Tabitha+Tsai

[|Online Leadership Program]** (separate from the Global Kids main website) Second Life Education Specialist Tel: 212-226-0130 x123
 * Tabitha Tsai, [|Global Kids Inc.]
 * Email: tabitha@globalkids.org

**

This is me at work in the virtual community of Teen Second Life. I am wearing roller skates. I enjoy doing flips. This is a space where I have met more kids/avatars than you can imagine, in all shapes and forms. A place where no one's socio-economical background, race, religion, gender, or sexual preference matter. All we do is run workshops, focus on issues, build on team work and critical thinking, and talk/type. Sometimes we throw popcorn at each other or fly off the walls, but most of the time we are dancing. I mean, learning.

Here are some teen-produced **machinimas** (pronounced mah-sheen-imaah) for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to ask me on how these were made in the after-school programs.

[|The Virtual Video Project after-school Program,] funded by the MacArthur Foundation

[|A Child's War] (a 6 min short film on the plight of child soldiers in Northern Uganda) Recently nominated as BEST STUDENT MACHINIMA at the [|Machinima Festival UK 2007] [|Watch the short video] of their premier at the American Museum of Moving Image in Queens, NY [|Public Service Announcements on Digital Media] (five 1-min PSAs on digital media related issues, i.e. media piracy, online discrimination, etc.)

In your spare time, check out this game called [|Ayiti: The Cost of Life] The game reached the metric goal of 625,000 + people that have experienced the game and also won one of the first "GaCha" awards for **Best Awareness Raising Game at the Fourth Annual Games4Change** festival in New York City. [|Read the short press release.]

Other projects: (all available on [|GK's YouTube playlist]) The UNICEF [|World Fit for Children Festival] in Teen Second Life. A month long building contest and workshops for teens in 4 countries. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) Summer Camp in Teen Second Life, on the