Activities for Kids’ Online Communities Most online communities
for kids are gaming communities, with dozens of games for each
child to choose among. Club Penguin, for example, a popular
online kids’ community owned by Disney, features a variety of
areas boasting dozens of games. Kids can become ninjas and earn
black belts by playing virtual card games. They can even get a
job and work behind a virtual soda counter or in a pet shop.
Though they do encounter other kids and each kid has a
customized penguin avatar, the conversation is limited to a
series of prephrased comments unless chat is enabled. Though
kids can also create content and share in other ways, most of
them are there for the games. Games are perfect for kids, in
that they stimulate and educate. Communities like Club Penguin
are good starter communities that help kids learn online social
skills. It’s not enough to throw up random games, though.
Communities have to have a theme and a purpose, and games should
fall in line with those themes. Also,