Barry Joseph: Planned Activities for Virtual Worlds and the Public Good
Filed at 2:59 pm on January 27, 2008 • Leave a comment
Forecasting upcoming work by Global Kids to explore the potential of virtual worlds within the non-profit, learning, and philanthropic communities
Global Kids’ role within MacArthur’s year long exploration of the role of philanthropy within virtual worlds is designed to develop a better understanding of how virtual worlds benefit the public good, specifically within the non-profit, learning, and philanthropic communities. Where best practices exist we aim to shed light and where communities exist we aim to support them; where questions remain we aim to create demonstration projects and where professional connections are lacking we aim to build them.
To this end, Global Kids will work with both teenagers and adults, bringing people and resources into virtual worlds while inspiring virtual world actions to connect to the “real” world. This work will shape content at conferences, such as the Non-profit and Philanthropy thread at the 2007 Second Life Community Conference, and bring regional panels to a global audience through virtual worlds, such as MacArthur events around digital media and learning and the upcoming March 20th MacArthur Award to Kofi Annan for International Justice. This work will build community, such as the upcoming web-based network for virtual world educators, capturing the best practices of those using virtual worlds for learning, and the Second Life-based International Justice Center, a new social network for communities actively promoting international justice, the International Criminal Court, and topics related to its upcoming cases.
This work will be documented, such as GK’s two papers from the Second Life Community Conference documenting work presented by the education and non-profit communities, and quarterly newsletters capturing case studies from the network for virtual world educators with analysis of recent dialogues. Finally, this work will experiment, exploring, through the International Justice Center, how Second Life can be used as a social network to inspire offline action, and investigating how virtual worlds can extend the reach and affect of philanthropic efforts by bringing work from MacArthur’s departments on Conservation & Sustainable Development and Human Rights & International Justice into Teen Second Life through competitions and workshops. As part of these efforts, to build connections between the Global South and the Global North, Global Kids will commission a specific tool to facilitate people connecting to Second Life using only a standard cell phone. Working in close collaboration with co-investigators University of Southern California, by the end of the year we will be able to demonstrate concrete examples of when and if virtual worlds can benefit the public good and in what ways philanthropic efforts can utilize and support these efforts.
Editor’s Note: For details on the event, including how to attend, view MacArthur’s event overview.
The following video was produced for and shown during the event:
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