I just received my copy of Henry Jenkin's Convergence Culture which has been on my list ever since I heard him speak at the launch of the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Learning and Media Initiative. I'm hoping to get a chance to finish during some much needed down time.
Henry Jenkins made his first official appearance in Second Life visiting the Teen version, known as the "Teen Grid," where the Global Kids Island is hosting an event, A World Fit for Children Festival - teams of kids have attended seminars (in Second Life) from UNICEF on world issues, and the kids are building exhibits with their ideas for solutions. More here on the event. (See the recent article by Ali Levine "Talking with Young People, Not At Them"
I was able to attend the event, but through the New Media Consortium campus because adults are not allowed in the Teen Grid. I listened to the audio feed of him talking to the kids, answering their questions. We could also IM our questions from the adults were listening and observing. So, I asked, "There has been a lot of criticism about Second Life lately, do you think we're wasting our time and money? Is it just a fad?"
I don’t think its a fad. Once you reach the point where you have two million subscribers, you’ve created something that has some impact in the culture. I know that there was some criticism of Second Life recently arguing that yes there are two million subscribers but there’s far fewer numbers at any given time using te space. I think that’s a fair criticism. It has been hyped. To some degree, the educational value is in being able to reinvent the world. And that’s a powerful educational thing. it’s about being able to bring together people from many different spaces and have them co-exist together and have a kind of communication that’s possible through distance learning… in a much more embodied way. That’s what we’re involved with right now. The are people here from very different places.
It’s what you do in Second Life that’s educational. There’s nothing intrinsically educational about Second Life. It’s certainly educational to have a world where most of the content is generated by the users– the opportunity to program and build stuff in Second Life is pretty awesome. Again, it’s what you do with it — technologies don’t have an inevitable consequence; it’s based on the choices we make on the ground, within our own societies, for how we use these technologies.
We have to find ways to use games not to escape reality, but to re-engage with reality, and that’s the exicting thing about the work of Global Kids — it is grounded in both the virtual space and the real space. You’re talking about real things, that touch real people, and you’re asking people to bring what they learn here back to their own communities, and make a difference.
Hat tip to Alan Levine/CogdogBlog for the transcription and facilitating the audio. Summary and related links from the visit Henry Jenkins made to SL, along with audio archive of session can be found here.
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