Adult & kid judges picked Dizzywood

Dizzywood, a virtual world for kids aged 8-12, has won the 2009 NAPPA Gold award in the software, Web site, and videogame category, Parenthood.com reports, which administers the awards. Both adult experts and a team of children of appropriate ages for the products and services participated in the review process, seeking "the most entertaining, appealing, safe, educational and age-appropriate products." Previous winners in the category include UK-based Moshi Monsters, Club Penguin, and Whyville.net, according to Parenthood.com (NAPPA stands for National Parenting Publications Awards). I'm excited about Dizzywood's award because of a pilot digital-citizenship project Bel Aire Elementary School conducted with Dizzywood. Principal Patti Purcell told me she felt students needed a "space" they could actually practice what they learned in character education, which has long been part of the Tiburon, Calif., school's curriculum (for more on this, see the 4th paragraph of my original post about Bel Aire and Dizzywood here. [See also NetFamilyNews contributor Sharon Duke Estroff's series, Undercover Mom in Virtual worlds.]