Digital Youth, Part II: Megan Deana

The second speaker in the morning was Megan Deana from Global Kids. Megan started out with a degree in computer science and then moseyed to education (presumably because she'd be making too much money in computer science) and got a job through LinkedIn that led her to the non-profit group, Global Kids, whose mission is to transform urban youth into successful students and global and community leaders by engaging them in socially dynamic, content-rich learning experiences. Ninety percent of their students graduate from high school. Digital media is just a part of this.
Megan works with the Online Leadership Program, a student-centered program, which leads the kids to things they need to know in order to be successful, collaborating with different kinds of people. They learn about global issues by building and playing socially conscious video games. They spend the 1/3 of the first semester discussing what topic they want to cover. They learn what goes into making a game by partnering with a game designer professional [Don't think our library can manage that].
One group created "Ayiti: The cost of life" where players help a Haitian family living in poverty make decisions in work, education, etc. to better their situation. [Far cry from the 1960s board game about living in a ghetto, eh? I remember going straight into prostitution on that game.]
Another program is the Virtual Video Project. They do a machinima video on a topic of they're interested in. They meet twice a week, lured in with subway tickets and snacks. They learn storyboarding, scriptwriting, character development, and set designing (digitally, of course, because this is machinima). Example is "A Child's War" - where they interviewed experts and put together a fictionalized account using Second Life. They learned presentation skills, pitching their ideas to Ashoka Youth Ventures.
Global Kids guides the kids, facilitating not teaching.
They learn how to create a "safe space" in which to interact, and decide their own rules on this, defining respect as no cursing, no put-downs, no weapons [well, duh!].
Use a technique called the human barometer, where spaces are set out (say, on different levels) for "for," "against," and "undecided." And they have to explain why they are moving from one level to another.
There is a Ning for educators interested at RezEd: the hub for learning and virtual worlds.