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Whyville

Designing students: Check out these contests (learning opps)!

March 12, 2013 By Anne Leave a Comment

WhatsYourStory contest banner

These are projects that get young people and classrooms participating in the digital maker movement: Current or aspiring videogame designers and videographers have about a month to submit their creations to three different contests: The National STEM Videogame Challenge, Whyville's game design contest, and Trend Micro's What's Your Story video producing contest. Design a videogame Videogame … [Read more...] about Designing students: Check out these contests (learning opps)!

Filed Under: education technology, Literacy & Citizenship, Risk & Safety, School & Tech Tagged With: contests, digital media, ed tech, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, learning, maker movement, online safety, school, STEM, Trend Micro, video game design, video production, videographers, Whyville, youth

What we know & don’t know about kids’ online socializing: Key study

January 28, 2013 By Anne 4 Comments

Cooney Center's little robot graphic

Imagine a game in which a child not only discovers, collects, creates, and/or customizes 2- and 3-dimensional art objects that s/he then shares with fellow player-creators, but also creates his/her own levels of play. Imagine the literacies players could be developing in the process of playing such a game, including social literacy, through sharing, "liking," and reviewing each other's … [Read more...] about What we know & don’t know about kids’ online socializing: Key study

Filed Under: Research, School & Tech Tagged With: children, Cisco's Networking Academy, Club Penguin, Deborah Fields, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, LittleBigPlanet, research, Sara Grimes, Scratch, Social Media, social media research, U13s, Whyville

Trying out a real career in a virtual world

January 14, 2013 By Anne 1 Comment

You're an avatar in Whyville (a virtual world with some 1.5 million users aged 8-16) and you're tired of tweaking your (design of your) avatar, so you're thinking about focusing more on earning clams (virtual currency) and building a career – maybe even a real-world one. So here's an interesting opportunity: Because Whyville now has its own power grid, you can help manage it by figuring out the … [Read more...] about Trying out a real career in a virtual world

Filed Under: Social Media, virtual worlds Tagged With: DaVinci Minds, digital environments, EDUCAUSE, virtual worlds, why power, Whyville

Virtual world ‘mall’ now has online-safety ‘store’

February 25, 2011 By Anne 1 Comment

Everloop, a new social site aimed at kids 8-13, is not just another virtual world. Or social network site. It's not a kids' Facebook or alternative to Whyville.net or LEGO Universe, contrary to what's being reported (see Mashable). But it's also not just an online space. What it is depends on who's looking at it. To kids and parents, it's like a virtual-world and/or social-network mall that's … [Read more...] about Virtual world ‘mall’ now has online-safety ‘store’

Filed Under: Risk & Safety, School & Tech, Social Media Tagged With: Common Sense Media, digital citizenship, education technology, Everloop, i-SAFE, Lego Universe, media literacy, online safety, QuestAtlantis, Social Media, Whyville

The learning power of a virtual world

August 18, 2010 By Anne 2 Comments

It's definitely not a flashy video production, but if you're interested in learning about a virtual world that 6.4 million kids aged 8-15 (68% girls, average age 12.5) like because it challenges them in math and science and expects them to be smart, watch this interview about Whyville.net at Discover magazine. Founder and CEO of Whyville parent Numedeon Inc., Jim Bower – who is also a professor of … [Read more...] about The learning power of a virtual world

Filed Under: Social Media, videogames, virtual worlds Tagged With: Jim Bower, Kidscom, Lucy Bradshaw, QuestAtlantis, Tiffany Barnes, virtual worlds, Whyville

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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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