By Sara Vogel This weekend, 16 students from 5 programs represented Global Kids at Hive's annual Emoti-Con youth digital media challenge! Participants in GK's NYC Haunts program from the School for Human Rights and the High School for Global Citizenship showed off the location-based games they had made about local and global social issues. Playing for Keeps students from the Citywide program and at Global Neighborhood Secondary School presented games for change they had made using Scratch and Gamestar Mechanic. All of our students -- whether they came to present or just to be attentive, curious audience members -- truly shined. Special shout out to Payton (a 6th grader) and Keron (an 8th grader) from School for Human Rights who impressed the judges with their presentations about the location-based game they made with their peers about gun violence, Keep Wingate Safe. They placed in the top 5 and stood on stage in front of over 200 people to talk about their work! They took away badges for Point of View and Most Social Impact. We would like to thank all of the Global Kids trainers, the NYC Hive Learning Network, the Emoti-Con Steering Committee, and the judges, and keynotes who made this day possible.
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By Sara Vogel You don't need a time machine to experience the past. That's what students at the High School for Global Citizenship and the School for Human Rights found out this semester as they created their own location-based games for GPS devices that drew on local history and made connections to larger global issues, such as protection of the right to equality before the law, as stated in Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Stroll down to the housing complex across the street from Jackie Robinson School in Crown Heights with your cell phone or tablet and load up the TaleBlazer app. By playing the student-produced game, you'll learn that if you were at that spot five decades ago, you would have seen Ebbet's Field-- the Brooklyn Dodgers home baseball field where Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Playing as Jackie Robinson, you'll be faced with racist, dehumanizing situations as you visit all four bases of the baseball diamond and attempt to score a home run. You must make decisions in character. As is noted in the game, Jackie Robinson is just one of many who faced discrimination on the basis of race over the years. Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protects people around the world from such unlawful treatment by ensuring that "all are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law." On the day of the final playtest, student game-designers presented their game in front of their peers and staff from Global Kids and the Brooklyn Public Library. They discussed game play, the game design process, and some of the challenges they faced in designing the game. Then everyone set out on a trek around the site to experience the game as players would. We want to let people know about the stories of gun violence in the past and show them some of the locations that the shootings took place. We are interested in gun violence because we don’t feel safe in our community and we want others to know what steps they should take to feel safe if they have the same problem. When people finish playing our game we do not want them to be sad, we want them to feel hopeful that they can do something about gun violence even if it’s just a little step they take. As at HSGC, student game-designers at SHR first presented their game to their peers, as well as high schoolers from Global Kids' program, their school's principal, and their social studies teacher. They also supported their principal Arianna said she was most proud of the playtest part of the process "because I got to show the game to my friends and teachers." At Global Kids, we are gearing up for the summer when youth affiliated with NYC Hive Learning Network organizations around the city will produce three new geo-locative games about the issues and stories they care about. Stay tuned! By Sara Vogel You don't need a time machine to experience the past. That's what students at the High School for Global Citizenship and the School for Human Rights found out this semester as they created their own location-based games for GPS devices that drew on local history and made connections to larger global issues, such as protection of the right to equality before the law, as stated in Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Stroll down to the housing complex across the street from Jackie Robinson School in Crown Heights with your cell phone or tablet and load up the TaleBlazer app. By playing the student-produced game, you'll learn that if you were at that spot five decades ago, you would have seen Ebbet's Field-- the Brooklyn Dodgers home baseball field where Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Playing as Jackie Robinson, you'll be faced with racist, dehumanizing situations as you visit all four bases of the baseball diamond and attempt to score a home run. You must make decisions in character. As is noted in the game, Jackie Robinson is just one of many who faced discrimination on the basis of race over the years. Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protects people around the world from such unlawful treatment by ensuring that "all are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law." On the day of the final playtest, student game-designers presented their game in front of their peers and staff from Global Kids and the Brooklyn Public Library. They discussed game play, the game design process, and some of the challenges they faced in designing the game.
By Sara Vogel
By now, many of the middle schoolers at GK's Playing for Keeps program at Global Neighborhood Secondary School in East Harlem know the steps of the game design process: they've brainstormed ideas, drafted game design documents, made paper prototypes and flowcharts, tested out their ideas, and used the program Scratch to code their games or have used Gamestar Mechanic to design them. On June 3, there was one last step: show off!
Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade game designers came together to present their games for change to their classmates, teachers, and administrators at the school. As students discussed and discovered throughout the semester, while the video games they most often play are entertaining and fun, games can also convey social messages, demonstrate a point of view, and raise awareness about global and local issues.
Guests had a chance to check out students' formal presentations, could browse posters the students made about their games, and playtest the finished products (or in some cases, works in progress).
The Scratch games presented included "Journey of an Immigrant Kid" by seventh graders Malak and Aya, who themselves immigrated from Yemen and Egypt when they were younger. They used the game to explore a local angle on the issue of global migration. Their game stars a 12-year old recent immigrant who must navigate the school cafeteria, avoiding bullies who say negative comments about how she speaks English and the hijab she wears. She can boost her self-esteem by collecting positive comments.
Their classmate, eighth grader Mark, created a version of the game on Gamestar Mechanic which in many ways shadowed his own experiences arriving from the Philippines at the start of the school year. His game involves talking to intolerant classmates and educating them about immigration and immigrant rights. He included several facts that he had researched.
Check out Malak and Aya's game on Scratch!
Other games:
Don't get caught by the bullies by Max and Anthony Animal Abuse game by Jenaya and Jojo Global Kids is excited to continue our partnership with GNSS in the Fall, and can't wait to see what the students come up with next. |
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