This July, Global Kids is holding our first serious gaming camp that we are calling "Level Up"! Designed for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors, this week-long summer intensive will train you in basic game design, global literacy, and how to combine the two into a serious game design addressing a critical social issue. It…
Category: Civil Society
USIP Conference on Media & Peacebuilding on May 12: Watch the Webcast (updated)
The nice folks at the US Institute of Peace send out the news that they are holding an all-day conference on "Seizing the Moment: Media & Peacebuilding" this Wednesday, May 12, at the Newseum in Washington DC. It looks like a fantastic event, which will consider "specific recommendations on ways to harness the power of media for…
IBM’s CityOne Game: Solve Real World Problems in a Virtual City
CityOne, a new game being developed by IBM, combines the god-view SimCity experience with current urban development challenges like clean water, overcrowding and small business growth. The goal of the game is "to teach laypeople how to better cope with complex modern problems by showing them the forest of solutions that have to be brought…
My Talk on Youth Learning Networks at the WebWise Conference in Denver (video)
The organizers of the excellent Webwise conference that I attended last month in Denver have recently posted to the web videos from the event. While there, I spoke on a panel on "Creating Connections and Promoting Networks" focused on the challenges and opportunities of using new media to transform user experience and provide a network…
Headed to Charlotte, NC April 8 for a UNCF Forum on Digital Media & Learning
I'm happy to announce that next Thursday, April 8, I will be speaking on a panel on digital media and learning at the Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. Sponsored by the UNCF (United Negro College Fund), the purpose of the forum is to "to look into what these new technologies mean for…
Service Learning, Social Media & the Lost Boys of Sudan: the 2010 National Service Learning Conference
From March 24-27, Global Kids teen leader Mayank and I got to travel to San Jose, California to participate in the National Service Learning Conference along with 2,000+ other young people and educators from around the country. Sponsored by the National Youth Leadership Council, the NSLC is a very impressively run annual gathering focused on…
I’m speaking about Global Kids on Metanomics Talk Show this Wednesday (UPDATE: Postponed!)
This Wednesday, March 24, at 12pm PST, I will be speaking on the very excellent virtual talk show Metanomics about some of our recent projects at Global Kids. I'll be talking with Robert Bloomfield, or Beyers Sellers in Second Life, about our new "Edge Projects" that are helping other civic organizations experiment with digital media…
World Bank Launches “Urgent Evoke” Online Game to Inspire Youth to Social Action
EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo. The World Bank, working with ARG master Jane McGonigal, have launched a new online game called "Urgent Evoke" that's geared toward getting young people — particularly African young people — to come up with creative solutions to the worst of the world's social ills. It…
My Team at the Global Kids Online Leadership Program! (pic)
Here's a super cool picture of the current team at the Online Leadership Program at Global Kids. We took a lovely day-long retreat yesterday, visiting the "Silk Road" exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, followed by a relaxing hang in Central Park. So nice just spending QT with my fantastic colleagues on a…
Co-facilitating a Workshop at the Digital Media & Learning Conference (video)
Barry Joseph, director of the Online Leadership Project at Global Kids, has been really insistent that we take videos of presentations that we give at conferences and workshops, as a way of improving the way we talk about our work and the organization. This is often met with groans by staff (okay, me) because it…