By Sara Vogel Last year, through the NYC Department of Education's Digital Ready initiative, students from Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx made the trek downtown weekly to participate in Global Kids' Playing for Keeps Citywide program. This year, we are excited to announce that our partnership with Fannie Lou and Digital Ready has continued, and the 20-stop subway commute for Fannie Lou students has disappeared. In a blended in-school / after school program taking place on site, students will explore topics that are culturally relevant to them, develop computational and iterative design process skills, and make connections to global issues, all while designing and coding an online game or detailed prototype of a game. Those who complete the program will be able to receive academic credit for their participation. Youth game designers at Fannie Lou have already identified the elements of various games, made a list of reasons why they personally play games, and have created their own version of the playground game from China, Turtle Wushu. Special thanks to the Hive Learning Network for making the connection to Digital Ready, and to our partners at Digital Ready and Fannie Lou Hamer.
0 Comments
By Ryan Waingortin Youth between the ages of eleven and seventeen attended the Global Kids Maker Party where they experimented with circuitry using LittleBits modules. Attendees learned the meaning of “input” and “output” circuits through various design challenges given by Maker Party facilitators. These initial challenges built up to a final challenge, in which participants created “gadgets” that would improve a particular room of one’s home. Youth collaborated with their peers over a few slices of pizza and completed brainstorming activities that led to the successful creation of the aforementioned gadgets. Notable creations include a remote control that would program the cable box of a television using light sensors, a garbage disposal mechanism, and a music player for one’s bathroom.
By Sara Vogel Last week, Global Kids celebrated the addition of two new youth-created geolocative games to our NYC Haunts portfolio, capping off a busy summer. At The Point Community Development Corporation, participants in the Summer Youth Employment Program created a moving, emotional game that honors the African-American and Native American slaves that were buried hundreds of years ago in what is now Drake Park. Youth were motivated to take action through the creation of a game for change, when they observed that white land and slave owners were recognized with well-manicured and marked plots in the park, while the remains of slaves were scattered throughout the park in unmarked graves. In the game, the player must learn and remember the stories of several slave-ghosts in order to reunite them with important objects. In doing so, the player recognizes these individuals' memories and roles in history: In an alternate pathway, a player must guide a young escaping slave to a safehouse, following clues in the environment, as slaves would have done following the Underground Railroad in the past.
Students and teachers from the iDesign program are getting ready to start the second year of the project as they participate in a summer camp at Hofstra University where they have been learning about geo-locative games and the use of the WeDo interface with Scratch. They are also learning basic concepts of game design, and how to create games using the MIT software TaleBlazer. As they explored the campus and started building their games, a group of students have designed a game with interesting mechanics and storytelling that takes the player through a tour of a part of the Hofstra campus.
Global Kids has been partnering with the School of Education at Hofstra University on the iDesign program, a National Science Foundation funded initiative to implement game design with teachers in middle school afterschool programs. With the goal of inspiring kids to pursue STEM careers through computational thinking introduced with game design, the program also teaches kids to create games that are culturally relevant. For more on the iDesign program visit IDesign.hofstra.edu. By Alora NYC Haunts is hitting the halfway mark at two new locations! One is in partnership with the Hunts Point based community development corporation, The Point, where students are exploring the humanitarian possibilities of game design by unearthing forgotten local history. The other finds the OLP team with our partners at the Brooklyn Museum on the hunt for its collection's haunted treasures. Two very different tasks, two talented groups of students. Here are some highlights from the first half: Both groups got started by playtesting a previously made local game to get a feel for Taleblazer. Students at The Point got competitive and the games were well received... Next, both groups visited the potential locations of their games. Visiting the Drake Park burial ground in Hunts Point raised interesting questions about how to respect difficult subject matter using an entertainment focused medium. The concept of games for change was explored and will be central to the students' work at The Point. Students at the Brooklyn Museum had a lot to choose from when it came to spooky exhibit spaces. Possible haunts included the Schenck Family period Houses and Judy Chicago's Dinner Table. However, an almost unanimous vote set our sights on the visible storage lockers, which (literally) gave students the chills. With our locations in mind for inspiration, the teams moved on to learning game elements and brainstorming story ideas. As new concepts surfaced, research got increasingly in-depth and brought weight to the students continued discussions. Judy Perry, Research Manager and one of the developers of the TaleBlazer software we use to build our location-based games, came down from Massachusetts Institute of Technology to visit with our students and support them during the brainstorming process. At The Point, students learned of the forgotten slave burial ground. As we read the personal stories of New York's former slaves, connections were made to incidents of modern trafficking. The team became invested in giving a voice to their characters. The Brooklyn Museum team got creative with a creepy story about the ghost of a runaway girl named Helen. Programming is underway and our final playtest for both teams is around the corner! Special thanks to the Hive Learning Network, the Brooklyn Museum, the Point CDC the New York Community Trust, and the New York Public Library for their support of this project.
By Alora Cholette This summer, Global Kids is teaming up with three Hive Learning Network partners around New York City to run Global Kids' signature location-based game program, NYC Haunts. As we serve diverse populations and adjust to new settings, we are also stretching, growing, and adapting our curriculum to prepare for a roll-out of the program across multiple Global Kids school sites in the Fall. The first stop was Exposure Camp, a program that guides teenagers from the Mt. Vernon and north Bronx areas to create and program their own digital content. Alora Cholette, an Adelphi University Community Fellow working with GK OLP for the summer, provides her reflections from the field: Efficiency was the name of the game at Exposure Camp. Students were faced with the challenge of designing a location-based game in just one week! Boy did they step up to the task. Taking inspiration from their own experiences and those of local idols, the students created a game about a young boy named Patrick. Newly arrived to Mt. Vernon, Patrick is afraid to explore the area because of rumors he's heard about its reputation. However, he has dreams of becoming a famous rapper, which aren't going anywhere with him stuck inside. Suddenly, the ghost of Mt. Vernon hip hop artist, Heavy D, appears and sends Patrick on a journey to get to the local festival Arts on 3rd. On the way, Patrick has to help other Mt. Vernon celebrities in order to collect Heavy D's song lyrics, which talk about the pride the rapper has in his neighborhood. In order to make the game, the students kept up an energetic pace for 5 days of intensive game design. We started by brainstorming basic elements, which developed into interesting in-depth conversations about how perceptions from outside can effect how we see ourselves from within a culture. Specific topics came up as we explored the neighborhood and researched its history. The students wanted to focus on how a game could be used to improve their surroundings. Once the idea of local entertainers and artists became our focus, we moved on to testing paper prototypes, and coding the final product. Creativity was in the air and their level of engagement within the tight timeframe was impressive and a joy to be a part of! Special thanks to the Hive Learning Network, Exposure Camp, the New York Community Trust, and the New York Public Library for their support of this project.
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.
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. |
GK Digital Learning and Leadership BlogCheck back in to find out what projects our DLL team is working on with Global Kids students! Archived Blog Categories
All
|