ChangeX’s Post

Is the #Danish approach to #digitalization, free play and freedom with responsibility a good mix when it comes to raising children? 🤔 🖥 🌍 As a parent in Denmark, I am happy and extremely thankful for the focus on children’s free #play during their #childhood and when starting school. 🏫 I really grew up with - and am a firm believer in teaching children independence and “frihed under ansvar” – freedom with responsibility through play and interests, BUT… 🤔 In our digital age there is research showing that children stop playing by the age of 8 and in my personal experience this was the exact time when my oldest son stopped wishing for toys and only wanted computer games and supplies for his birthday. 💻 🎂 Furthermore, screen time in general is advised against for children under the age of 4! (Who can ever live up to that? 😥) And even after the age of four it is advised by Børns Vilkår that children have no screen time or limited screen time supervised by grown-ups. 👨👩👧👧 🖥 So, living in one of the countries, where there is and has been very little critical awareness of the influence #gaming, the internet and SOME have on our children; there hasn’t been many guidelines for parents – “a digital blind spot”, as Helen Russell, puts it in "How to Raise a Viking" (great book, by the way) - I am torn… ⌨ 🤔 Because what happens when we mix our playful, freedom with responsibility – approach to raising children in Denmark while letting our children loose on the internet with channels that are intuitively designed to make you addicted and that we know are not favoring children’s healthy development, to say the least? Should we be worried? 🤔 🖥 🌍 #expatfamily

Interested in helping my class? When it comes to engaging and educational activities for kids, Kanoddle, Pixel Cubes, and Legos are hard to beat. Kanoddle, Pixel Cubes, and task cards with legos are games that offer more than just entertainment – they provide a range of benefits for children's development. From fine motor skills to problem-solving strategies, Kanoddle, Pixel Cubes, and Legos with building task cards offer a fun and engaging way for children to learn and grow. Both activities promote the development of fine motor skills and dexterity. Progressing from larger to smaller pieces helps children strengthen their fine motor skills. Playing with these tools also advances eye-hand coordination and spatial relations. As they become more comfortable and skilled with beginning Pixel Cubes, Lego cards, or Kanoodle cards, children can move on to tasks with more complex challenges that further develop their skills. Both of these items will benefit greatly as extension activities in class. https://lnkd.in/d9A8v_6m

Inclusive playgrounds are gaining momentum as cities across the UK strive to create environments that cater to all children, regardless of their age, ability or gender. We have seen charities such as makespaceforgirls.co.uk push for parks, play equipment and public spaces to be made more appealing to girls, as their research showed that there is a clear lack of facilities for them. As for accessibility, Scope.org.uk carried out the "Playground Accessibility Report" and found that only 1 in 10 playgrounds are inclusive to disabled children and that nearly three-quarters of playgrounds are places where it would be difficult for disabled and non-disabled children to play together. These are important conversations to have, at Lightmain we want to do our part to support this by understanding how the design of Multi-Use Games Areas and playgrounds can not only incorporate but prioritise accessibility and inclusivity. The video clip below shows an example of an inclusive roundabout we installed. What features do you think are essential in an inclusive playground? Let's discuss how we can make recreational spaces welcoming for all. #inclusiveplay #urbandesign #accessibility #communityengagement #lightmain

⭐ “If children are unable to use the technology today then they are unlikely to become its creators tomorrow” – Shahneila Saeed, Head of Education at Ukie and Director of Digital Schoolhouse. 🎮 The gaming industry is directly affected by the digital divide. The more children that have limited access to internet resources, the less that have the necessary digital skills for careers in programming, visual effects, animation, games design, and more. 👾 Every Child Online is proud to support Digital Schoolhouse: a non-profit set up by Ukie to introduce the next generation of pupils into Computer Science. With the devices that are donated to us by individuals and businesses, we can provide Digital Schoolhouse with the IT equipment they require to teach their computing workshops in primary schools across the UK. #gaming #computerscience #gamechangers #digitalinclusion #techforchange #bridgingthegap #children #education #tech4good Our supporting partners: Essex Ford, Allen Motor Group, Kennedys, Sunrise Technologies Ltd, Essex Community Foundation.

Raise social awareness through gamification! 📢💡For the American non-profit organization #RISE, we teamed up with On Board Experiential to launch a mobile game with a storyline that educates the sports community about discrimination and empowers them for social justice and racial equity. “Together We Rise” is a endless runner game that seamlessly blends fun with education, challenging players with quiz questions on vital social skills. Some of these questions, for instance, come directly from real-life examples of famous athletes who have persevered through discrimination in their sports careers and focus on Rise ’s charge of equipping young athletes with the tools to overcome discrimination and empower them for social justice in their lives. This experience is represented in the game, where players must rise through clouds of discrimination as a single spark—an approach that uses serious gaming to help users overcome discrimination in real life. 🙌 Check out our case page for more info on this special project ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e-x8F74v #TogetherWeRise #SocialJustice #SeriousGaming #RiseAgainstDiscrimination #InclusiveGaming #Demodern #CreativeTechnologies Demodern — Creative Technologies

👀 NEW Shared Digital Guide: Making a Minecraft community for young people with additional needs using open working. In a new Guide, Rachel Conlisk shares how Creative Active Lives CIC used open working practices to set up a custom Minecraft server for young people with SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities). In a step-by-step walkthrough of the process, Rachel shares insights and tips on understanding audience needs, selecting and setting up digital tools, customising your server, establishing safeguarding processes, listening to feedback and sharing what you learn 👉 https://buff.ly/4eLLneh Could you share your own insights? If your organisation is using a digital tool in a useful or interesting way, and you could share your experience to help charities follow a similar path, we'd love to hear from you! Please get in touch via the Shared Digital Guides platform 👉 https://buff.ly/3K3kcNX #charity #nonprofit #digital #advice #guide #peertopeer

We’ve had a great year of meeting SO MANY new friends with our work and as a business owner, this has been such a tremendous learning experience for me. As much as I have created and done by myself, though, I’m now understanding on a NEW level how necessary it is to get more help from people that understand the vision. 2023 was about gaining more clarity on who we are and the potential for our impact, 2024 is about executing on all fronts. The reality is that kids need our programming. This is why we have online content and do as many shows as possible. But it takes work, help, strategic planning, help, money and HELP. I am but one person 😂😂😂. So I’m humbly reaching out to my LinkedIn fam here. If you’d like to contribute to the growth of Nguzo Babies, we’d greatly appreciate your help. What would funding go towards? ⭐️Offering MORE storytime in communities that would greatly benefit from our programming, including libraries, schools and hospitals. ⭐️Training and working with new puppeteers so that we can create even better shows for our audiences. ⭐️Media production so that we can create even more accessible language and literacy content that children will enjoy and learn from and grownups can use for supplemental aids with their curriculum they use with their children. ⭐️Stage props!!!! This is a big one! We have one mascot but we want all seven mascots. Plus, as we create more culturally relevant stories, our puppet shows need to bring those stories to life. We are rocking it with what we have now, but imagine the amazing work we can do with a stage set that can get us in the doors of places like The Center for Puppetry Arts and maybe a rental for our OWN shows! Nguzo Babies is my brain child, a labor of love and so much more. I’m so proud of the work that we’ve done and in awe of every new family/child we get to meet that has seen our mission in real time. I want so badly for this to grow because I can see the magic of it all. We have clients that call us back for shows and we are thankful. Now we want to grow even more! If you’d like to support, please consider donating via cashapp at $nguzobabies or PayPal at https://lnkd.in/g32xNYe4. Aaaand/oooor if you’re in Atlanta and are interested in working with us, please feel free to send me a message. Appreciate you all if you’ve read this far 💙💙💙

Bord na Móna Cloncreen 2023 Community Benefit Fund Community Group: St. Mary's Secondary School, Edenderry Project Description: Purchase of outdoor gym equipment St. Mary's Secondary School caters for boys and girls from Edenderry and the surrounding areas, such as Offaly, Kildare and Meath, making it a central connection between several communities that provides facilities and educational opportunities to many students. Funding was provided to the school to purchase an outdoor gym on their newly opened playing pitch. The purchases also included a variety of equipment, accessible for both able-bodied and students who require wheelchair access. The main objective of this project is to provide more opportunities for students from the community to participate in exercise, no matter their physical ability. The outdoor gym will be on the grounds of our newly opened playing pitch. The school would not have been able to provide these facilities without the funding. Commenting on the Funding provided from Cloncreen Wind Farm, St Mary's School stated: This Grant Award has made a fantastic impact on our community. It has provided a safe space for our students to exercise. It caters to all the students in the school but has had the biggest impact with our most vulnerable students. Students from our Autism class have got a lot of benefit from using it and as it is wheelchair accessible our students with mobility difficulties can benefit from it too. #sustainability #BordnaMóna #community #communitybenefitfund #Ireland #sustainable

Hello, gamedev folks! Let's talk about volunteering in the games industry? For example, I'm excited to announce that I continue my mentoring work with KAMK students. In March, I will conduct a lecture for art students on how to present themselves through their portfolio, and become more visible in the community, and among recruiters. The lecture is closed, only for students, so I'm not inviting anyone😊 But I promise that my team will prepare a useful article based on my lecture, so stay tuned and subscribe to VALUES VALUE: Recruitment for Game Development Industry and InGameJob.com. It's very important for me to support newcomers in the industry. That's why I don't miss opportunities to do something good on a voluntary basis: I am a mentor not only for Kajaani University of Applied Sciences (KAMK) but also for Gamedev Camp. In general, I think a lot about initiatives to support underrepresented groups in the gaming industry job market. In my presentations at conferences, I always try to raise the issue of the gender pay gap. Also, as a Ukrainian, I'm involved in numerous charitable projects related to the game development of Ukraine. During the war, I consider it very important to draw the attention of the global industry to the Ukrainian scene: we need clients, investments, support. We already work great, and with your support, we will work a hundred times brighter and more globally. Tell me, what good deeds do you do for the industry in your spare time?

In Episode 3 of our series on how we gain the support of the community and build #ambassadors of #change through our Community Mobilization initiatives, Rutuja Awale, Social Worker at Shelter Associates talks about how we use games and activities to encourage behavior change. Excerpts from the interview Q. What activities do you organize in the community? Ans: While entering the community , we organize puzzle games and various other activities. In a puzzle game, a certain figure is formed by combining different parts of that particular figure. For example, while giving information about the uterus, its various parts are combined to form a diagram of the uterus, so it is easier to explain about the uterus to the women. Q. What is the benefit of such activities? Ans: Various activities like puzzles, games etc. play a good role in developing repos with the community. This helps us build better relationships with people living in slums and makes it easier to introduce them to our work.  #change #changemakers #mobilization #focusgroup #games #communitymobilization #activities #urbanpoor