My Global Life

My Global Life (MyGLife.org) is intended as a world-wide network of educational programmable websites and associated wikis to aid youth in developing countries to learn, create and collaborate online. The goal of the non-profit project is to help them experience and master technology tools and methods for democracy and globalization. Site users are mentored to learn Internet technology skills (including wiki development, graphic design and Flash programming skills), build global awareness, and experience positive communication with other communities.

My Global Life is a project of Globaloria, a program of the World Wide Workshop Foundation (founded by Idit Harel Caperton) that focuses on creating technology-based educational opportunities for underprivileged communities worldwide.

Methodology

The development team is building a "starter-kit" website with open source, web-based activities, tutorials, administrative tools and a wiki, then localizing it for various communities. It’s all made simple, self-explanatory, and easy to use.

Once the localization for a country (e.g., www.MyGLife.org/Turkey) is launched and stabilized, the team will use "transitioning procedures", such as online tutorials and on-site training workshops, to hand off the site’s management and future development to youth leaders in the local community. The youth community will then own their site and wiki, and can customize them. The development team will remain available to help in an advisory role, will assess impact and evaluate the system in order to improve it, scale it and sustain it over a long period of time.

MyGLife.org sites are designed to be an educational tool for youth, and:
* Be transparent and programmable
* Translate easily to a wide variety of languages
* Encourage active and creative uses of Internet as a democratic tool
* Invite beginners to take their first steps online in a safe environment
* Tutor advanced users in Flash programming, Internet publishing and wiki development skills
* Be customized by a user community, to showcase their ideas and creations
* Be further developed by a user community to support (transparently) various initiatives beyond technological learning, such as women’s rights, HIV/AIDS health services, science education, economic development, or agriculture.

In the "starter kit" website, MyGLife.org offers its users dozens of opportunities to play, create, communicate, and explore new ideas online. Web developers have donated all of the site’s activities, with open source code. The site also encourages donations of work and expertise by web developers, designers, educators, translators and site users.

More advanced youth can experience the site and decide to learn technological skills, such as Flash programming and graphic design, aided by tutorials provided on the site. A wiki enables the user community to share ideas, work on projects together, and ask questions of experts. More advanced users can decide to learn how to apply and run the wiki for their purposes. Online mentoring and in-person workshops (held at the partners’ labs, for example, the Cisco Learning Centers) facilitate further community learning and development. Key educational ideas about democracy and globalization are therefore experienced in a meaningful and productive context.

Participating countries

The MyGLife.org project is designed to be easily launched 'on-demand' in any interested country/city around the world. It will first launch in connection with Cisco learning centers in developing nations and underprivileged communities worldwide. Each participating country’s site will be available in the predominant local language(s), and in English.

Prototype sites will launch in Israel (September 2006) and Turkey (December 2006.) Additional country sites slated for development in 2007 include Mexico, Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, France, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Nigeria, the Palestinian Authority, and Spain. Final decisions regarding country sites to develop and launch greatly depend on funders’ and sponsors’ objectives in various emerging markets.

Cisco’s Community Training and Youth Development programs in the Mediterranean and Middle East will use the sites. During the prototype phase, GLOBALORIA and Cisco will manage the sites, assess their impact, gather user input, and fine-tune the initial offerings. Local youth leaders at the Cisco learning centers will be trained to take over and run their local site.

The prototype websites and their accompanying wikis are scheduled to launch with about 20 donated educational activities, in four main activity sections: “Play” “Create” “Explore” and “Contribute.”

Play, Create, Explore

The PLAY, CREATE and EXPLORE sections of MyGLife.org contain flash activities created and donated by various web developers.

* PLAY features games and puzzles to challenge the mind and entertain.
* CREATE features creative tools for making artwork, stories and animations.
* EXPLORE features online fieldtrips and interactive science simulations.

Beginning Internet users can use the games, creativity tools, virtual field trips and scientific simulations on the site for cognitive explorations, play, self-expression, learning and inspiration. More advanced users can download the open source Flash code for these activities, which they are encouraged to learn from, tinker with, and use to build their own activities.

Contribute

The CONTRIBUTE section of MyGLife.org represents the heart of the project. It provides a window into the world of designing and programming interactive games and applets for the Internet. It will include Tutorials, Tips & Links (to other recommended sites), Downloadable Sample Flash Files, and the 'Donation Station' – an area for submitting games, graphics and code for the public to use. The primary goals are to motivate youth in targeted communities to learn and grow their technological skills, do collaborative problem-solving, then contribute their works back to the site, and to encourage advanced users and organizations worldwide to donate knowledge (bits) as an alternative to money (atoms). We accept Flash applets, graphics, tutorials, translations, etc.

Languages and translation

The development team (based in New York City, USA) is building the site in English. The site’s page and activity architecture will support many languages including bi-directional text languages such as Arabic, Amharic, and Hebrew. The team is working closely with a team of translators, and will work further with the user community, to localize the site for each country. As a rule, the activities will use as little text as possible. All Flash Applet text and labels will be created using XML-files for ease of localization.

Wiki skills

The team supports the growing open source and Web 2.0 movements, and its central focus on the user as a mature critic, editor, and author of new web content. This is an important dimension of educating youth towards democracy and globalization using current technology. The Wiki dimension of MyGLife.org complements the “Contribute” Section in order to introduce new Internet users to the evolving responsibilities of true democratic and global citizenry.

The development process is taking place on a collaborative Wiki platform. The production process is open and transparent, well documented and annotated, and logged for future global users and administrators to reference and appropriate.

Impact assessment

As MyGLife.org comes online in various countries, the team will conduct ongoing success assessments to understand and improve the impact of the program in each location. Evaluation strategies will include case studies and quantitative methodologies, i.e.:
* Ongoing online traffic and usage data collection and analysis
* Ongoing online participation in “Contribute” section (quantitative and qualitative)
* Pre-Post online surveys of users and mentors from each country
* Selected interviews with sample website participants about “personal-life impact” (economic, educational, leadership, etc.)
* Pre-Post results and testimonials from online mentoring
* Pre-Post results and testimonials from on-location workshops
* Selected interviews with each country’s website mentors and moderators
* Annual Report (written), including photography and video

Project developers

The program has the initial support of Cisco Foundation, which is providing the initial financial support to the project for the MyGLife.org websites and wikis and prepares donated Flash applets for localization to a variety of languages and cultures. They are also providing input on the development of culturally-sensitive designs and tutorials and to impact evaluation and assessment. Cisco’s Community Learning Centers will provide skilled local mentors to introduce new users to the project, and to encourage and support those users as they try the MyGLife site activities and start programming their own Flash applets.
MaMaMedia and Schlumberger-SEED have donated Flash applets with well-documented, open source code to the MyGLife.org site.

GLOBALORIA Program

My Global Life (MyGLife.org) is the first project to be produced and managed by the program.

Globaloria was established by the Foundation in the spring of 2006 to develop projects that empower people in developing nations and underprivileged communities to experience democracy and globalization through learning Internet technology skills, accessing information, participating in real-time communication, and connecting to the global community. This is of high importance, especially for youth, who can benefit most of all from technology and active access to information, interactive media, and real-time multicultural communication, as well as from economical and educational connections to the larger, global community.

The World Wide Workshop Foundation

The World Wide Workshop Foundation for Children’s Media Technology & Learning is a global, non-profit educational organization dedicated to enhancing learning, creativity, originality, and technological fluency among children and youth, and fostering a deeper understanding of the world -- through innovative applications of Internet media technology. The World Wide Workshop works in collaboration with corporations, foundations, educational institutions, and research centers worldwide. Much of the Foundation's work looks at ways to create new online educational applications or overhaul existing Internet programs.

Key goals of the Foundation’s programs include:
* Providing an open framework for each culture to build its unique identity online
* Participating in strategic partnerships to identify gaps in universal technology accessibility (lack of support for language, special cultural features) and drive technological innovation, bringing in end-to-end support for numerous countries, languages, and environments.

External links

My Global Life project sites

* [http://www.MyGLife.org My Global Life project]
* [http://www.MyGLife.org/wiki MyGLife.org Wiki]

Affiliated organizations

* [http://www.WorldWideWorkshop.org The World Wide Workshop Foundation]
* [http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac48/about_cisco_cisco_foundation.html Cisco Foundation]
* [http://www.MaMaMedia.com MaMaMedia, Inc.]
* [http://www.seed.slb.com Seed Foundation]
* [http://www.Papert.org Papert.org]
* [http://www.laptop.org One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)]