[casual_games] Global Kids/Gamelab launches Ayiti: The Cost of Life

[Barry Joseph]

I am very excited to finally be able to post to this list that Global 
Kids has officially launched Ayiti: The Cost of Life, the casual game 
our students developed with Gamelab, the NYC-based game developers.

The game is both fun and educational. Fun for the player because it 
is a challenging, engaging strategy game and educational because it 
teaches about poverty as an obstacle to education in contemporary 
Haiti.

Please check it out at http://theCostofLife.org
The associated lesson plans will be available at that address in the 
next few days, for educators to bring the game into their classrooms 
and after school programs.

If you would like to blog about it, please be so kind as to link to 
the following url, for both traffic and comments:
http://www.holymeatballs.org/2006/10/nc_ayiti_the_cost_of_life_set.html

We all look forward to learning what you think.

Barry



Below is an excerpt from the press release. To read the full release, 
please go to:
http://www.holymeatballs.org/2006/10/press_global_kids_launches_com.html#more


Global Kids and Gamelab, New York City's largest game development 
company, today announced the release of the online game, Ayiti: The 
Cost of Life (CostofLife.org), which uses the location of Haiti to 
educate players about the obstacles to education faced by children in 
developing countries. When distributed and used within either a 
classroom or after school setting, the game will be a strong tool for 
building students' global awareness and civic literacy.

The concept of the game was developed by youth in Global Kids' 
Playing 4 Keeps (P4K) program and professionals from the 
award-winning game design studio Gamelab.

Supported by Microsoft's U.S. Partners in Learning Mid-Tier Grants 
Initiative, which seeks to find and support "pockets of innovation" 
for increasing digital literacy and career readiness, the game will 
be free and published with lesson plans for educators through a 
UNICEF website Child Alert: Haiti (unicef.org/childalert/haiti/) and 
the educational network TakingITGlobal (takingitglobal.org).

"It can be difficult to teach critical global issues to youth who can 
sometimes feel that their everyday lives are far removed from things 
going on in remote places around the world," said Mary Cullinane, 
Director of Microsoft U.S. Partners in Learning. "Global Kids' 
Playing 4 Keeps has found a way to use technology to bring these 
global issues to life in a truly engaging way. We are proud to 
support this innovative use of technology to make these issues more 
real for these young citizens."

Playing 4 Keeps engages a cohort of twenty-four students from South 
Shore High School, a largely minority school of approximately 2,300 
students located in Canarsie, Brooklyn, in working with professional 
game developers in the design, development and dissemination of 
professionally-produced online games about important social issues. 
During the school year, program participants conducted research about 
global issues and gained digital literacy, leadership, and career 
skills. Students participated in workshops on such global issues as 
Defining Human Rights, Racism, Health, Education, and Children's 
Rights, and then selected an issue on which to focus the game.

With professionals from Gamelab, they learned about a range of issues 
related to game design as a form of critical media literacy as well 
as the game industry and the game development process. The students 
also took numerous field trips and spoke about their work at 
prestigious conferences, including the Game Design Conference in San 
Jose, the Games 4 Change Conference in New York City, and the 
Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington.

This year, participants chose to focus their game on the general 
topic of poverty as an obstacle to education, based on their learning 
about the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and about 
obstacles to receiving an adequate education that youth face around 
the world. They then decided to use Haiti as a case study and setting 
for the game. The youth have documented the process of creating the 
game in a blog at http://holymeatballs.org/playing_4_keeps and are 
publicizing it through http://myspace.com/thecostoflife.

In Ayiti: The Cost of Life, each player assumes the roles of family 
members living in rural Haiti. Over the course of the game, the 
player must choose among and balance various goals, such as achieving 
education, making money, staying healthy, and maintaining happiness 
while encountering unexpected events like disease and hurricanes. The 
player must make many decisions that contribute to or detract from 
achieving his or her chosen goals.

The game is designed as a serious learning tool that educators and 
youth workers can use in their classrooms. With its lesson plans, 
Ayiti: The Cost of Life, can educate players about poverty and its 
effects on education in general around the world, as well as about 
the effects of poverty on education in Haiti.

"Ayiti: The Cost of Life is a great way to teach American youth about 
global issues such as poverty, access to education and human rights," 
said Chinwe Okorie, United Nations Representative for the World 
Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. "Players' efforts to keep 
the family healthy, happy and both parents alive make you engulfed."

The educational effectiveness of the game is being evaluated by the 
Educational Development Corporation's Center for Children and 
Technology.
-- 

___________________________________
Barry Joseph
Director
Online Leadership Program
Global Kids
http://www.globalkids.org
http://olp.globalkids.org
http://www.NewzCrew.org

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