30pm SLT - Section 3 - Impacts of Global Warming & Q&A
1:35pm SLT - Section 4 - The future
1:45pm SLT - Q&A
2pm SLT - Section 5 - How to make a difference
2:11pm SLT - Section 6 - How to Take Action Now
2:15pm SLT - Section 7 - Global Warming information packs & final Q&A
2:20pm SLT - The end of my event - wooot

My review

Okay, so..I managed to find and I did alot of planning for the event. As you know, I love spreading the word about events on GK, so I decided to send out Event notecards to my friends around the TG grid first. Then 8 minutes before the event started I sent out event details through all global kids groups and started group conferences, haha.

Things that worked well, was that many found it interesting on some section areas of global warming during the event. The participants brought their points across really clearly and the feedback extremely helpful and very specific. I throught people enjoyed listening to the facts and information I was sharing with them. I'm sure that people throught I was very positive and very welcoming through out the event, which is awesome.

Things that did not go so well was asking enough questions to the participants to get more views across about certain things of Global Warming. Some participants decided to drop out half through and teleport else where, so maybe I need to look into what makes teens stay longer for next time. However, I managed to get help from participants to get more people back to the event, I think that worked successfully. I was happy that people were interested still.

Areas to improve on for next time; I think I would expand the time frame out If I had to do it again, from 1hr 20mins to 2 hours to allow more time to discuss, play a game and get more teens engaged into Global Warming. My idea for next time is to use Human Barometer to see if people agree, disagree or don't know about certain statements and then they could talk about why they picked that option.

If I had to do it again, I would change a few things. I would change the time of the event to later in the day like 4pm SLT until 6pm SLT because many U.S residents are on then and more people on the grid, wooot. I also would change the event details and expand that by asking people that attend more questions about the subject. At the start I would add a fun activity section where everyone did a quick brainstorm about Global Warming and then feed back to the rest of the group, which would be great fun for all. :D

My last thoughts is that the GK Intern event went really well and everything went smoothly without many problems to worry about, hehe. I hope everyone enjoyed the event and throught it was interesting to find out new things. :)

Thanks so much for attending my event. If want a copy of the Global Warming information packs, please IM me in-world or e-mail me. :)

Daniel Voyager
TSL Resident.

Posted by Daniel Voyager - SL Intern at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So on November 17th , 2008 I ran the event “Genocide it has to end!” To try and raise awareness of whats going on in darfur.

So, when I started the workshop voice went down. So I found it pretty hard to adapt to typing but I found it kind of easy after a while. So when I started the workshop, I asked the participants a few questions about what Genocide was and a couple of other questions just to get some ideas about what they knew. This went down pretty much without a hitch.

After I got through the views on genocide, I moved on to my main task, a RP (role-play) activity involving four groups, each one with a specific link to the genocide in Darfur and each could have a few possible solutions for the problem. I found that I wasn't clear enough with presenting the task and suffered for this later, however the groups that asked me about the task and grasped what I meant had some really amazing discussions on their views of the subject, some of them collided and turned more into a argument rather than a discussion but it was kept under control. Then as I went round group to group asking about the views or possible solutions to the genocide, I was really surprised about how much thought some of the participants had put into their answers, for me this was the highlight of the event as it implied they had read all of the information I had given them and learned a lot of it and became aware of the situation in a lot more detail.

After the RP, I decided to finish the fireside with a few questions that turned into a discussion, again I found this to be really exciting, as a lot of the teens there really started to get involved in their answers, and I had to calm them down so I could move from question to question, but this went pretty smoothly too. It took up a lot more time than I thought that it would but it turned out to be the best activity to get all of the participants involved in.

After running over by about 20 miniutes, the event finally finished and I felt it was a big success as some of the teens that came stayed and continued to debate even though it was over.

On the whole Id say the workshop even with drawbacks like having no voice, went really well for my first attempt. Ive learned to pre-type anything I can think of as it saves time typing during the workshop. And that I need to be A LOT more clear when I'm giving out instructions, even if it means taking extra time so that someone fully grasps what they are doing.

Posted by Grimreaper - SL Intern at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I first learned about the crisis in Burma last year from the 30-day campaign challenge to rally 50,000 voices to speak out for the Burmese who, in their own country are not allowed to speak out for themselves. If they did they could face serious time in prison. How much? Recently a blogger speaking the truth about the oppression was sentenced 20 years in prison.

After following the campaign closely and spreading the word in my hometown I found that sadly Burma’s issues are unknown by the general public. So I decided that holding a fireside workshop in TSL on the topic would be a great idea.

Participants were given basic information on the crimes being committed in Burma, a general time line of events from the 40’s all the way up to today, and information on major players and their impact on the crisis. This was probably the most challenging part of the entire fireside. Planning was quite frustrating, what would be too much information, what is most important to get across, and how do you go about presenting this much information at once without boring people to death? I eventually came to the conclusion that my best bet would be to include all of the facts needed for basic comprehension.

For the main activity groups of participants were given 10 minutes to research a topic and find a picture that represents it. They would then upload the picture and explain to the group why the picture represented the topic. The groups were given the topics 8-8-88, and human rights. Both groups did an excellent job both defining their topic and finding pictures/making shirts that represented their topic.

Group 2 does their presentation on Human Rights.

As always there were things I learned while planning and running this fireside.
1. My mic hates me so if someone is telling me its not cooperating I need to switch to text instead of waiting to see if it will clear up.
2. Large amounts of information need to be broken up so participants don’t get bored. Finding a more interactive way of presenting the information would also work.
3. Getting frustrated that things I can’t control keep causing problems just creates another problem.

Over all I think that my main goal was reached. People who had never heard of Burma now know it exists, know of the junta and all the despicable crimes they commit everyday.

Posted by Victoria - TSL Intern at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Election Event went over very fantastically. I would like to thank Nate Kongo for helping me out during this entire event. I would also like to thank all of the Gkids for making this election year a good year for the teenagers of Teen Second Life. This event would have gone down badly if it wasn't for the people that kept it together.

The event itself consisted of a few different key elements that made it successful. Whether it be the intelligence of all the teen residents that decided to have a voice or perhaps even the fact that the topics were spoken about so intelligently. It was all a very mature conversation and a lot of people seemed to have enjoyed themselves.

The event itself was not the best thing that happened that night. The voting booth showed that Barack Obama had a clear victory over the teens in the grid with most of the votes going to him over McCain.

The event was a complete success in all different aspects. I have never seen an event go so long and still feel like a powerful event even after the 2 hour limit that was set unto the previous events. This event has indeed inspired me to make a longer event and without haste I will again do another event of this magnitude. All the teens have respected their rules and have sent me IMs within the past week saying how good of an event it was. My reply was always the same. I always said "I want teens to have a voice, and I am glad that you appreciate the gift that was given to the teen grid" as a sign of gratitude.

Continue reading "[tsl/leadership/teen] Election Day Event" »

Posted by Lee - SL Intern at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'd been looking for an excuse to use this great video on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for a while now, and yesterday I finally got a chance to. It was in a fireside workshop I did in Teen Second Life I titled "Know Your Rights!" which was kind of a 101 on human and civil rights, what the difference is between the two, and the struggles to defend them historically as well as up to this day. (The workshop, as is the case of many of the firesides we do, is actually a riff off of a classic GK face to face workshop on the same issue called "Youth, Understanding Rights and Civic Participation").

Conducting it in SL allowed me to more easily add the video as a nice appetizer to the subject, and I knew that SL teens, being more design oriented than average, would enjoy its clean aesthetics. It led into a substantive discussion on the differences between civil and human rights (civil are granted by the state, human are implicit in being, well, human), and I was impressed by the number of teens that participated that were able to articulate the difference between the two.

Our main activity was called "The Prioritization of Rights", and in it teams had order the US Bill of Rights in terms of importance. One of the things that I found most interesting in hearing the teams present their opinions was how much variance there was between the groups about which rights they felt were most importance. Freedom of speech and religion were often towards the top, while I think I only heard freedom from cruel and unusual punishment in the top five once. It really highlighted how hard it is to rank rights that are so basic, which is, of course, the point of the activity.

We closed off with a more broad based discussion about the nature of rights and how they're valued (or not) in different parts of the world, and whether certain ones are given more attention or priority than others. Inevitably, one of the teens brought up the recently passed Proposition 8 (which bans gay marriage in the state of California), and talked about how in his opinion that was a violation of basic human rights, and others from the group chimed in about whether they felt it should even have been on the ballot considering it takes away rights (most felt it should not have been). It was really heartening to see teens looking at the world through this lens of basic human rights and evaluating what they saw on that basis. We'd live in a better world if everyone did the same.

Posted by Rafi Santo at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

On November 4th, 2008, many teens came together to discuss various issues regarding the presidential election led by Lee Soothsayer and myself. Despite not being able to vote, they still had ideas to carry the event for hours. When considering the idea to host a debate in teen second life, questions come up about whether or not teens are mature enough to discuss topics that are generally taken care of by adults. After hearing what some teens had to say, it was clear to me that the answer to the previous question was yes.

Even emotional topics, such as abortion and the minimum wage were discussed by the group of teens. Some other topics discussed included the Iraq War, the US economy, education, taxes, healthcare, and energy. As people started coming, the discussion really picked up into a fully fledged debate. The great thing was that everyone had respect for each other, and so the debate had not gone out of control.

For discussing the war in Iraq, we had used the agreement scales to put forth our opinions. For the most part, teens seemed to be against the war in Iraq and that America should pull out. With abortion teens were pretty much split with the idea of banning it. One argument was that it should be the choice of the person giving birth as it is part of them. The other side had put forth the argument of, what if the country’s best president could have been born, but was instead aborted. Pretty much for every topic discussed, there were enough people on each side to put forth valid reasons of argument.

After running this event with Lee Soothsayer, we both feel that teen second life is a perfect place to hold debates because teens have a huge amount of ideas and opinions to put forth, and after all, we are the future of the world.

Posted by Nate - SL Intern at 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As we blogged yesterday, yesterday in TSL we coordinated a mock election. With the help of many amazing teens including Ryan Dayton, who scripted a grid-wide voting system, and Victoria Hanfoi, who put together non-partisan candidate fact sheets to place near the polls (not to mention staying online all day yesterday teleporting people to vote!), we managed to hold what we think might be the first ever mock US Presidential Vote in a teen virtual world.

After teens voted, many stopped in and participated in a GK Intern run event by Lee Soothsayer and Nate Kongo; an open mic/debate about the race and the issues related to it. (Look for a blog post from them soon!) It was incredible just to be a fly on the wall during the event, listening as teens debated really touchy issues from abortion to the war in an incredibly civil way.

Oh? What's that? You want to know who won the TSL mock election? Oh, right! Here are the results:

358 Votes Total

John McCain/Sarah Palin: 91 votes. (25%)

Barack Obama/Joe Biden: 245 votes. (68%) - WINNER!

Chuck Baldwin/Darrell Castle: 2 votes. (1%)

Bob Barr/Wayne Allen Root: 7 votes. (2%)

Cynthia McKinney/Rosa Clemente: 2 votes. (1%)

Ralph Nadar/Matt Gonzalez: 11 votes. (3%)

Thanks to all who voted, and next time hopefully you'll be of age to do it in real life!

Posted by Rafi Santo at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Young people under the age of 18 usually don't get to experience the joys of voting in the United States.  But today teens on the Teen Grid of Second Life can head to Global Kids island (click here to teleport) to vote for their favorite presidential candidate. A virtual voting booth, created by teen Ryan Dayton, will be automatically tabulating votes for the next 24 hours until midnight PST.  Other voting booths will be scattered across the Teen Grid today as well.

UPDATE 11:30 pm EST:  Here's the poll numbers so far - TSL Mock Election Statistics: 358 Votes Total
John McCain/Sarah Palin: 91 votes (25%). Barack Obama/Joe Biden: 245 votes (68%). Chuck Baldwin/Darrell Castle: 2 votes (1%). Bob Barr/Wayne Allen Root: 7 votes (2%). Cynthia McKinney/Rosa Clemente: 2 votes (1%). Ralph Nadar/Matt Gonzalez: 11 votes (3%).

Posted by Rik at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hello! I'm a brand new intern in the GK Leadership Program on Teen Second Life. My name is Animaster Dragonash. Let's see. About me... First of all, I am a dedicated teen wanting to make the environment cleaner. Which is the main reason I joined Global Kids. So I can raise awareness about ecological issues. I also love animals. That's pretty much some about me.

Posted by Animaster - SL Intern at 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello Everyone.

I'm called Daniel Voyager and I'm currently 17 years old. I live in the United Kindom in the Southwest, which is great for tourism and beaches, WoooT. I signed up to Teen Second Life on October 31st 2006 (Halloween) because I wanted to socialize with people from around the world in a virtual online world.

In Teen Second Life I like to mentor new residents, take part in resident projects, document TG happenings, take snapshots and blog about all things TG on my Daniel Voyager Blog. I'm also here to have a great experience and have a blast. I've taken part in many awesome global kids events in the past such as the CRC Camp 07, Fireside workshops, D.I.D.I. Summer Camp 2008, Debates, Parties, Selection panels and cool meetings etc.

I decided to apply for the new GK Intern Program 2008 in September, because I wanted to improving TSL experiences for folks. After a few weeks of waiting, I received a e-mail saying you are now accepted into the GK Intern group, yay!.

I'm involved with the new GK Intern program because I think I can make a difference in the TSL community for example doing my own GK Intern events, sharing my knowledge and experiences in TSL with others (including Interns). I'm interested in doing GK Intern events during the program such as teen workshops about global issues (global warming, oil prices, hurricanes, technology, US presidential debates), I'm also thinking carefully about hosting a Dance Parties and Film Screenings which would be great fun for all.

Thanks for reading, there will be more posts from me in the upcoming weeks.

Daniel Voyager! :)

http://danielvoyagerblog.wordpress.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielvoyager/

Posted by Daniel Voyager - SL Intern at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 15th was a special day for me it was the day that I held the fireside Katrina: 3 Years On. The topic kind of fell in my lap, Rafi had been asking me about the trip I took to New Orleans for volunteer work and if I was going to blog or if I wanted to do an event. I of course took him up on the offer to do an event on GK Island!

I quickly found that this one was going to be a juggling act. I needed to not only give them the facts of what it is like in the 9th ward in New Orleans now but what happened in the first place. Both I could talk about for ages.

I started the fireside with the usual GK guidelines, one mic, safe space, and participation. From there I broke straight into rambling Vicky mode and started spilling facts out everywhere until one of the participants who had never heard Katrina reeled me back in.

Now that all the participants really understood the basic background on Katrina we went into the first activity. For the first activity the participants were asked to play the game Tempest in Crescent City and get as far as they could while paying attention to detail. After time was up we all came back and we were supposed to talk about the game and do a few processing questions but going back into rambling Vicky mode I skipped it and had to be pulled back in by Rafi.

After asking and answering the questions given by Rafi or myself participants watched a video created by victims in St. Bernard’s Parish. Participants were wide and awake for this one with plenty of comments to everything we had talked about.

Participants watch the video "Katrina Dreams"

Seeing as how the event is called "Katrina: Three Years On" we began to talk about how New Orleans is now.

I went to New Orleans and worked in St. Bernard’s Parish twice. The first time was a year after Katrina. It was… devastating even for me who never knew what it was like before. Families were living in trailers big enough for maybe two even if there were four or five people in one family, rations of food were being handed out by volunteers and churches, debris was piled up on the side of the road, traffic signs didn’t exist.

There were sights people couldn’t imagine that at times I wish I could forget. Play rooms for children no older then three destroyed, houses tipped over as if doing a nose dive, mac trucks on roofs, we even found a seventy foot boat in the middle of a street, one house crushed others spared. It was a place where in many senses the world had ended.

I am happy to report that today New Orleans is getting better. Trailers are almost gone, trash has been picked up, and stores are opening, restaurants actually run on a reliable schedule. Houses are being rebuilt; people are putting their lives together. I even heard people joke about how the storm brought them a million pet raccoons, something you would have never heard before. It is an amazing sight to see after all these people have been through.

The response to everything talked about that day was overwhelming, wonderful but over whelming. Everyone had something to say. Everyone had a question. Everyone still there at the end were wide-awake and eager to talk about the issue at hand.

Over all I think it was an amazing success.

Things I learned:
• Having Rafi run something I’m uncomfortable with is a great way to keep the pressure low and re-organize my mind for a few minutes.
• When you have a personal relationship with the issue be careful not to attack anyone who disagrees with the people affected or simply doesn’t understand.
• Have your proposal in front of you. It will help you organize even if your brain is acting like a gooey mess.

Posted by Victoria - TSL Intern at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Time has flown since the end of the summer started creeping up on us here at GK and we were thrust into the new school year, and I've barely gotten a moment to step back and let the blogosphere know about some of the great stuff that's been going on. One of the exciting things that I'd like to share is the kick off the third year of the Power of Citizenry in Second Life program, alternately known as the Second Life Internship Progam.

We spent the month of September doing recruitment, and, with the help of former-program-participant-now-GK-program-intern Victoria Hanfoi, selected a group of ten great interns that will be leading events and projects in Teen Second Life in the coming semester. Some were old hands, veterans of a variety of Global Kids programs in TSL. Some had participated in our first project, Camp Global Kids in 2006, others were involved in our recent Deconstructing Darfur project, others made movies in our CRC Machinima Camp back in 2007. And, of course, we have some awesome returning interns that were part of the program last year. It's so great to have all these different programs support each other, and I hope that all the new interns will both support each other and the Teen Second Life community in the coming months.

Shout outs to all the interns (alphabetically, of course)!
• Georgette Ashbourne
• Mat Brocco
• Lexius Coage
• Animaster Dragonash
• Nicholas Kit
• Nate Kongo
• Grimreaper Kyomoon
• Lee Soothsayer
• Emporer Spitteler
• Daniel Voyager

Looking forward to seeing all the great things that come from the group this coming year!

Posted by Rafi Santo at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey folks. This is Lee Soothsayer here and i'm just going to go over the things that I enjoy! For starters, i'm not in the Teen Grid much longer. I unfortunately have to make the switch to the Main Grid in early January but i'm looking forward to the couple months ahead! A little about myself: I love to make stuff. I may not be as good as the next guy but I do enjoy making things. I enjoy making houses, shirts, gestures, and hopefully a few more things in the future (other than scripting, i'll never get it, lol). Then ontop of that, I have made an impact in Secondlife with many different groups. I haven't been a big player in anything yet and continue to keep it that way as I don't need to be popular to know i'm a good guy. Finally, I would love to talk about a few things as well. I'd like to blog about 2012 and if it's possible, but not an open discussion yet though as the proof hasn't proved anything just yet. Then, I quite enjoy politics now, so if you'd like to talk about it, i'm not very educated in the subject but I would love to chat! Then, i've got a good thing for global issues as well. Anything global that deserves to be noticed as an issue or maybe just something good to talk about, I will make any event on! Other than that guys, this is me, Lee.

Posted by Lee - SL Intern at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tonight Global Kids hosted a presidential debate watching party in Teen Second Life.  We had a very good turnout of about 28 teens, several of whom stayed for the entire 90 minutes -- which is asking a lot of a teenager on a school night.  Pretty much every single one of them was an Obama supporter.  Still we had a good discussion and debate on the issues that I think helped them to think more broadly about the political process in America.

Overall it gave me hope about virtual worlds being the public sphere in a digital age. More comments and quotes from the teens follow...

Continue reading "[tsl/leadership] Teen Grid Obama/McCain Presidential Debate Watching Party a Big Success!" »

Posted by Rik at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey everyone! My name is Vicky and I was a Global Kids Intern this year. Some fun things about me include, my pink highlights, the fact that I am a twin, and that I enjoy ranting about just about anything.

Awareness of Global issues, both small and large is something very close to my heart. Often what I saw with the teens on the island is the fact global issues are something they (fellow gk loving teens) care about as well, but they were unsure what to do to begin “fixing” the problem.

So on April 20, 2008 I ran the event “Volunteerism and You!” with the direct intention of not only discussing why volunteering is so important but also to give the teens the resources they need to begin volunteering themselves.

To understand what the teens felt on volunteering in the first place I decided to use the ever-popular “Human Barometer” platform. My three statements were:
o Teenagers should volunteer the time they have now because they might not have it later.
o Volunteer work is important for social progress to be made.
o Volunteering is successful even if no one notices or only one life is changed.

Continue reading "[sl/intern/teen] Volunteerism and You!" »

Posted by Victoria - TSL Intern at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As part of my last week as a Global Kids OLP intern, I was offered the opportunity to run a Fireside workshop in Second Life. I was looking forward to designing and running this workshop for the last few weeks, as it requires creativity, planning, and the chance to work directly with teens. I knew that previous Fireside workshops have focused on topics like homophobia and racial inequality and have sparked meaningful discussion among teens, so I wanted to select a topic that would get them similarly interested and engaged. After considerable thought, I had the idea of running a workshop about rising gas prices and oil dependency, entitled, “Gas at $4 a Gallon: What are the Implications?”

Continue reading "[tsl/leadership] Workshop on “Gas at $4 a Gallon”" »

Posted by Rik at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Monday, July 21st, Global Kids’ U.S. in the World: International Law and Foreign Policy Program was proud to welcome Dr. Francis Deng, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, to speak about “Stopping the Genocide in Darfur: The Role of the UN, the ICC and the International Community.” Before Deng’s arrival, students in the program, which is held at the Council on Foreign Relations, participated in a workshop on the Sudan. The students were divided into four groups, with each group taking the role of either the United Nations Security Council, the Government of Sudan, the United States and International Community, or the International Criminal Court. Students had handouts which they could use to devise strategies on how they would protect the civilian populations and Internally Displaced Persons of Darfur.

Teens in Second Life doing an icebreaker during the workshop

As the workshop was run in “real” world at CFR, a similar workshop was being run online in Teen Second Life. This was the first time that a workshop was run simultaneously with students at CFR and the students on the teen grid, this summer, so it was interesting to see both sets of students processing the activity. Students in TSL did a warm-up activity on a large checkerboard in which they had to take one step forward if individual statements applied to them, such as “You or someone you know has been evicted from their home” and “You know one place in the world where children have been used as soldiers.” The TSL students were then given notecards with the information needed to break into the four groups and further discuss these issues.

Teens listening intently to Dr. Francis Deng, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide

After the workshop, students in TSL and adults on the main grid listened to Dr. Francis Deng talk about the problems facing the international community and the roadblocks we face in making the necessary strides for peace. Students at CFR were able to watch the TSL simulcast being projected onto a screen, so they could watch the back channel of discussion taking place as Dr. Deng was speaking. During the Q & A, some of the students in TSL had the opportunity to have their questions answered by Dr. Deng. It was inspiring to see people from a wide-ranging locations engaging this important discussion through different means.

- By Mike, GK Watson Fellow

Posted by Rafi Santo at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've always been incredibly impressed at how progressive the teens in the teen grid are in regards to their views on sexuality and identity, and have wanted to do some kind of program or project about sexual rights for a while now. In one of our first projects, Camp Global Kids, the issue for the final action project was very close to being Homophobia, but Child Exploitation beat it out by a hair.

So, I was excited to try my hand at developing and facilitating a Fireside on the topic that leveraged the kind of engagement that you can have in Second Life. One of the first places we started in the workshop was a brainstorm about discrimination, and specifically whether people thought that Homophobia was a form of discrimination. The view was pretty unanimous that it was, except for one dissenting voice, a teen that held the view that to be afraid something does not necessarily mean that you're treating it differently or worse, though it might lead to you doing so. I was floored. They'd brought up the rather nuanced point of the difference between prejudice and discrimination, about how one is a noun and one is a verb, something that many people fail to realize. This set the tone for looking at the whole issue in a more critical way.

Discussing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

After introducing the topic and framing the issue from a human rights perspective, rather than a religious one, by looking at articles 1, 12, & 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we moved on to the main activity, which was a role play of instances of Homophobia from both a global and local perspective. The group was divided into teams, some that had to go out onto news sites on the web to find real instances of Homophobia from across the globe to base their role play off of, and others that were asked to look into their own communities and experiences to come up with a skit.

A teen during the Homophobia role play

The role plays were fantastic! We had three, one that focused on a case of police brutality against a gay couple in a park in the Ukraine, one focusing in on teen insults and taunting towards a lesbian couple in an American school, and the last being a one person performance of the experience of a lesbian that wanted to march in a pride parade in Argentina describing the enormous amount of homophobia she came across in her country. People did a variety of unique to bring their skits to life, some using voice, many changing their appearance and adding props, and using timing and effective delivery of interesting dialogue to keep the audience engaged.

To close off, we handed out a notecard that described ways that teens can confront homophobia in their own lives in a practical sense. It included simple things like having open discussions about the issue, educating yourself about it, being supportive of others, and even some larger steps teens can take like forming a gay-straight alliance in their high school. As we went through the various things it mentioned, I was so impressed to hear that everyone present had done many of these things in their own lives, a number of them even co-founding gay-straight alliances in their schools. Can't wait to do more stuff on this issue in the teen grid!

Posted by Rafi Santo at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've reached the end of the year here at GK's Power of Citizenry in Second Life program, and an incredible year it's been. I've actually had a number of opportunities to reflect about the program recently in both qualitative and quantitative ways. On the qualitative side, I wrote up a best practice about the project for GK's RezEd virtual worlds and learning hub, and on the quantitative side, for our own internal numbers section of GK's year end board report.

For those that don't know, the POC in Second Life program was designed to translate Global Kids' flagship offline afterschool leadership program, titled the Power of Citizenry, into an online virtual world setting. In the offline program, we work with youth in high schools across New York City to educate them about international affairs and global issues via interactive workshops and develop their leadership skills through a variety of opportunities and projects throughout the school year.

In the best practice, I largely explored the question of what that translation has looked like structurally within Teen Second Life, and in the board report, I provided a summary of all the events that the teen interns that took part in the program were involved in in a leadership capacity over the course of the year.

Continue reading "[tsl/leadership] Power of Citizenry in Second Life comes to its years end" »

Posted by Rafi Santo at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For this Fireside Workshop, we decided to go green and look at our impact on the environment by measuring our eco-footprints. To begin examining our impact, the teens determined everything they threw away the previous day. The lists were long and included everything from leftover food to wrappers to clothing and electronics. To create our own virtual garbage pit, each teen then created one piece of garbage that was on their list. Our virtual garbage dump contained a lemon, leggings, and paper just to name a few of the creations. I was impressed at the creativity the teens expressed to build and re-use items from their own Second Life inventory to create their "piece of trash" in just a few minutes. To wrap up our trash analysis, we calculated the approximate weight of our household contribution to waste based on the statistic that the average resident of the US creates approximately 4.6 lbs of garbage each day. Many of the teens create more trash than the expected. The teens discussed how they could reduce the amount of trash they create by recycling more and agreed that the behaviors of those around them whether at home or at school have made recycling a habit for some and completely out of mind for others.

After we finished analyzing our trash, we went a step farther to calculate our eco-footprint. By looking at what types of transportation we use, how large our houses are, and the amount of electricity we use, we were each able to calculate our eco-footprint, a measurement of how much land, water, and resources are needed to support one person’s habits. The measurement also includes how much land is needed to handle the waste and pollution created by an individual. As the teens analyzed their eco-footprints, the majority realized energy and electricity is one of the biggest contributors to their eco-footprint. We were able to share practical ways to help reduce our footprint ranging from more efficient lightbulbs to turning off the lights and computers when we leave a room. When discussing why our eco-footprints matter, as one teen suggested, knowing the size of it makes you want to reduce it. The Firesiders then debated whether their eco-impact will matter more to their generation or their children's generation. The conversation evolved to discuss whether this is a local or global issue. While there was a differing in opinions as to whether environmental change should start at the local or global level first, it demonstrated to me that the teens understand the strong tie between the layers of impact at both levels. I found it especially interesting that the real-world locations of where the teens live was very closely tied to both their impact as well as their views. Those living in suburban areas must rely more heavily on personal automobiles while those in more urban areas could use public transportation or bicycles to get about. Having students from different countries also created an interesting dynamic where the group could compare the incentives and policies that their own countries, states, and cities enforce in order to reduce their eco-footprints as a community. As the Firesiders drew parallels between their eco-footprints and the changing weather patterns in their own communities due to global warming, confirmed for me that while our environmental impact is by no means a new topic, it is more timely than even in light of the natural disasters that have rocked the global community in the recent months.

Posted by Shawna at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brainstorming about and then deconstructing the ways alcohol and tobacco advertisements work in our society

Last night we had our first Fireside Workshop for May, titled Smoke & Mirrors: A Look at Alcohol and Tobacco Marketing. The workshop was made up of very classic media literacy exercises. We spent time thinking specifically about the reasons that alcohol and tobacco use happen, what the negatives effects of use and abuse are, and the role that marketing plays in shaping a culture where these activities are accepted to large degrees, especially within youth culture. After some discussion about what demographics are and why they're important to advertising, we took a look at a number of tobacco and cigarette ads to do a little deconstruction of the messages being sent, who the ads were targeting and what stories about the products being sold weren't being told.

The workshop went over well, very smoothly. Almost too smoothly actually. The teens there seemed completely comfortable with the activities we did, and pretty much didn't bat an eyelash when they had the opportunity to peel back the veneer of an advertisement's narrative and look at what's under the hood. At the end of the workshop, I thought I'd just ask how many people there had done similar activities to this before. I was amazed! Every single teen there had the done the same thing in the past, in health class! To me, this is revolutionary. When I was in high school (and I'm not that old), we didn't even have health class, let alone one that taught media literacy. Moments like that give me a little hope that our mainstream educational system might actually be improving in certain areas.

On a sidenote, this workshop was the first time I used a published Google Doc to display brainstorms that a group had on a prim, and it worked brilliantly. Doing this is pretty simple, but really powerful. See here for instructions on how to implement it.

Posted by Rafi Santo at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Catchy name eh? Well, I didn't think it up. The name was thought up by Rafi and Henry Jenkins, an MIT professor, on whom the event was focused. In this event, we talked about how popular culture relates to real life. Henry Jenkins told us about how a group of people took a lesson from the Harry Potter series and made a difference. Henry Jenkins is the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program where he analyzes popular culture.

In my opinion, this event went smoothly. Barry and Henry talked over the music stream about the topic, sorta like a talk show, and in between that we had a massive dance party with 'Wizard Rock' music. We had very little problems and the event went smoothly, so I have to say it was a success.

Until next time,
Nicholas Kit / Wealthy Bourgeois / Awesome

Posted by Nick - TSL Intern at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The second Fireside Workshop during the month of April, explored the connection between everyone’s favorite sweet tooth satisfier, chocolate, and human slavery today. Throughout the workshop we learned about how chocolate and slavery are connected in ways many of us were not aware of prior to this workshop. To start off with, we brainstormed about chocolate. Based off of which log around the fire we were sitting on, we were responsible for coming up with chocolate ingredients, chocolate brands, emotions that chocolate can evoke, and occasions where we eat chocolate. One thing was clear, we have a lot of chocolate experts (and oompa loompa fans!) in the TSL community!

As we finished our brainstorming activity, we directed our attention to the lovely GK Fireside poster that became a movie screen. Together we watched a brief video by Cody Maasen presenting some very harsh facts and vivid images of slavery on cocoa plantations on the Ivory Coast (http://www.globalkids.org/olp/sl/chocolate.mov). As the film concluded, the students reassembled in their groups and were asked to create an action plan responding to the film based on their assigned roles (chocolate makers, chocolate-loving consumers, cocoa plantation owners, and human rights activists). Each group then selected one member of their group to present their action plan using voice. To conclude the workshop, we all gathered around the fire one last time to discuss what we learned and how we can help stop human slavery from occurring today, drawing parallels to the past and exploring ways we can make a difference today such as signing an online petition or buying fair trade chocolate.

This workshop was the second time Rafi and I facilitated using voice and it continued to be a great experience. We found the participants stayed involved throughout the entire hour, actively communicating with the group through the type chat. Four teens, representing each of the four groups, presented their action plan over voice as well. This was a first for us and again worked wonderfully. Each group had a team member with access to a mic and all were able to have their mic working without any delay. It was also helpful in saving the time it would have taken to have each group copy and paste their plan into the chat and all groups reading the responses. I am excited to see what other creative ways we can incorporate voice into our facilitation methods in the upcoming Fireside Workshops!

Posted by Shawna at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Heritage and culture - they define our identity. No matter where we turn, we are unconsciously exposed to snippets of other cultures, whether it is the taco restaurant around the corner or the fashionable kimonos at the mall. In today's global society, cultures are fusing - we have acquired numerous cultural characteristics that are not native to us. As members of a global MMORPG such as TSL, we need to question ourselves: do we parallel the real world by exhibiting and recognizing other cultures within our grid or do we assimilate?

On March 15, 2008, the Heritage and Culture within TSL intern event was held. The purpose of this event was to discuss if and how does culture play a role in TSL. We started off by defining what one would consider culture and heritage. We came to a consensus that heritage and culture are characteristics that are displayed by one's family origins that are shared by a regional or ethnic group. From there, we routed to the interactive map activity!

Continue reading "[sl/intern/teen]- Heritage and Culture within TSL" »

Posted by Natalia - TSL Intern at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, for our first Fireside Workshop of April, we focused on the topic of Race in America. Race isn't often a topic that comes up in Teen Second Life, but as became clear in the workshop, is certainly one that affects the real lives of TSL residents. Over the course of the workshop we did some brainstorming on relevant terms, like power, ethnicity, discrimination and education, and over the course of our time were able to establish linkages between many of these terms. We watched a portion of the recent speech by Barack Obama called "A More Perfect Union", in which he speaks directly to how issues of race manifest in this country, and then played a classic activity we do off-line here at Global Kids, called "One Step Forward", where the facilitator says a statement asks participants to take steps forward or back depending on whether it applies to them. (eg - Take one step forward if you were born in the United States, take one step back if you're from a minority group and have sought healthcare). The activity helps to highlight the opportunities that different people have as a result of their race, gender, sexuality, age, income and other factors.

Continue reading "[tsl/leadership] Fireside Workshop: Race in America" »

Posted by Rafi Santo at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After taking a bit of a break from my event I hosted as a Global kids intern, I was asked to help out with a new project for GK. After being given a bit information on the Visions of Global Art Contest, it seemed interesting, and something I could participate in helping with . Right from the start, I began to compile a list of things essential to promoting and getting the contest started. Of the first tasks were posting in the forms/event list, and creating a poster that would reach out to teen residents to participate. After doing a little bit of thinking for the idea of the poster, I was soon finished it, and it was ready to be put up and displayed around Global Kids Island. Once the posters were placed, events listing of the Global justice workshops and the announcing of the winners went up.

Continue reading "[tsl/intern] Giving a helping hand.... for justice!" »

Posted by Mat Brocco - TSL Intern at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why!? Why did nobody come to my interns event? Not enough advertising? No. I advertised everywhere that you possibly can in Teen Second Life. Not an interesting enough topic? No. The topic that this event was based off of came from the most popular topic ever on the Teen Second Life Journal (http://tsljournal.com). What could it have possibly been? I do not know.

On Sunday, March 16, 2008, I attempted to host an event entitled "No Justice in Second Life? - The Discussion." It was supposed to be based off of the article on the TSL Journal "No Justice in Second Life?", which was the most popular article we have ever had on there. I am unsure of what it was that drove people away, but I do have one theory.

People just weren't interested in it. My previous event, violence in video games was a huge hit because it appealed to everyone who plays Second Life. Maybe the people who were on at the time of the event had more interesting things to do.

I don't know.

Hopefully I will choose a better topic next time.

-Nick (Nicholas (Wealthy Bourgeois)) Kit

Posted by Nick - TSL Intern at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rafi shows off his ICED! shwag before the game release.

For our first February Fireside Workshop, we held game launch party for ICED!, an RPG which focuses on issues related to immigration and deportation. It was particularly nice to hold this kind of workshop in Teen Second Life, where we're already starting off in a 3D graphic engine, and moved to another 3D graphic engine to play the game!

25 teens from around the grid dropped in, and we had some incredible discussion come up in regards to deportation. From the start, many of the teens asked the hard questions. Are things actually wrong with the current immigration system? Isn't it a good thing to deport citizens if they commit crimes, even minor ones? Part of what became evident, both through the discussion but especially the game play, is the lack of justice that currently exists in a system that lacks due process, where people that break the law don't have a chance to get a hearing, and where immigrants are often held for indefinite periods of time.

Workshop participants congregate by the GK bonfire and discuss ICED.

These discussions lead to broader, systemic questions, such as what universal human rights are and why there aren't currently effective systems in place to enforce that these rights are respected. At the end, it really felt like the teens in attendance got to experience the issue in a new way, and through the game were able to get an experiential sense of the unfairness of many aspects of the current US immigration system.

Posted by Rafi Santo at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)