About
Kidz Connect is a program that connects young people in different countries via media art, performance and collaborative creation in virtual worlds.
This past summer, students at the Patel Conservatory in Tampa, Florida, wrote, created and performed a live show with students at the IVKO Montessori School in Amsterdam, Netherlands, learning about each other’s culture in the process through music, dance, digital art and/or storytelling within the virtual world Teen Second Life.
Click here to see archived videos of our shows.
The 2008 Kidz Connect project was funded in part by the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Joy McCann Foundation and the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts and is supported by partnerships between IVKO Montessori School, the Patel Conservatory, the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, the Waag Society and ZoomLab.
The pilot project between students in New York and Amsterdam was held in summer 2006. Documentation on the pilot project can be found on our development wiki.
Upcoming plans include the planning of a Kidz Connect component as part of The Island, which will be an adventure game that takes place simultaneously in the real and virtual world, connecting students in New York and Amsterdam through collaborative gameplay while imbuing historical narratives of New York’s Dutch origins with shared, meaningful experiences as they unravel the mysteries of the game together. This will be part of the Hudson Year Festival in 2009.
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