Jun 29 2008
Video: Kidz Connect Saturday performance
This is a live mix recording of our show yesterday in Tampa, Amsterdam and Teen Second Life. We haven’t fixed the audio levels yet — and we will — but in the meantime, enjoy the show.
Archive for the 'Tampa' Category
Jun 17 2008
from ranney, one of our hiphop instructors…
Kidz Connect is in its second week and the kids are connecting. That’s what it is all about, peeps! As the resident cynic, I was apprehensive about a program that encourages teenagers to spend MORE time online. Not only is that not the case, but Kidz Connect is so much more than that. A group of teenagers in Amsterdam and a group of teenagers in Tampa are locked in dialogue and collaboration impacted by culture intersect and culture clash. They are brave and fun enough to just go with it and send a message to the rest of us who have reduced and/or ignored the relevance of phrases like “What’s up?” Unfortunately, I have only had two days in the camp, but between what I experience and what I am hearing, this will definitely be the beginning of a more pronounced landscape of this kind. Youth from various points on the globe coming together - not to just use the internet to meet in a virtual community; but, coming together and using all of their communities to collaborate on a more diverse and more promising world. They have not only inspired me and made my job easier as a songwriter for this venture, but they have simply inspired me. Get down youngin’s. Show us the way…
Jun 10 2008
Embarking on the Journey
Wow - Opening day for Kidz Connect was yesterday, and sappy as I am, I was so moved that I literally had to fight back tears. Watching the kids enter the room, wait in awkward silence for something to happen, nervously introduce themselves and talk about what they knew - or wished to know - about the workshop was so moving somehow. Behind the scenes, we’ve been working on the project for months. And finally, here are the teens! As our very charismatic and amiable director Lisa Powers told them, “You are the missing piece…. This is your creation.”
And it was so obvious to see how fantastic, and not to exaggerate, but how life-changing this workshop can be for these young people! By the end of the first hour, you could already see budding friendships beginning to emerge. By the end of the day, the awkwardness was gone, the teens were happy and feeling comfortable with each other.
Even though we don’t connect with our Amsterdam counterparts until today, the cultural exchange has begun! We have participating students of several different nationalities and races and every person in the room attends a different school.
In my experience, Tampa can be a city where you have to work to befriend folks who are different from yourself. We have diversity but not always a lot of intermingling and at least in my neighborhood, there isn’t even much diversity, so it’s thrilling to see everyone coming together.
People always talk about “tolerance,” but I think the word should be “appreciation.” Our differences set our nation apart and make our country, and our community, amazing. Kidz Connect is already serving as a way to teach about that appreciation. Not to harp on the diversity topic, but the main point of the workshop - even though it involves singing, dancing, computers and drama - is about cultural exchange. And when the students went around the room to say what they already knew about the project, most mentioned getting to know people in Amsterdam. When asked what they already knew about Amsterdam, only one girl raised her hand to offer that she’d heard about riots there and that marijuana is legal. So we have a long way to go on our journey. We are just embarking and as Lisa told the students, “We’ll see what we’re going to do!”
Jun 05 2008
One Week to Go
I have to admit that I’m new to social media. Six months ago, I’d never heard of Second Life, let alone Teen Second Life (TSL). I had no Facebook or MySpace account, would have thought “Twitter” was a type of bird and had never written a blog entry.
So it’s with much delight that I find myself now involved in the fascinating Kidz Connect project, about to embark on a three-week educational frenzy, with an avatar of my own and more accounts and pages than I can reasonably keep track of. Some of the students that the teachers and I will work with will probably already have their own avatars in TSL and be experienced in online communications than I am. I look forward to learning from them. Other teens, we’ll have the joy of introducing to the amazing virtual world of TSL and watching them blossom along with the creation of their avatars.
Personally, I’m most excited about watching the students learn about their counterparts. Since I’m geographically located in Tampa, I’ll see the Floridian teens discover life, culture and youth in Holland and am sure to learn right along with them. Although I did get to travel to Amsterdam, it was before our students were even born! It will also be interesting to see the students here explain about themselves, their community and their country to those abroad.
We have one week to go before classes start and everyone involved with the project is busy finalizing and perfecting lessons plans. But the truth is, I think we all know that planning will only go so far and we’re setting off on an adventure with a group of young people we’ve never met - some of whom we never will meet in person - who will influence us as much as we’ll influence them.
May 06 2008
Teens welcome!
Registration is now open for teens ages 13-17 for the Patel Conservatory’s Kidz Connect workshop, which will bring together teens in Tampa and Amsterdam for a collaborative effort incorporating live music, theater and dance and proficiency in the virtual world Teen Second Life. Spots have been filling quickly, but there are a few opportunities left for teens to participate in Kidz Connect, June 9-28.
May 04 2008
Last class: Shopping, pianos and animations
Today was our last class (awwww!). We have really enjoyed teaching the classes, and it’s looked like everyone has enjoyed them. As well as the four people we were teaching, I think another half dozen people dropped in to see what was happening and now have avatars!
We started today with a bit of retail therapy and a trip to GuRLywood - the biggest and best hair shop in Second Life! 
Unfortunately the grid started to get a bit iffy so we went to Torley Linden’s youtube site and all watched the video on creating your own SL animations. We then attempted to make our own animation, but the version of Qavimator for the Mac is buggy.
We switched to the FreeSound site instead and showed how to download short sound clips and import them into SL. We then made a giant piano with five keys each which all made strange noises. Mine had a trumpet fanfare, a meow, a laugh, a comedy toot toot horn, and an old-fashioned ringing phone.
We had a quick look at editing the land terrain, then Dan and Josephine arrived and we turned to testing streaming and setting up blogging.
[Ed.: Kate's adorable baby Louis dons his kilt for lunch with us]
We were joined by others at lunchtime, Sheri, Ranney (songwriter and comedien), DJ (the hiphop teacher), as well as a vast quantity of food. We then spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the summer program.
Afterwards we helped tidy up, including opening up all the sealed packaging on the headsets, mice and mousemats for the program. We then headed to the Jerk Hut for some jamaican food with Dan and Josephine before they headed off to the airport.
We’ve had a fantastic time teaching this class. I’m really going to miss everyone we’ve been working with, although I’m sure we’ll still meet them online in SL! I’m looking forward to keeping an eye on the Kidz Connect island and seeing what they get up to with the kids there this summer.
May 04 2008
Brainstorming
Kidz Connect is going to be such an excellent program! Yesterday we had a brilliant brainstorming/planning meeting with several of the teachers: Ranney who will create music with the students; DJ, a choreographer who will teach hip hop to Ranney’s music; Rachel Bishop who will teach collaborative performance; Sheri Wittington, who will teach Second Life, and Kidz Connect creators Josephine Dorado and Dan Winckler who also will be on hand to teach Second Life and generally guide the program. The teens are going to get so much out of this!
May 03 2008
Last day of training
Today is the teachers’ last day of training with our fabulous Second Life experts Katie and Sean Farrell who have come from Scotland to train us. It has been an amazing experience to delve into Second Life and create and experience this new world. Kidz Connect creators Josephine Dorado and Dan Winckler are here from NYC and it’s been inspiring to hear in person how the whole project began and where we are all going with the project!
May 03 2008
7th class: Everyone doing different things!
Dan and Josephine were along this evening, but they’d had a long couple of days of meetings. Rachel wasn’t along as she was graduating, and Sheri was back having been off since the start of last week. We also had a couple of staff along who would be helping with the program. They worked through induction island.
Crystal and Leslie played with making sculpted prims using Plopp SL. Crystal then did some shopping and Leslie worked on setting up the Kidz Connect blog. Sheri tried doing some building and textures.
May 02 2008
