GKCx/Global Kids Preface
From SimTeach
Originally published under the title
"Global Kids' Second Life Curriculum"
Fall, 2007.
©2007. (CC BY-NC-SA) Global Kids, Inc.
137 East 25th Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10010
Phone: 212-226-0130
Email: info@globalkids.org
ABOUT GLOBAL KIDS, INC.
Founded in 1991, Global Kids aims to educate and inspire urban youth to become successful students, community leaders, and global citizens. Through dynamic, content-rich learning experiences grounded in a youth development approach, Global Kids participants develop the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for effective citizenship and success in the sophisticated workplace of the 21st Century. Annually, Global Kids reaches over 19,000 youth and 1,000 educators through its youth and professional development programs, and several million others through its Online Leadership Program. Over 90% of the seniors in Global Kids Leadership Program graduate from high school and go on to college and receive financial aid.
Global Kids, Inc. is a nationally recognized leader in using digital media to promote global awareness and youth civic engagement. Global Kids’ Online Leadership Program integrates a youth development approach and international and public policy issues into youth media programs that build digital literacy and STEM skills, foster substantive dialogues, develop resources for educators, and promote civic participation.
In 2006, following research into the educational potential of virtual worlds, Global Kids became the first non-profit to develop a dedicated space for conducting programming in the virtual world of Teen Second Life (TSL). This work has been made possible through funding by or partnerships with the MacArthur Foundation, UNICEF, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Field Museum, IBM, the Motorola Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Ashoka’s Youth Ventures, the Microsoft Corporation, and a variety of school and after-school programs, amongst others. More specifically, Global Kids conducts intensive leadership programming for youth, bringing teenagers from its New York-based programs into the virtual world, working with youth already involved with TSL, and collaborating remotely with youth organized through schools, museums, and libraries.
Global Kids works with adults as well, conducting programs within Second Life on a range of issues, streaming the audio and video of major events and conferences into Second Life, and offering a range of professional development services, such as managing RezEd.org, the hub for learning and virtual worlds.
Global Kids’ Second Life Curriculum is a key component of Global Kids professional development services. They cover everything an educator or student would need to know to use Second Life, whether on their own or within an educational setting. At the same time, it teaches global literacy skills. Components of the curriculum can be used as hand-outs to develop specific Second Life-specific skills or within a broader educational program designed to teach such subjects as science, filmmaking or literature. The curriculum is composed of nine sequential “levels.” Each level is composed of modules which, in turn, are composed of individual lesson plans or “missions”. In total there are 134 missions. We offer these missions under a Creative Commons license (attribution-noncommercial-share alike) and encourage educators to adapt this curriculum in any way they see fit, but to always give credit to Global Kids and to share significant changes or best practices with other professionals implementing the curriculum at RezEd.org.
Building on its nationally recognized approach to using virtual worlds to promote global awareness and civic engagement, Global Kids offers services to nonprofits, educational organizations, and other institutions interested in using Second Life and other virtual worlds to extend their work. While Global Kids is proud to offer Global Kids’ Second Life Curriculum for free to all qualified educational institutions, Global Kids can be retained to adapt it for specific uses or train others in its use. More information can be found at GlobalKids.org/?id=50.
To download additional copies of the curriculum, please visit GlobalKids.org/?id=117. This curriculum was developed by Global Kids Staff and co-produced with Cathy Arreguin. We are grateful to Kate Farrell, Sean Farrell, Blueman Steele, Jeremy Koester, Ross Perkins, Jonathan Richter, John Wallace, the Second Life Educators Listserv, and countless beta testers.
