jcooper

Changes and fixes for the week ending 5/12/2012

• Help! We've added a new help page where you can send us a help request! Help page.


• If you've added a video to your project, the video will appear first, instead of your photos.


• When you complete a task, you will no longer switch to the Project Leader/Mile Marker 1 section. You will stay in the section where you are checking tasks off.


• We've added helpful reminders on certain pages and on certain actions that let you know about next steps you should take. For instance, if you've added a video for the contest, you'll see a reminder that tells you to complete your grant application.


• We've added City and State options to help donors and volunteers narrow down search results.


• Created a new badge: Maurice Sendak Tribute. Read all about it.


• You can now sort the comments within your project by Newest First, Oldest First, and by the poster's name (A-Z).


• Dozens of smaller errors from getting Team Members to appear correctly to fixing the alignment of content to comment dates and many more.

Many of those smaller errors we fixed were found by people like YOU!

We really appreciate all the phone calls and the emails we've received from our brave Early Adopters. The time you take to let us know of a problem really goes a long way towards making this a fantastic tool to help you plan your dream playground. Please keep those calls and emails coming-- and don't forget our new Help page too!

Changes and fixes for the week ending 5/4/2012

• You can now setup online fundraising for your project! Learn more about fundraising on our FAQ page.


• "Forgot your password" links are now working correctly.


• You can disable your own project, if you don't think you can complete it. Do this on the "Edit Project" section of your project.


• Your personal profile page will show the correct location, if available.


• "Somewhere USA" is gone.


• Your project pages now have Facebook's "Like" button and a Twitter button.


• We've introduced a Help page. Go to http://ourdreamplayground.org/help.


• In search results, your progress will be displayed by an orange thermometer. If you have donations enabled, a donate button will appear. Keep your project up to date, the more progress a project shows, the better chance someone will donate to it!


• Newest entrants into the Video Contest will appear at the top of the video contest page.


• You will see alerts when you've earned a new badge!


• Lots of miscellaneous bugs and errors have been fixed.

We have many more changes on the horizon! We want to make your dream playground come true, so keep an eye out here for more fixes and feel free to let us know when something needs improvement.

Today is the last day to vote! Vote NOW!

Rest assured, these awesome temporary tattoo's will soon be mine.

"Don't forget to play," tattoo's from Tattly.com

Congrats on the new blog Angie!

To help celebrate the two-anniversary of Let's Move, First Lady Michelle Obama battled Jimmy Fallon in a game of Tug of War.

They also competed in push-ups, hula hooping, dodgeball, and potato sack race battles.

The segment aired last night, but you can watch the entire battle on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon website.

Spoiler alert! Jimmy ends up on the floor crying in defeat. (see bigger picture)

Updates to the Map of Play

We've recently made some changes to the Map of Play that we hope everyone enjoys.

First, we had some trouble with spammers a few weeks back that we've taken care of without taking away the ability for people to comment or add pictures to playgrounds without a KaBOOM! account. This will make for cleaner, better mapping community and will make the Map of Play less prone to comments about handbags (a frequent topic of spammers, for some reason).

Next, we recently rebuilt our "browse" pages on the Map of Play. These pages were built a few years back to help people that wanted to see a list of playgrounds in a city instead of using our map. These pages had problems keeping up with new, edited, and deleted listings. Well, that is no longer the case. In addition to browsing by state and city, you can now browse by country. If you've ever wanted to know more about the playgrounds in Switzerland, well here's your chance.

Finally, we have a new, Community Spotlight area on the Map's main page. We will feature people that are helping us map all the parks, playspaces, and playgrounds in America (or just adding really good content). First up in the Spotlight is AngieSix.

Visit the Map of Play to see all of these new changes in action!

Beginning this past weekend, http://hello.kaboom.org, has been experiencing stability issues. If you've tried to create a new profile, sign in to your project page, or visit any of our Discussion groups, you may have experienced long load times and pages that wouldn't load up at all.

We apologize for the downtime and the inconvenience.

It's our top priority to resolve the issue and we expect to by up and running at 100% very soon.

If you have any problems or questions, please feel free to call me, Jason Cooper, at (202) 464-6189 or email me at jcooper@kaboom.org.

Everyone's favorite free-range parent, Lenore Skenazy, was in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday talking about how the pursuit to make our kids smart and safe has, in her words, turned kids into, "bored blobs."

Read her article, The Importance of Child's Play on WSJ.com.

She describes the problem as centering on parents fear for their child's safety and the fear that their kids may fall behind academically. Lenore also details the solution: play.

The funny thing is, if you are really concerned about children's health and school-readiness, there is a very simple way to increase both. It's called playing.

Kids learn through play. When kids play, they're not wasting their time. They're learning everything from motor skills to social skills and numbers. Think of all the counting that comes with hopscotch, or with making two even teams. Those activities are a lot more fun than flash cards, but they teach the same thing: math. Kids playing outside also learn things like distance, motion, the changing of the seasons—things we take for granted because we got time outside. But many of today's kids spend all their daylight hours in child care.

Do agree that our current parenting culture is turning kids into bored blobs? Do you think there are other problems contributing to children's health? In addition to play, what else can help kids avoid obesity as they grow up?

I'm loving all of the pictures you added this morning PlayTC. Thanks for uploading!

Snowed in playground.

If you are a fan of NBC's sitcom Parks and Recreation, you can now follow the upcoming story arc for Leslie Knope's election on the internet. Don't forget to check out the KaBOOM! episode in Season 2!

Here's hoping @knope2012 can "KABOOM" the upcoming Pawnee elections like she did the lot next to Ann Perkins' house! Good luck! #parksnrec

— KaBOOM! (@kaboom) January 11, 2012

Love your guest blog post on the Play Today blog today Michele! Here's my favorite part:

Parents have the power to let their children play. If they don’t agree with a school policy, they can try to change it. If they don't like playground rules, they can start asking questions and lead the charge. If they want merry-go-rounds and see-saws at playgrounds, parents can go to the City Council meetings or the Recreation Committee meetings and say: "Hey, I'm a parent and I want these experiences for my kids."

For everyone else, I'd like to ask what parental superpowers have you used to make sure your kids keep playing?

Kids + 1000's of stickers = Art!

This December, in a surprisingly simple yet ridiculously amazing installation for the Queensland Gallery of Modern Ar, artist Yayoi Kusama constructed a large domestic environment, painting every wall, chair, table, piano, and household decoration a brilliant white, effectively serving as a giant white canvas. Over the course of two weeks, the museum’s smallest visitors were given thousands upon thousands of colored dot stickers and were invited to collaborate in the transformation of the space, turning the house into a vibrantly mottled explosion of color.

Learn more at This is What Happens When You Give Thousands of Stickers to Thousands of Kids

Congratulations on earning the 100 badge!

Great time-lapse video, found on Twitter, of a build at Southwest Key in Austin, Texas.

Here's an idea from an unlikely source, the Kate Spade blog.

With some paint and a yard stick, you can make a simple Twister game on any patch of grass. (see larger picture)

Hey, I like that profile picture! ;)

Pundit and all-around smart guy Fareed Zakaria recently posted this to Facebook:

The world has wasted a total of 200,000 years playing the Angry Birds game - much of that in the last 12 months alone. Just imagine what we could have accomplished if that time was spent productively.

It's a fine statement and I understand his point. I would ask Fareed to imagine what we could have accomplished if we spent that time playing. We'd likely all feel a little better. Smile a little wider and certainly be a little more invigorated to approach our work and be more productive.

What about you? What type of screen time could you replace with some non-screen related play?