One of the panels of Saturday morning was called "Successful working with communities" and centered mainly on the use of Second Life in youth work. Second Life is a 3D online world where users have their own avatar and are free to roam on virtual islands and places. What sets Second Life apart from similar online worlds is the feature to produce content such as 3D objects and even sell them to other users. So the Second Life world is not mainly driven by an environment supplied by the company who runs the servers but by an user-driven economy.
Michael Lange of metaversa.de, a Berlin based nonprofit, introduced a second online world called Teen Second Life which is much smaller then the main Second Life environment (which only adults are legally allowed to use) and is intended for 13 to 17 year old kids. This teen environment is unfortunately not as popular among its target group because the required registration process and age verification is much more complicated than just pretending to be an adult in the main Second Life.
Lange, who has been running a teenage online community called Cyberland for over ten years (based on an older visual online chat system called The Palace), recently started an own island in Teen Second Life. Participants of his workshops have been meeting in person in Berlin and are taking over the development of the Second Life island. There is an ongoing exchange between the new upcoming team of the metaversa island and team members of other youth organizations who have already established a Second Life residency.
Graham Stanley of the British Council in Barcelona presented their island in Teen Second Life next. The British Council has been working for about a year now and will soon open it for the public. The main target group is young people learning English, so the British Council has set up digital versions of many British land marks such as Stonehenge, Carnaby street or the London Eye. Kids are invited to take upon learning quests represented in the context of the Excalibur legend, a Robin Hood story or a Haunted Mansion. Aside from the cultural references, the places also have a linguistic function, such as being ancient, contemporary and even futuristic to help learners of English with the correct use of tenses.
Niels Brüggen of JFF analyzes the usage of online communities. He is just evaluating the German youth portal netzcheckers.de. He explained that young people are especially fond of social networking sites because they allow them to create an identity for themselves. The information kids enter into their online "profiles" might not always be truthful, but it proves to be an useful tool to them to find out about their own identity. Communities such as Facebook are successful because they work as a simple augmentation of social activities, even if they are mere gossip.
Brüggen suggested two ways of using web 2.0 technology for youth work. Either one should go to the existing communities where young people are now to find out what they are doing and where their interests lie. This might not always be the best solution as most online communities are run by companies who mainly generate income by selling their users' profile information to serve them advertising tailored to their interests. Brüggen therefore suggested that one could start a similar community itself instead of using an existing one.
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