Musings on Dance, Food, Geek Stuff
At 4am on Tuesday, some obnoxious chiming noise woke me with a start. For a minute or so I was completely disoriented: Where am I? Why am I up this early? Whose bed is this? Then it all came in like a jolt: it’s Inauguration Day! I leapt out of bed and started getting ready…
Such a cool little video dramatizing how quickly our world is changing. My takeaway from this video is that educating youth to be effective citizens in the 21st century is less about cramming knowledge in their brains as much as preparing them with the right disposition to absorb new information, learn new skills, and effectively…
The spoof posts by Twitter user "Second Lie" are consistently hilarious and spot on (at least if you are a Second Life resident.) Today Global Kids got a very funny mention in the "Second Lie" Twitter feed, referring to the "Linden Prize" being offered by Linden Labs for the most innovative new application of Second…
Draxtor Despres's latest dispatch from the virtual world examines how people are using Second Life to speak this country's health care policy, as part of Obama's online policy dialogues. Here's organizer Siri Vita (sp?) describing why a Second Life consultation works: One of the most amazing things was how people were willing to open up…
After a year at the Online Leadership Program at Global Kids, I'm excited to announce that I have been promoted to Assistant Director of OLP! Functionally, I will still be doing a good amount of "Second Life producing," but also doing more programmatic and staff oversight. We've got an awesome bunch of geeks and educators…
I don't know why I never visited here, but a colleague alerted me to the Estonian government's Second Life island (click here to teleport.) Given the level of e-government innovation that happens in Estonia, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they have been in the virtual world since December 2007. I've heard that Estonia…
Speaking of Islam and virtual worlds, it looks like Joshua Fouts and Rita King of Dancing Ink Productions will be unveiling the findings of their study on "Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds" on January 29 in New York City, and then again in Second Life on January 30. Here's the info on the NYC event:…
I just finished drafting the 2008 Global Kids Year End Review, with a lot of help from my colleagues. It's remarkable listing all of the cool stuff that we did over the past twelve months with our scrappy little team of geeks and educators. Some of my personal favs: An AIDS orphan in Ugandan exchanges…
December 19, 2007 started off super-crappy but ended super-awesome. That morning, I updated my status on the micro-blog Twitter as "jobless." A few minutes later, I got a text message from Barry Joseph : “Sorry to hear the news. Please call when u can.” Barry is a guy I had known for about a year…
On Wednesday, I produced the virtual premiere of three youth-written films in Second Life. Organized by Global Kids in conjunction with Scenarios USA, the virtual screening brought together around 50 teens and adults on both the Teen Grid and Main Grid of Second Life. The audiences got to watch three short films on the subject…