The lively buzz of activity in children's online communities doesn't just happen. As any teacher and parent knows, children left entirely to their own devices can easily become bored and distracted into unproductive behaviour.
So, how do we keep children creatively involved for 20 minutes to 2 hours per visit? How do we keep them coming back for more – 200 to 300 days a year?
The answer is... to give them creative purpose. That requires subtle leadership from community managers and editors to encourage children's curiosity, stimulate their thinking and creativity and celebrate their achievements. The complete recipe for successful mediation and editorial is complex, but running stimulating events is one very potent ingredient.
Here's a quick overview of what we've learned from some recent events that successfully created a buzz among the 6-14 year olds in SuperClubsPLUS and GoldStarCafe.
Hot News
Children love it when community content is right up-to-the-minute and it's not hard to achieve. Every day, children are exposed to the news – on TV, in the papers and, of course, they'll hear parents talking about the things that affect them. So why not run a weekly Hot News forum discussion to help children come to grips with what's happening in the world.
We've recently had lively conversations on the Israel-Palestine conflict, with prepared editorial content in our One World Zone to help children see the problems from all points of view, to understand the history and consider the implications for the wider world. We've also covered: racism and bullying on Big Brother, flooding in the UK, the war in Iraq and the protests in Burma. We'll cover Benazir Bhutto's death and prepare the children to think about coming events like the USA elections.
Real People
Do you want to get children passionate about reading and writing? Then create events that send them running to the bookshelf. Run a forum on My Fave Books, or better still invite a children's author to take part in a Hot Seat Forum so the children can quiz them about their work, their lives and extract their secret tips for better writing.
Thanks to our kind friends at Scholastic Publications. our children have enjoyed fantastic conversations with Nick Arnold – author of Horrible Science, Adrienne Kress – actress and author of Alex and the Wigpowder Treasure, Brian Selznick – Illustrator and author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and 17-year-old Rachael Wing – author of Star-Crossed and one of our youngest published writers.
How do you get to the authors? Just contact their publishers and ask. Be cheeky! If you can't get the author, invite the editor or publisher.
Following the release of The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman's must-see Christmas movie with Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Eva Green and Dakota Blue Richards, we invited Lisa Edwards, Editorial Director of Scholastic Children’s Books to be quizzed by the children about the film. Lisa worked very closely with Philip Pullman and is an expert on The Golden Compass – from daemons to dust, from polar bears to puppetry, from green screen to big screen, there is nothing she doesn’t know about the movie and she revealed all to the children in her Hot Seat of 9th January.
Don't stop at authors. You can invite people covering the whole range of occupations from Athletes, Artists, Archivists to... Zookeepers. The children just love talking to real people in real jobs.
Meet the Parents
Why not get the parents involved. We run regular online Parents Evenings. The children first take their parents on a tour of the community and show off their own Home Pages and their friends pages, the Clubs and online Magazines, quizzes and competitions. Then the parents join a Q&A Hot Seat forum with the mediators, who answer all their questions about the community. We've found these very popular with the parents, and the children are committed to making the parents feel welcome – some even go to the lengths of taking parents' orders for virtual refreshments in the forum and sending them images of tea and biscuits they find in the Media Library.
Jack's Christmas Story in SuperClubsPLUSHappy Holidays
We usually run online parties during major holidays. We've found, as in real life, that parties go with a swing if you give the children plenty of creative and constructive activities. So this Christmas the events included:
- Write a letter to Santa
- Finish the Christmas story-starter (see Jack's story above)
- Design the SuperClubsPLUS Christmas card
- Solve the Advent Calendar mystery treasure hunt
- Come to Santa's Grotto and choose a present for your Home Page
Parham, Katie and Georgia share resolutions in SuperClubsPLUSThe Simple Things
Don't forget the simple things that can help keep the community current.
While most of our forums are focussed around a learning purpose, we always keep one forum open for simple introductory chat and we change its name every day: Manic Monday, Terrific Tuesday, Wonderful Wednesday. It's a simple way to give the children a sense of immediacy.
Run a competition or two every month. They don't have to be complex – writing a story or creating a picture around a current theme can engage children from 6 to 14 at their own level.
Run a monthly survey so that children get a chance to have their say. What do they like best about the community? What do they want to change? What new features or events would they like? What's their current favourite music or films? What do they think about bullying, global climate change or going up to secondary school?
Plan Ahead
Why not set up a simple editorial calendar. Plan ahead for predictable annual events like the G8 summit, Book Week, National Year of Reading. A quick Web search will tell you what's coming up that might fire the children's interests. Add your holiday events, quizzes and competitions, Hot Seats and parents evenings. Then you can share the preparatory content work among your colleagues and the children, so that it's part-completed ahead of time. Update it just before the event and then you can concentrate your efforts on keeping the party buzzing on the day.
The Secret
The secret is to leverage what's happening in the world outside to engage the children, and to create a sense of immediacy and transience to motivate children into productive and creative activity.
