NMC Campus Observer

Henry Jenkins to Visit Global Kids Island- Audio Also at NMC Campus

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Dec 14, 2006 09:57pm

On December 20, at 3:00 – 4:00 PM PST, Henry Jenkins will be presenting in Second Life on We’re not playing around here!: The pedagogical potential of computer and video games.. This has ties to the work of the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Learning project, of which NMC, Global Kids, and Henry Jenkins have been participants. We have a short video interview with Henry recorded at the September 2006 meeting for this project where he talks passionately about digital media literacy.

As you can see, he has a rather mirror-like avatar (uncanny?), which he described last month Catching Up: Mostly on Media Literacy which also mentions this upcoming event.

Jenkins, Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and blogging voluminously at Confessions of an Aca/Fan, is actually doing this session on the Teen Grid at Global Kids Island. However, we are helping them with providing the live audio stream, so we are going to be able to stream that as well to NMC Campus.

This event produced by Global Kids is A World Fit For Children Festival. Teams of kids have participated in UNICEF workshops to learn more about global issues. They are then charged to build exhbits in Second Life to highlight ideas how to address these issues:

Teams of at least 3 members will assemble on the grid and attend a fully interactive workshop. The two hour workshop will showcase several different global issues that UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) strive to correct in the world such as hunger, education, discrimination, etc. The teams will then build an exhibit in Second Life to demonstrate one or more of these issues and what we all can do to help out. The exhibits will be judged by a “Voices of Youth” (A group of teens that represent UNICEF) member.

There are cash prizes for the winning teams. The visit by Henry Jenkins looks to celebrate these projects, announce the winners, and have some fun with music and dance. He made a visit there recently:

photo from Global Kids flickr stream

Learn more about the UNICEF projects with Global Kids.

So if you want to gather and listen in to the session, join us at 3:00 PM PST in the Gonick Ampitheater make that the Huntley Ballroom… What you can expect is around 2:00 PM we’ll be treated to some live music DJ-ed by some of the Global Kids, with Henry making his appearance on the Teen Grid and audio remarks around 3:00 PM. We’ll have a live stream for all audio into the Huntley Ballroom, along with some snapshots of the UNICEF contest provided by Global Kids.

So show up to hang out, listen in, even dance if you like.

And we are looking for next year to plan some more joint events in cooperation with Global Kids- learn more about their activities in Second Life at http://www.holymeatballs.org/second_life/

Story filed under: People, Places, Things,What's Happening

See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)