Spring Break 2010: Service Learning from Teens Turning Green

April 3, 2010 While media reports often churn out attention-getting stereotypes of spring break scenes of rowdy youth antics under the auspices of ‘what sells,’ to feed the money machine, we all too often don’t see the coverage of ‘alternate spring breaks’ and a major shift that’s taking hold in the cultural zeitgeist of service learning and youth. As I head out on spring … [Read more...]

CyberBullying Tragedies and Internet Safety: eModeration Part3

Dec. 3, 2009 Just visited the excellent Connect Safely forum to pose the industry question, is there ANYthing that digital moderators or online advocates could’ve done in the child safety realm to prevent the loss of 13-year old Hope Witsell due to the suicide/sexting case? Obviously, Hope's case (visual at left/MSNBC) was on mobile phones, but cyberbullying/bodysnarking and … [Read more...]

Shaping Youth At Ypulse 2009: Send In Your Priorities

May 1, 2009 Much like the scene in the new Disneynature Earth documentary where the lions and the elephants are drinking from the same watering hole, Shaping Youth has been invited to share space among the über-marketers at the YPulse Mashup June 1 and 2 as well as the Tweens Online (Un)Conference taking place the day prior. Attending as ‘press’ sends a positive sign that … [Read more...]

Dream It. Do It. Youth Grants For Social Change in Virtual Worlds

PDiddy-Puff Daddy-Diddy dude step aside, as THIS is the kind of D.I.D.I. initiative that I want to see out there!!! D.I.D.I. stands for Dream It. Do It…An Ashoka Youth Venture effort with Global Kids and funding by RWJF all teaming up to offer seed money to visionary young people anxious to bring positive change to the health of their community! Nothing 'virtual' … [Read more...]

Blog Action Day: Overcoming Poverty With Global Water

It’s been a hairy day of stressful mayhem, as I slid in my socks on the linoleum floor of digital deadlines to file my grant app for the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media Learning Competition with literally about 2 minutes to spare. Between technical glitches and last minute shifts in recommendation letters I found myself in that intense phase of heart palpitating … [Read more...]