The Click Heard Round the World

"I Dig Zambia" Week One Wrap-up: Fossil Digs, Grassroots Soccer, Comic Strips, and Mass Extinction

I have been negligent at posting about how the "I Dig Zambia" virtual summer camp is going because we've all been so busy working on the camp all week.  Building upon the successful "I Dig Tanzania" camp last year, "I Dig Zambia" is a two-week intensive summer camp that brings together 11 teens in New York with 8 teens in Chicago to learn about evolution, biology, paleontology, and social and cultural issues in Zambia.  The camp takes place within the virtual world of Teen Second Life, with the New York teens logging in from Global Kids headquarters and the Chicago teens participating from the Field Museum of Chicago.

It's been an outstanding and challenging first week, both for our kids and the educators. Here's a recap of some of the cool activities we had our high schoolers engaged in.

Virtual premiere of "A Soldier's Peace" in Second Life today at 8pm EST

I just got word that Netroots Nation  and Virtually Speaking are hosting this evening the virtual premiere of A Soldier's Peace, the inspiring documentary about Iraq veteran Marshall Thompson's peace walk across the state of Utah. 

The premiere will happen today, Saturday July 11, at 5pm PST / 8pm EST. Following the film, Daily Kos's own CS Kendrick will interview Marshall Thompson in-world.  That's at the Netroots Nation Arena (click here to teleport.)

More info at Daily Kos.

Simulcast of Barack Obama speech in Ghana into Second Life and Metaplace! (video)

This morning, President Barack Obama gave an address in Accra, Ghana, which was simulcast into both the virtual worlds of Metaplace and Second Life. 

I, like many other virtual world explorers, logged into both Metaplace and Second Life, as well as posting to Twitter, adding pictures to our Flickr photostreams and taking machinima video of the event. Just another day in the Metaverse.

All told, about 100 or so folks across worlds participated in this experiment, logging in from all around the United States, as well as a few folks from Europe and Africa. It was one of these strange and fun mixed-reality events where you found yourself flipping between various windows the whole time, listening to the speech while chatting with friends the whole time. So much more engaging than watching it on CNN.

After President Obama's speech, there was a virtual debrief with three African experts: Ghanian musician DNA (Derrick Ashong), Ambassador Kenton Keith and African studies Professor Timothy Burke of Swarthmore College. People in Second Life and Metaplace could ask the speakers questions as well as engage in back channel chat. I liked how within Metaplace, you were watching a live video simulcast of the avatars of the three speakers from within Second Life!  Truly meta!

The event was co-organized by various virtual world developers and activists including In Kenzo, Frans Charming, Tori Horton, Keith Morris, Rhiannon Chatnoir, and many others that I'm sure I'm forgetting.   Amazing job, guys, on putting together this multi-modal, innovative event!

See my pics from the event here.

Obama's Address in Ghana Tomorrow: Participate via Twitter, Second Life or Metaplace!

Tomorrow, Saturday July 11th, starting at 8am EST, President Barack Obama will be giving a historic address from Ghana.  For the first time in a US presidential address, you can participate in a global conversation with other people from around the world using SMS text messaging, Twitter (using the hashtag "obamaghana"), and from with the virtual worlds of Metaplace and Second Life.  Second Life and Metaplace residents will be able to watch a live video stream of President Obama's address, as well as converse with other participants. Talk about a multi-modal communications strategy!

After President Obama's address, you can join in a public discussion with musician and activist D.N.A. (Derrick Ashong), Ambassador Kenton Keith and African historian Professor Tim Burke from within Second Life and Metaplace.

I Dig Zambia starts today!

More details soon...

The Hair Fair in Second Life: virtual hair raises real dollars for Locks of Love this weekend!

This is the last weekend of the "Hair Fair" in Second Life, an innovative fundraiser for the "Locks of Love" charity.  Locks of Love, for those that don't know, is a nonprofit that provides hair for kids who have undergone chemotherapy or other medical procedure that causes them to lose their hair. For the last couple of years, a bunch of Second Life residents have been organizing the Hair Fair fundraiser to provide thousands of real world dollars to Locks of Love. Last year they raised nearly $10,000!

You can teleport directly to Hair Fair at this link.

Teen-created machinima dramatizes child sex trafficking

Today our 15 teen machinimatographers in Global Kids' Virtual Video Project publicly premiered their film "Discovered" before an audience of their peers, parents, teachers, and supporters at the Sony Wonder Theater in Manhattan.  It was great seeing their work on the big screen and then watching them explain to the audience their process from conception to final cut.

When I heard that our teens had selected child sex trafficking as the subject of their short film, I frankly was worried.  How would they explore such a serious and sensitive subject using the still rather crude tools of Second Life machinima?  I shouldn't have been worried.  Our teen filmmakers did an amazing job treating the subject matter respectfully and maturely, while also creating an engaging story.

I hope their work moves and inspires you as much as it has effected me.

My Metaplace World: Now embeddable!

Here's my first world I created in Metaplace that I can now embed here (or anywhere on the web)!  This is a pretty revolutionary way to move virtual worlds from "walled gardens" to places situated in the wider social web.  Embedding can increase traffic to your world, let you more easily hang out with friends, or even host your own web-based virtual concerts, like Grace McDunnough has been doing in her Live Music Lounge.

I stopped in at Grace's place tonight and found 40+ avatars hanging out and listening to her play live (pic)!

You can read more about embedded virtual worlds on the Metaplace site.

Reminder: Global Kids Teens Premiering SL Machinima "Discovered" Tomorrow in NYC!

Just a reminder that tomorrow, July 1st, fifteen New York City public high school students will premiere their film Discovered --a digital "machinima" film produced in Second Life that explores the powerful issue of child sex trafficking through the fictional story of one Mexican teenager.

Discovered is the final product of a year-long, intensive digital filmmaking program called the Virtual Video Project (VVP), an after-school program conducted by Global Kids, Inc in NYC. The students gathered regularly during the past year to learn about film production, human rights, and virtual worlds, culminating in a serious issue machinima film produced entirely by the youth filmmakers.

Come to the premiere of Discovered to meet the youth filmmakers and discover how digital film can be used for global issue awareness and civic engagement.

Event Details:
When: Wednesday, July 1st, 6pm-8pm
Where: Sony Wonder Technology Lab [550 Madison Avenue at 56th St.]
What: Meet & Greet Filmmakers, Premiere of Discovered, and Q & A with students

For more information, see http://www.DiscoveredMovie.com or please contact Shawna at 212-226-0130 x 143 or email: shawna@globalkids.org.

The full text of the News Release follows....

Teens show off their digital media chops at first NYC Youth Tech Fest at New School

Congrats to the 100-some teens from all over New York City who participated in the first NYC Youth Digital Media & Technology Festival at the New School. The daylong festival spotlighted the growing movement among teenagers in New York and nationally to design video games, films and other digital tools to advance social causes in a youthful and technologically literate language. 

I was super proud of our Global Kids' teens for presenting themselves and their projects so well, including showing of their serious issue machinima "Discovered" to an outside audience for the first time! Teens involved in our Media Masters and Expressions programs also got to present about their work to other teens and adults in a tech fair like atmosphere.

One of the coolest parts of the program was the "Playing for Keeps" Challenge. Three different teams of teens from NY public libraries in Staten Island, the Bronx and Manhattan presented their social issue game designs in front of a "jury" of game experts and the audience.  Then we all got to vote for our favorite game design.  I was happy to see that the media-control game "UI" won for best game, which would fit really nicely into Global Kids programs if it ever got produced.  

I also was super-impressed by the animation program at the Parsons Pre-College Academy, which allows budding teen artists to create really entertaining and hilarious animated shorts using Flash.  It got my creative juices flowing, envisioning a social issue animation program at Global Kids.

All-in-all a really fun afternoon with some great New York teens and programs.  Big ups to MOUSE, the NY Public Library, PetLab, and Parsons New School, who partnered with Global Kids to throw this successful event.