Youth Voices

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Recently gaming has been coming up everywhere! I was listening to Jay Rosen and Dave Winer's podcast, "Rebooting the News." Rosen reported on his panel at South by Southwest. He said that at the end he twittered about how interested he had become about looking at the intersection of gaming and journalism. Rosen also mentioned that they had set up a webset for their Future of Context panel. I went looking and I found a post about gaming and journalism that includes these paragraphs about how gaming might bring context into journalism. "The way I envision it is to create some sort of social gaming experience that fills in the gaps. Want to fill the audience in on why health care costs so much? Why not an audience scavenger hunt that takes them through insurance companies, doctors, service providers, employers who pay premiums, and such? Or why not a Farmville type of game run in a hospital where users have to try and actually bend the cost curve themselves lest they go bankrupt, a situation that allows them to experiment with different health care systems so they can see the cause and effect of the choices we make as a society (in terms of patient coverage, costs, profits, etc? If Mafia Wars on Facebook can take off, surely this could. And how do they make these choices along the way? With blasts of information, ideally pulled from well reported news stories, that the user can actually apply to the situation in a way that increases both recall and understanding." Littau is presenting his vision here, and what a fvision it is. I can totally imagine playing a game in place of reading an article about health care. Once again, just when I thought I understood what gaming is, I see that there is more to learn. This is exciting!

I'm learning more about Queens sees huge surge in demand for emergency meals and food right now, and in particular what I'm wondering about is: why more than half of food pantries still had to turn people away because they ran out of food. I was researching this question online, and this news item caught my attention because it explains the problems about giving food to elder people. It also talks about Gillibrand and Sen. Chuck Schumer are co-sponsoring legislation to make permanent the Good Samaritan Hunger Relief Tax Incentive that encourages businesses to donate unused food items to food banks. It also states that another piece of legislation Gillibrand is co-sponsoring to help support food pantries and other charities is an extension of tax credits for seniors when they make charitable donations from their retirement savings. Such credits are set to expire at the end of this year. A paragraph that caught my eye was " Emergency measures taken in Washington over the past year dramatically increased the availability of food stamps and government purchases of food for emergency relief programs, according to Triada Stampas, the Food Bank's director of government relations and public education, but failed to fill the gap in the city." This is because it explains about food emergency. "Because of the bad economy, New York families that typically donate food, warm clothes and other basics to those in need just can't afford to this year," Gillibrand said. "As a result, food bank shelves have gone bare, and hunger and food insecurity have reached disturbing, historic highs." " The quote I chose here is basically saying the because of the bad economy that we are having right now sometimes it hard for them to find food. I think this is strong because without money sometimes it's hard to get food. But if people donate or give food that they don't eat then that's good.

I'm learning more about food security right now and in particular what I'm wondering about is Is there a food problem in Queens? I was researching this question online, and this news post caught my attention because it mentioned exactly what i wanted to know.\n\n\n"Queens sees huge surge in demand for emergency meals and food." "Queens has seen a whopping 106% sspike in the number of emergency mealss provided to hungry residents in the past two years."\n\nThe quote i chose here is basically saying that there has been a huge jump in the number of emergency food distributed to the people. Amny people are in a food crisis, and is worried about what they are going to eat in days to come. \n\nI think this is not good because what will happen when there are no emergencey food rations left then what will happen to the people? I believe New York State should do something about this before it gets worse than it is.

I'm learning more about food security in Africa as well as New York right now, and in particular what I'm wondering about is: why is food security a problem in New York City, the city that I live in. I was researching this question online, and this news article caught my attention because it shows how my community is suffering from food security. Food security affects the world and the people around us. "We need to make sure we're helping children and families who were hit the hardest by this economy,' Gillibrand said." The quote I chose here is basically saying that we as a country are suffering from hunger. This is very surprising because children and families are suffering and we should help them. The economy affected the rate of food security, because a lot of adults lost their jobs and now they cant afford to put food on the table. I think this is shocking because so many people lost their jobs in the last two years with the economic crisis that now, thousands of children and families are suffering. It makes me wonder how many people are suffering from hunger not only in the US or Africa, but the whole world. I found out that India is going through some food crisis and that many children are dying from hunger. I don't think this is an issue not many people think about. That's what makes me think.

I'm learning more about Food Security right now, and in particular what I'm wondering about is: Is this a problem of politics or science? In other words can we right now "Young people have the advantage of having grown up in a globally connected world, within which we communicate more quickly and broadly than perhaps any other generation before us. Whilst young people may not yet have the power to drive policies, we will be the ones who must accept the big challenges of the future which are as yet unresolved: from population growth to climate change to market reform and the end of poverty."

"I am now in my twenties and my grandmother is still out there on her plot each day." This woman must be at least in her sixties, still doing this exhausting work.

I'm learning more about food security in Africa right now, and in particular what im wondering about is Why is food security such a big thing in Africa. i was researching this question online and this news article caught my attention because Mr.Allison myi english teacher pointed it out to me.\n\n"She continues to till her field with a hand hoe, using seed saved from previous harvests, and applying a teaspoonful of fertiliser per maize plant. Her working hours and type of inputs have remained the same over the years; however, the yields have been declining drastically."\n\nThe quote i chose here is basically saying that the girl who is mentioned in the quote works hard to plant her crops and take care of the crops to. Food security is important because she wants to be able to feed her family.\n\ni think this is interesting because It makes me wonder about how food security is in other places outside the United States.

What I noticed most about "Steam buns 'R' us", was that they chose to talk about Steam Buns out of all things on main street. I guess they find Steam Buns THAT important. This probably stands out to me is because I have never tasted a Steam Bun and to be honest, I don't want to either. I have never liked East-Asian foods. I don't find enough taste in it. Its probably because I'm so used to eating such spicy foods because I'm Pakistani! When Melissa said, "cuz google never lies," I was thinking that's not true! There is lots of stuff on google that's not true. I know she probably said that to add humor to the story but it stood out to me. Another part I really liked was when Hawa said, "And I'm just Korean." It brought humor to the presentation. It really stood out because the music in the background paused. It seemed like the editing was done really well. I enjoyed watching this clip. It was funny, entertaining and informative.

Im learning about Teenagers Behavior and what i am wondering about is why these teensm go threw so much and take it out on other peoples.I was researching this question online and this is article caught my attention because it break down all different types of a teenager behavior and why its like that.I choose this item to read because it hads alot of helpful detail. "All teens act as if there grown and try to out word their parent,most these behavior comes from relationship problems or problems at home with the family" This quote chose here is basically saying teens do what they want if they want to are not because disrespecting a parent is extremely rude but when teenager are all "grown" up they do whatever. I think is a simple quote that explains a lot because i shows how you can take two keywords and make a whole story it makes me wonder why these people came up with there article in all different types of subject form.

"More than half of food pantries still had to turn people away because they ran out of food," Stampas said.

its good that we are haveing more knowledge to get world hungary over with because i though that they are really bad when they have alot of food shortage speically in the desert parts there is like no way that they can grow food but with our powers now i think that we can actually grow food at places liek that which can help them which is great. i though that it's great in many ways because with this i thin k that they can help them solve thier thing

I'm learning more about food security right now, and in particular what I'm wondering about is how to reduce the chance of food insecurity and get a better way to produce more food. I was researching this question online, and this blog post, "Climate/Farming First" caught my attention because it answered my question and listed a lot of useful sources of ways. The quote I chose here is basically saying that the change of the climate affects the amount and quality of agricultural production directly. For example, greenhouse gas emission would affect the quality of the production or even reduce the amount of it. As a result, professors in various fields from all over the world tried to do research and explore ways to solve this problem. I think this is very amazing because I didn't know that the surroundings would also affect the agriculture production, which might lead to great food insecurity. It makes me wonder whether the experts have thought of good ways to solve the issue. I'm also wondering if I would also be able to contribute to their research in the future.

Some of the problems of food security starts at the most basic levels, such as the lack of enriched food for children. In the following excerpt, a nice description of the main problems of food security in Haiti is being addressed. Apparently food fortification would lead to a partial solution to the food security problem. "Micronutrient malnutrition is one of the most debilitating issues facing the developing world and a serious issue in Haiti: only 2.7% of Haitian children under the age of five live in households that consume adequately iodized salt, only 55.9% of these children consume vitamin A rich foods with only 28.7% receiving vitamin A supplements in the past six months. Sixty one percent of these children are anemic " What this quote says is that most of the children in Haiti do not get enough vitamins from their food, if they do have any. This in fact is one of the greatest causes of malnutrition; to grew up without enough food and as result have physical deformations or lack of intelligence.

this page is showing the improvement of farming in Africa. It has improved a lot from 2009 to 2010. And is expected to improve even more in 2011. This is definitely a good sign of people trying to achieve food security. especially in a place like Africa.

Farmers have seen profound changes in agriculture in the past 10 years, but revolutionary technology is just on the horizon. This is a interesting article about how the technology of farming have changed in the past 10 years, and how it is likely to develop in the next 10 years. With the more advanced technology, more food can be produced, this can definitely help food security. Although in "sucky" places like Africa, the people are very unlikely to gain that kind of technology even if it is developed...

"Within the hallowed halls of academia, one of the best futurists is Mike Boehlje at Purdue's Center for Food and Agricultural Business. He sees three types of technology at the farm level that are in the process of coming to market: technology to manipulate growth processes of plants and animals, technology for monitoring and measuring systems, and automated process control technology. On its own, each area is significant, he says, but it's their coming commercial convergence that will bring the most significant change." This is very cool to read. In my previous bookmark on diigo, I talked about how technology in general can't really help farmers, especially the whole idea of the cell phone but this... this is interesting. Going forward in providing this for farmers sure as "heck" can help farmers. I mean this is what farmers need correct? More of their supply to sell, how they are going to sell it and well pretty much the time it will take to sell it. The faster they get their money the better. I sure hope that farmers don't have to pay a lot of money to get this advancement or at least will be able to get their hands on it somehow.

At Action Against Hunger, our food security programming forms a continuum with the work This page more throughoutly explained about food security. After reading this page, I got a general idea of what food security is. Food security is achieved when and only when everybody have more than enough food.

"A phone can be used to call for help in a medical emergency, find information about crop prices, enable cashless transactions and banking services, or simply save someone from making a long journey when the only option is to visit in person. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a leading development economist and director of the Earth Institute, has said: "The cellphone is the single most transformative technology for development." This is interesting. I know that smart phones help give so much information now a days; its like having a laptop fit your pocket. Just pull it out and have information given to you by simply looking up what you need to know. This would seem great for farmers to have but given the prices of owning a cellphone and paying the rate plan is kind of expensive. Especially for farmers who are poor. In Africa, times are very tough and there is a lot of poverty over there. "Matthew Elesu, 27, wearing an Arsenal shirt, explains that he buys a car battery from the town of Soroti for 150,000 shillings (£48). The journey there and back costs 4,000 shillings (£1.28), four times what it was only a couple of years ago. Elesu then charges 400 shillings (13p) to charge a phone, which usually takes four hours. The margins are slight. "I make money, but only enough to buy some bread," he says." This shows how even cheap technology affects the money farmers could make. Its a cool idea to help farmers but in the end it does little to no effect in my opinion.

"CFS projects seek to engage community residents in all phases of project planning, implementation, and evaluation." Well still learning about food security at the moment. I really wonder though if people can actually be nice to help others. The thing is that people can be jerks and ignore problems around them. They rather be in a fake illusion of a "perfect" world then face the problems that can one day affect them. This website is about a Community Food Security for North America...I think. Okay I don't know if its for North America, but yeah it's a community group to fight against food security. I really do wonder how affect it is. I will have to see later after I write this bookmark. The quote I chose interested me since I was wondering on how people are actually going to be convinced to help. I know for a fact some people don't really care about what others think. I wonder how they would convince people. I know someone is going to disagree with me on this, but there are some heartless people out there that rather benefit themselves then others.

I've been learning more about food security right now and in particular what I'm wondering about is: how the future of food supply will look like. I was researching this question online and this article caught my attention because of the title, "The fight over the future of food." I can't seem to imagine what the world will look like in a few years, not even in like a hundred years. \n\n"A combination of the food crisis and the global economic downturn has catapulted the number of hungry people in the world to more than 1 billion. The United Nations says world food output must grow by 70 percent over the next four decades to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people by 2050."\n\nThe quote I chose here is basically saying that if not much is done, there won't be enough food for the growing population by 2050. There has to be a 70% increase of stable food production worldwide to help feed everyone. This is pretty intense because thinking ahead, 2050 is only 40 years away and I'll be like 57 years old by then. What will happen to me if there isn't enough food to feed me and my family? How will I react?\n\n I think this is an important issue for everyone to pay attention to because it affects everyone globally. Even though there are some actions being taken currently to fight the issue of food security and world hunger, it's not enough. There are too many factors that contribute to people not wanting to help out. I think it's mainly because of money. Because many countries are still in a recession, it's difficult for people to dig into their pockets to donate and help the cause. It's sad and unfortunate, but it's true.

"It can be difficult in the middle of winter - especially if you live in the frigid Northeastern U.S., as I do - to remain convinced that global warming will be such a bad thing. Beyond the fact that people prefer warmth to cold, there's a reason the world's population is clustered in the Tropics and subtropics: warmer climates usually mean longer and richer growing seasons. So it's easy to imagine that on a warmer globe, the damage inflicted by more frequent and severe heat waves would be balanced by the agricultural benefits of warmer temperatures." im learning more about this because i jsut finshed reading this i though that this is a good thing and a bad thing becuase i saw it on netgeo that if the earth temptrue go up by 1 or 2 is a major change in the earth it can affect alot of differet things however since global warming gets warmer it means that there will be easyier to grow food however if it keeps on getting hotter is going to be really bad im sure so i guess we need to stp this becuase it's jsut simply bad. in many different ways we are doing this as as a bookmark to show that we did some work and i thought that this article is really cool

I'm learning more about food security right now,and in particular what I'm wondering about is:why global warning portends a food Crisis?I was researching this question online,and this blog post caught my attention because it have told what will happen in Africa. "Yet many climatologists believe that global warming will make dry areas dryer and further damage farming, which is especially dire news for sub-Saharan Africa, a region that already struggles with heat waves, droughts and famines even as population continues to grow. "Climate change is going to be a major concern for Africa," says Nteranya Sanginga, director of the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Nairobi. "We could lose whole growing seasons."" The quote I chose here is basically saying that the Africa will lose the whole growing season,because the temperature in Africa have the higher temperature effect by the Battisti and Naylor ,it is not the possible effect of changing precipitation patterns.The climatologists believe that global warning will make the dry areas dryer and further damage farming.It make the climate is changing is going be a major concern for Africa. I think this is amazing because it makes me wonder that there have so many country don't have enough food for their people,and because the climate change,make some place can't grow the plants again,so i think if you want solve the problem of the food security, one of the thing you need to do is solve the global warning,make it don't not effect the climate.

I'm learning more about "food security" right now, and in particular what I'm wondering about is: what really caused this problem. I was researching this question online, and this article, "Why Globing Warming Portends a Food Crisis" caught my attention because it made me realize the connection between two big global issues. The quote I chose here is basically saying as the temperatures on this planet becomes higher and higher, more and more food is going to be damaged. I think this is really serious because we all would die without food. It makes me wonder what would happen if the temperatures keep going up and causing more serious food security issue. I hope there would be a way to solve these problems.

I'm learning about "We need to realize Africa's potential on agriculture" right now, and in particular what I'm wondering is African farmers must be able to access the knowledge and tools they need to unleash agriculture's full potential for the continent? I was researching this question online, and this article caught my attention because it talks about the threat of food insecurity, of a changing climate, of disrupted marketplaces all paint a picture of potential famine, drought and widespread poverty. "Climate change is exacerbating an already poor food supply in Africa, leaving farmers less capable of providing for themselves, let alone their communities. The problems vary across the continent - droughts, flash floods, early rains, late frosts - but they all threaten to make farmers' traditional planting knowledge obsolete. A recent report from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) projects that wheat, rice and maize yields in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to drop by 34%, 15% and 10% respectively by 2050." The quote that I chose here is basically saying that climate is something important because that determines the food. I think that this is strong because people need food to survive. Without food they are dead.

its crazy to see thta so many places have people that are hungary and has no food to eat it makes me feel very foutnete to be the one with good food everyday and a good life i though that is very cool and great that i do. it makes me feel so much better about my life compare to other people i though that the poepl in afircna and china and other palces are very unfourtnite. speically in afican since there is alot of red palces i hope people go and help them soon enough because it really looks bad from here form thiss map that im looking at in many ways i thought that this really sucks for tyhem becuase they dont even have a poper edacations and other stuff so i though that it was unfair to them also if i was rich i would help them to gain a better life and a better central goverment.

The food hunger crisis is a big concern for me now because its very sad and horrifying to believe that this is actually happening as I type this. I could never imagine what kind life this could be because I have been so lucky and blessed with the life I have. In a way, even though I am just a middle/average class type of person, I feel very rich and spoiled compared to these helpless poor people who are starving around the world.

The map have show that the food crisis around the world.on the map African was the most danger place.and the most part of North America have a percent of undernourishment in total population over 5%.

"Jane McGonigal talks with Daniel Zalewski about alternate-reality gaming. From "Stories from the Near Future," the 2008 New Yorker Conference."

"Can the alllure of gameplay be a force that draws people together?" Mcgonigal talks about massively multiplay gaming. She believes that instead of building games that are very different from the reality, she wants to build reality within the games.She starts off by telling the history of game and the father of games, herotitus. She saids that the core focus in game play is to engage yourself within the system. She also states that she believes that people play games because when they're playing a game, they're not suffering. I think this is true because people feel happy when they play a game that they like. Whenever I'm bored and unhappy, I go to my computer and start playing one of my favorite games. I really like the examples that she gives. One of the examples is world of warcraft. Tons of people play this game and wish that it were to become true because people online are so much more cooperative than people in reality. Before watching this video, I never thought about this kind of stuff before. I've always wondered what kinds of new games they would create since games are starting to become boring. I think that there should be more reality games instead of make believes so that we can learn from those games to live a better life. We can treat those games as personal trainers. I think that it would benefit many people because because there is a high percentage attraction towards games.

Well right know, we are learning about gaming. I never really thought about the new technology that's going to be produce for gaming since I always really just thought about the games. I do wonder though what kind of technology would be produced. I hope it's pretty cool though like one of those future movies excluding the part where it takes over humans....I rather not be running around with little robots chasing me. Yeah, that really doesn't sound to appealing "This is ancient dice from the kingdom Lydia where Turkey is today. They used knuckle bones like from sheep to make dice." I find the dice very interesting. I really can't imagine the dice being formed from knuckle bones. I wonder how they do it. I'm going to guess that they used fire and pressure to form it? Not really sure, it's probably going to be similar to that I guess. "A future forecast: 2013. We increasingly live our real lives inside of massively multiplayer games." I find that pretty interesting for the fact of its 2010 and it kind of like that now. I mean people are playing massively multiplayer games even today. Mostly online. I think by 2013 something of what she's talking about will appear. It'll probably from Asia and it can be like that future movie where people live in a 3D world. They're like hooked onto machines and stuff. That would be interesting. Maybe dangerous.

I'm looking into Jane McGonigal's work around ARG's - Alternate Reality Games. In particular I'm wondering how playing one of these games changes the way people interact because they are thinking differently. This is what McGonigal has to say about such changes: "Games, when you play them with other people, … actually strengthen the reward circuitry so it actually makes people more social and more likely to collaborate because their brains are actually more responsive to people online and offline. Games are transforming the brains of people who play them in largely positive ways." She is saying that by playing a game, we adopt a role and use our brains differently. This expands what is possible in our brains, and has impacts on what we do in life after we are finished playing the games. And this is what games should do: change how we live our lives when the games aren't there. Like art helps us see differently, games should help us live by different rules, recognize different systems than we saw before playing the game.

"The secret of making a great game, Meier said, is to get inside the player's head. "