Design Ignites Change - Projects - What's up with Jen?

Parsons The New School for Design

‘What’s up with Jen?’ is an educational game designed to help parents explore the complex, contradictory and changing nature of cyberbullying amongst the youth. Teens use internet and mobile technology more than ever. Traditional bullying has scaled into cyberspace. Our initiative aims at informing parents on the latest & lesser known issues surrounding cyberbullying. Partnerships with local public schools will help us connect with them and provide a trusting environment for the implementation of the tool. The goal of our project is to create strong parental support systems within local school communities that prevent cyberbullying.

Aabhira Aditya
aabhira@gmail.com
404 889 9494

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January 2, 2012

Can you help Jen's mom understand why Jen has been behaving differently lately ? 'What's up with Jen?' is an educational tool for spreading awareness about cyberbullying to parents of teenagers.

It takes forward 'Choose Your Own Adventure' style of narratives into a game of cards. It rethinks public awareness campaigns to become more interactive, engaging and participatory for maximum impact.

The game takes a participatory design approach by involving high school students to create the narrative and scenes of the game.

Parents play the game in facilitated school events. The story unfolds based on the decisions they make at each scene. The game ends with different outcomes based on the choices made along the story.

New social research is unraveling increasing complexities around cyberbullying. The challenge with broad digital & communication strategies is dispersed impact and generalized solutions. Our initiative rethinks public awareness campaigns to become more localized, participatory and engaging.

The tool is a ‘choose your own adventure’ style game that simulates scenes surrounding cyberbullying. Parents have to make decisions at each scene to reach different outcomes. Experiencing the multiple paths helps develop their critical thinking by revealing the outcomes of their decisions without real world consequences.

What's up with Jen?

Parsons The New School for Design

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