Machinima Guru, my Teen Grid alter ego, stopped by the College Fair on Sunday. It brought me back to the days when I had to wander around the smelly gym of my rival high school picking up pamphlets as I went along. Technology sure has come far! Storm Basiat, the dedicated teen manager for Eye4You, was waiting to send me a port as soon as I logged in.

When I arrived, I was greeted by two of the most adorable astronauts I've ever seen! I was able to listen to a few speeches before I had to log off. One of them, as presented by Daniel Voyager, was for TSL Greeters. When asked for comment, attendee Reallife Orca, of Digital Refinery, noted that "It was interesting to see all of the colleges who showed up, I was just a bit let down that no trade schools came out."

I grabbed pictures of everything I saw, but was really dismayed to find that I was unable to donate to the TG College Fund for some reason. If you would like to help, you can send your donations to Bluewings Hayek on the Main Grid. For a full write-up of the Fair from Storm, check out SLNN.

As neologisms go, and like any SL resident I'm used to more than a few, Skoolaborate is one that feels ugly, but represents a wonderful new project. I'm adding their RSS to my feedreader right now.

The aim of the project is to have schools from around the world have their own space, allocated by time zone, and with a time zone specific co-ordinator, collaborate on range of projects to promote global citizenship and information about cultures and the like, and to make it available to other students from other time zones and cultures. The time zone specific co-ordinator will let the schools work at good times for them, whilst they'll be able to use the other areas to see how people their age see their own cultures.

Sadly it's a teen-grid project so most of us won't be able to visit it, but it is an interesting project nevertheless, and another cracking example of the sorts of things SL will enable us to do more easily than anything else I've seen to date.

Through process of elimination, teens discovered that if they built a rocket that launched them far enough into the air, they would penetrate the wall of the Main Grid. This has since been repaired, but for a time, it actually worked. On a recent visit, I was loaded into the rocket for my inaugural mission, but alas, it failed. There's always next time!

Teen Gridders don't have many options as far as programs go. They don't have the money to invest in Maya. Their economy is ruled by very few who earn as much as 40-50 USD per day. They do know how to manipulate prims, though, and that is why sculpties make them mad as hell.

In the picture above, Jay Clostermann is showing Machinima Guru a picture of the protest sign (since I can't teleport), made by Ryou Debs, that is currently on display in Andretti. Instead of carefully building something through primwork, there will be people using objects made by others. They fear that primming will be abandoned for this new art and their little spending money will dwindle, along with the creativity of the residents.

What do YOU think about sculpties? Do you think they will affect your prim business in the long run?

Read on to find out what the sign says ...

I've previously mentioned how depressed the economy is on the Teen Grid. They create content for essentially peanuts. Their lindens cost the same as ours, but they can purchase three times the amount of items. Some innovative teens are working to change that, though.

Digital Refinery, the brainchild of Reallife Orca, is a teen-run content company with some of the finest content creators on the grid. They realized that Main Grid content companies had clients that weren't able to target their main market. Designers such as Ryan Dayton, Nikolai Althouse, and Brooke Barmy will be working with clients to show off their work.

Now that it's summer, concurrency will more than double, to a whopping 500 residents on at a time. Hopefully this will call attention to the Teen Grid and bring in more residents. If you are a Main Grid content company interested in putting your work on TG, please contact them. As long as none of them turn 18, I think Digital Refinery has a bright future!

File this one under dream jobs for Machinimists, folks! Global Kids is looking for an Online Leadership Program Associate specializing in video.

While the Machinima teaching I do is in-world, they are actually looking for someone to help with their real life intern program in New York at the Museum of the Moving Image. Named the Virtual Video Project, they meet twice a week. The program works with teams throughout the year to make films to call awareness to issues such as body image and child soldiers.

The specialist would bring their expertise in techniques for storyboarding, editing, and filming. If you're interested in the position, they even put their application materials online. The only question I have is where are these jobs in Texas? I'm so jealous!

The teens haven't had many options for Machinima tools. Most of the tools have been brought over from the Main Grid. One of the earlier options, the Alt-Zoom camera, had a steep learning curve. Even after being explained by Eric Linden, many teens were unable to grasp the concept of it. I know all about this from my work on the Main Grid.

Global Kids, in collaboration with Filming Path creator Geuis Dassin, recently brought over the Filming Path Camera HUD at a reduced price from the Main Grid. Cost, however, still appeared to be a prohibiting factor in their purchase of the tool. I am pleased to announce that Geuis recently made the tool FREE for the teens!

This is a big step in the right direction for Machinima on the Teen Grid. With the Joystick Flycam still in beta, not to mention the required USB adapter and joystick, the FP HUD will offer them a free, easy alternative for dolly shots. Thank you for your generous contribution, Geuis!

Rather hotly debated on the SLEd list this week has been a proposal from the Global Kids network that SL moves to allow some mixing of the teen and main grids.

The proposal is quite well worked out: both grids should have "restricted" areas - private for teens, and private for adults - and some shared or public areas - the PG sims for the main grid and after the rejigging of the teen grid map an "adult's allowed" continent on that grid.

As you can imagine, opinions are rather strongly divided, even within a single post. To try and sum up the main points:

• How do we protect kids from adult content?
• We know teens break the rules and cruise the main grid anyway, surely a system to let them do so in a legitimate way is good?
• Given the curious mix of PG and mature sims butting up it's impossible
• This proposal would make it possible for families to share SL together, which they currently can't (there are people who see this as good, those who see it as bad).
• In RL we mix teens and adults in many situations and circumstances - families, shopping etc. Teens can, and do, find adult content if they look at all hard. Why does SL maintain this artificial division?
• Mixing grids addresses a burning need of teen educators where their students get moved "up" to the main grid on their 18th birthday rather than at the end of the school year, and would let them keep their classes together.
• There are teens IRL who get on better with adults than other teens, we're denying them that chance in SL.
• Families can "share" SL by having teens logged in and parents sitting with their children IRL.

Speaking for myself I'm ambivalent. I think something with a "family continent" that allows mixing with teens not allowed to leave it, in the same way adult teachers are tied to a single continent in the teen gird makes more sense - it is suddenly easy to police for "no chance of seeing adult content" and I'd be fascinated to know how the US child protection laws would react to such a thing. In the UK I'd guess (I'm not a lawyer but I am a teacher and work with under-18s so I know this bit of law reasonably well) I would say it would be risky, but probably OK.

But what do you think?

Since there aren't many teens on the Teen Grid, most of them will have recurring roles in the tales of my work there. One of the teens previously mentioned, Kit Axon, turned 18 on the day that I arrived. A frantic Wicked Loudon, a triple threat known for his skins, hair, and Machinima, was eager to continue filming his video memorial to her, so our conversation was cut short. I somehow stumbled upon his Machinima a few days later and, reader be warned, it still makes me cry every time.

It may seem like any other Machinima to the naked eye, but I'm going to provide the necessary insight for you to see what made me emotional. Kit Axon, a resident of the Teen Grid from November 8th, 2005 to March 31st, 2007, was a beloved resident, a social butterfly, and pose maker. She left behind her best friend, Lucky Figtree, whom still has over two years before she arrives on the Main Grid. Together they cried on Skype, as her time was slipping away. If she were to lose connection, she'd be gone forever.

In his film, Wicked captured some of his favorite moments with Kit, which also give us another peek at what islands look like on the Teen Grid. They can be seen water skiing, dancing, hugging, and crying together throughout various parts of the grid. I'm even in a few fade shots in my tiny cow avatar! The part that REALLY gets me is at the very end. I don't want to spoil it for you, but have your tissues ready. If you are as touched by Wicked's Machinima as I was, leave a comment on his YouTube page!

Oh, Machinima, how I've missed thee! Some people say that you can never have too much of a good thing, but they were wrong. After working on The Grid Review, I haven't been able to open up an editing program and dig into Machinima for about two months.

The Teen Grid, however, inspired me. Most of the content on the islands is teen created. For example, for the one year birthday of Global Kids, they held a contest where you could win 1000L for designing the best birthday cake. Ryan Dayton actually made a surprising amount of the content, so I definitely look forward to seeing what he can do on the Main Grid.

Until I can get some of the teens to create their own Machinima or find those that already have, I can only offer you my look at the three islands owned by Global Kids. The main island is in the middle and there are islands for gaming and Machinima on either side of it. If you are a teen that has made Machinima, please send Machinima Guru a link on the Teen Grid!

I had a bit of a surreal moment on my first day of visiting the Teen Grid. I was flying around when I spotted Kit Axon, a teen I recognized from her pictures on Snapzilla. She was gathered with a group of friends and they were all in a somber mood. Kit turned 18 that day, which should have been a celebration, but instead, meant that she would be torn away from all of her friends. She stayed logged on to TG for as long as she could, but knew it was time to let go after saying her tearful goodbyes. Once she logged off, there would be no going back.

Several hours later, I was messaged by Kit on the Main Grid. The area she'd first ended up in was not only Mature, but left her standing next to a naked statue. This was a bit of a shock for her, as transferring could be compared to having tea parties all of your life and ending up at a strip club. I tried my best to show her the wonders of the grid, from Baku to ETD. I think that she'll survive the transition just fine, but what about the others that arrived before her and will arrive after her? The Main Grid is a scary enough place for new adults.

Are you a former Teen Gridder? Leave a comment or IM me in-world about what your experience was like. In the future, I'd like to feature new transfers so that readers can get to know a little bit more about their new fellow residents. Please contact me if you're interested.

Teaching teens in Second Life has issues - many schools teach 11 and 12 year olds as part of their age range, but SL won't let them in until they're 13. At the other end, once you reach 18 you're kicked off to the main grid - sometime in your final year at school for many.

There is news of a project that looks to bridge some of these issues. Ohio University Russ College of Engineering and Technology are using part of an NSF grant to create a limited access island on the teen grid. This restricted access will let the (adult) students in to create games to promote science learning, and will also keep the school-aged students tied to their islands, so they're bending rather than breaking the rules by keeping their pre-teens isolated from the teen grid.

Obviously we won't be bringing you pictures of the sim, but wish them all the best. On a more forward thinking note - SL is being used, increasingly, for education but will continue to face these difficulties with it's fixed age limits. Whether this will be the start of changes to those limits or not it is too early to tell, but it might be a first step to blurring those edges for a specific set of things.

I arrived during a live stream of a Youth Conference, so there were a number of teens on Global Kids island. It was almost a surreal experience as I could not build, didn't know where anything was, and was afraid to do anything for fear of offending others. After the initial shock wore off, I had the chance to speak with some of the teens and let them sound off about the issues with their grid. I'll be blogging about my experiences here, as well as giving the teens a voice on Second Life Insider. If there's anything that you're dying to know, leave a comment!