The KIDS-93 Newsletter
A Global Dialog for Children 10-15 Years

Issue number 1, August 1, 1992

1. "I must study hard to be a desirable citizen"

The goal of KIDS-93 is to get as many 10-to-15-year-old children as possible involved in a GLOBAL dialog continuing until May 8th 1993. All of them begin by responding to these questions: 1) Who am I? 2) What do I want to be when I grow up? 3) How do I want the world to be better when I grow up? 4) What can I do now to make this happen?
Here are some recent responses. As usual, we try to select from countries who have not yet been represented in our newsletter:

** From Beijing, China **
1. I'm a boy, my name is Yu Wei. I'm fourteen. I study in No.2 Middle School at Beijing Normal University. It's a key school. I am in Class one, Grade two. We study Maths, Chinese, English, History, Geography, Biology, Politics, Musicology, P.E and other lessons. I like English and Maths. Besides I am very diligent and healthy.
2. When I grow up, I want to be an engineer, because my parents are all engineers. They hope me may choose this job, and I also hope so. I can try my best to be it.
3. When I grow up, the world already become 21st century. Then science will be great advanced. I'll do my best to have the world better and more beautiful and peaceful.
4. Now I must study hard in order to be a desirable citizen.

** From Mexico City, Mexico **
My name is Ricardo Bravo, I live in Mexico city, I am a 15 year old guy and I am studying at Thomas Jefferson High School. I would like to be when I grow up an investigator in computer science, you would like to know also what can I do to make this world a better one, I think we must all work hard and achieve a much better understanding between each other.

** From Honduras **
1) Hello! My name is Sam Liberto. Presently I live in Honduras (A small country in Central America). I am 11 years old and I am in the sixth grade. I own a growing kitten and a golden retriever. My mother is a teacher and my father is the principal here at a small school. I am from New York and I lived in Indonesia for two years. I enjoy computers, sports, science, and reading. I would like to have a keypal from the United States or anywhere else in the world!
2) When grow up I would like to be a computer programmer, teacher or animator. I have always had a likeness to computers and feel I could help the field. I also enjoy to teaching other people things. Finally I also can draw fairly well and have a vast amount of characters. I really have not decided fully yet.
3) The number one change I would like to see in the world is to forget all ideas of war and have the world and it's people unite where we could advance our space programs and modern ideas.
4) I think that I could help these ideas progress into reality by helping world leaders realize that we (All mankind) are not getting anywhere by shooting each other. This I do not really know how to do. Mabey if I became president I could do something.

** From Akranes, Iceland **
1. My name is Thorir Bjorn Ludviksson. I'm 15 years old and I live on Akranes, Iceland. I of course am in a school and my main interests there are english and history. I enjoy reading good books, whatching movies, listen to good music (especially classic) and sitting in front of my computer. I am deeply concerned about the world as it is today, that is, politics, war, weapons of the world and pollution. I also am alot involved in spiritual matters, that is, spiritism, spiritual healing and "contacting the dead". I am what you could say a deep thinker.
2. I would like to work on relations to spiritual matters , for example, give people that are in psychically puzzled or troubled and such things.
3. I want the world to be without war (dream on) and that people can live in harmony with nature and other people. I also see the world tomorrow as a world more aware of itself and in more connection to the "other world" (dead men's world).
4. I don't think that I can do much today but everyone can do something, for example don't throw waste all over, use recycles paper and other recycled stuff, send good thoughts to other people etc.,etc.,etc.

2. "We saw lot of smoke from the Kuwaiti Oil fields"

When the kids have sent in their responses to the four questions, they're invited to participate in the KIDCAFE discussions. In this forum, adults are not allowed to "talk".
This is not a restriction in KIDPROJ, our forum for schools and youthgroups. It has been set up to meet the needs of teachers and youth workers wishing to use the KIDLINK worldwide network to promote curriculum exchange between school and youth groups.
Environment and pollution is a popular topic in KIDPROJ, and rightly so. Many kids feel a need to combat environmental degradation to improve prospects for the future.
Here's a recent KIDPROJ message from Mike Burleigh, the coordinator of the forum. He is a British teacher working in the Oldfield House School in Middlesex, not far from London. Rashid and Arif live in Dahran, Saudi Arabia:

"Sun, 10 May 1992 22:33:00 BST
Subject: ** Environment Forum - Pollution in the Gulf **

Dear KIDPROJect people,

Rashid and Arif have offered in the attached message to write further about the pollution in their part of the world. Perhaps your pupils might like to ask them some questions.

Mike
=====================<forwarded message>============
We are the new members of KIDCAFE. Today, I read your program for May 2nd and 3rd on KIDLINK Environment Forum. During Gulf War, we could not go out and we were staying in Dhahran. We saw lot of smoke from Kuwaiti oil fields in Dhahran. Many times smoke was so much that it was dark outside in day time. We want to write about how we felt during smoky days. We were also very much scared before war when our parents bought gas masks. We came to know that during war, poisonous gas may be used. We also saw lot of troops moving outside. Most of them were from America. In the beginning, we were very much scared but after some time we noticed that they were very kind and friendly.
During war period, we were not able to sleep properly because almost every night, we had to get up from sleep and put on gas masks. We can not forget such things what happened before, during, and after war. Even now we some times get scared with the noise from the plane. We now hate war, bombs, poisonous gases, smoke from cars, burning of gases etc.
We do not want such things to happen anywhere in the world again. We want to see the world free of fighting, pollution, germs, chemical gases. We hope that the world could be better to live in peace and with happiness.
If you want more information about our feelings about smoke from Kuwait we can write more to you. We hope that you will send our message to the whole world through the United Nations Day. AND THANK YOU.

SYED RASHID HUSAIN (AGE 11)
SYED ARIF HUSAIN (AGE 8)"

Incidently, this message was quoted in full in a second article on KIDLINK in the June 1992 issue of the telecommunications magazine "Communications Middle East/Africa".
Talking about the United Nations: Kids from Main Street Elementary School in East Aurora (USA) responded to a one-liner that Mike threw out to their teacher, went home and talked to their parents, decided they were going to go to the UN Global Youth Forum and even arranged the parent participation themselves. Their trip reports were published in KIDPROJ.
Two schools in the UK and two in the USA contributed through KIDPROJ to a conference held by the Sao Paulo 'School of the Future' project which produced daily electronic newsletters during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

3. What other teachers do

Don't you believe that KIDS-93 is just for the kids. Many teachers cherish the resource, and use it to exchange experiences and make contacts for joint projects.
This report was submitted by one of them:

"My name is Joe Serico. I am the District Computer Teacher for the Paterson School System located in Paterson, NJ, USA. This year 10 of our schools actively participated in the KIDS-92 project. I would like to tell everyone how one school incorporated the project into their curriculum and then ask for a favor.
Mrs. Rankin's 8th grade class at School #18 made KIDS-92 a continuing year long project. The class has access to 10 Apple II computers equipped with Appleworks. Each student is given their own personal data disk. The students use Appleworks to write all KIDCAFE letters and save them to their disk. This allows mass mailing using PROTERM(an Apple II communications package). This saves online time and money. The students constructed a folder to save any incoming correspondence to each of them. Every couple of days a different student is selected as the mailperson (mail retriever) and scans the school's mailbox for letters to their class. They retrieve the letters and print them out. They are then distributed to the students to save in their mailbox.
In addition to just participating in KIDCAFE. The students were to select a country or state that the class has corresponded with and right a report on his/her country or state. They were allowed to use normal research methods, but were encouraged to get information from their keypals. The report included maps, climate, population, government and history. These reports are all due on Friday, June 10, 1992.
In addition to these reports, the students were asked to gather recipes from all their keypals. These recipes were collected and put into an Applworks database. These recipes are to be used for an end of the year International Food Festival and Celebration. The students will be doing all the cooking themselves and invitations were sent out to parents and Paterson officials. The reports will be on display as well as a visual display containing parts of each student report in a Hypermedia setup using Hyperstudio for the Apple IIgs.
The students would like to demonstrate KIDS-92 to all the people attending their festival. So this is where the favor comes in.....please send a message to them......directly to this E-mail address or thru KIDCAFE or KIDS-92...put School #18 in the subject ... just saying hello.
Maybe some of the ideas School #18 has used can be incorporated into your classes also. Anyone interested in the Hyperstudio stack should indicate this in their message to School #18.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Joe Serico"

4. The KIDS-92 Celebration - May 18-19, 1992

At the end of the year-long KIDS-92 project, KIDLINK invites the children to "chat" with each other in a global electronic dialog.
We do this to bring the children closer to each other on our "Birthday", to play with modern communication technologies (to learn), and to tell the other kids out there about our projects.
This year around 3,100 kids participated during 48 hectic hours. They joined in from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Here's some glimpses from the action:
Irish kids from Dublin opened the day with a "Dia dhaoibhj ar fad a chairde!" (Good Morning to all our friends!)
The Mayor of Arendal (Norway) sent a greeting to the kids, and got prompt responses from Ipanema in Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Some 100 kids visited the local KIDLINK center. The most active ones started Monday morning at 10am and continued until 02.30am the next day... Non stop.
260 kids joined in from Baldwin Middle School in Guiford (CT, USA). Danish kids produced a special KIDLINK newspaper in the Copenhagen Eksperimentarium. There was an open house in the Electronic Classroom at the College of Education in Cincinnati (USA).
A steady stream of kids fought for a chance to participate in Maui, Hawaii. British kids called the editorial offices of "The Early Times", a children's newspaper, and were told to write a report of the event.
Most of them took part in the global "chat", a huge interactive keyboard-to-keyboard dialog. It was, in the words of teacher Mike Weaver (Canada), "kind of wild and unruly, rather like a big party with people coming and going all the time and lots of different groups and conversations all happening in the same room the same time."
Others communicated with fax machines, video conferencing, video phone, e-mail, telephones, and amateur radio. Radio was particularly strong in England thanks to Peter Daly from Stevenage in Herts (Ham PKT MBX BG7ZPU#34.GBR.EU).

5. Around KIDLINK

Our preceding projects, KIDS-91 and KIDS-92, had around 6.200 participating children from 45 countries on all continents.
The kids live in Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Honduras, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukrain, and USA.
Many words have appeared on print around the world since our last newsletter, and especially in connection with the Celebration extragavanza. Here are some examples:
Agderposten (Norway), several mentions in the local paper in Charlotte, North Carolina (USA), a local weekly newspaper in Saskatoon (Canada), The Shore Line Times (CT, USA), Politiken (Denmark), Berlingske Tidende (Denmark), The Herald (Rock Hill, South Carolina, USA), The Charlotte (NC) Observer (Rock Hill, USA), ComputerWorld (Denmark), Datatid (Norway), "Kommuni-Cation" (Denmark), 'RADio COMmunication' (United Kingdom), and 'ACTION - the World Association for Christian Communication Newsletter' (WACC is a GreenNet/APC based organisation).
KIDLINK was referred to in a book reviewing the International Education electronic mail networks titled 'An Environment for Collaborative Learning' published by the network APICNET for release in Japan.
The Celebration was given news coverage by two TV stations in Saskatoon (Canada), and one in Huntsville (Alabama, USA), in Arendal (Norway), as well as in numerous local and national radio and cable TV programs.

6. New Documents and Files

These are some new or updated files that are available by e-mail from the KIDS-93 archives:

General information:

GENERAL		What is KIDS-93?
APC		KIDLINK through APC networks
AERADAN		KIDLINK in War & Peace (by Dan Wheeler)
GIVE		How to 'give' KIDLINK files to others
INDEXHLP		How to use the KINDEX and KINDEXW services
TIPS		Practical tips about using KIDLINK
NATIONS		Countries participating in KIDLINK
MASTER		List of available files

Information for teachers:

EDU-INFO		Intro to KIDLINK for educators
REPORT		KIDS-93 in the Classroom

KIDS-93 Project Information:

QUESTION		The four KIDLINK questions explained
PEOPLE		Kids-93 People
PROJECTS		KIDLINK Project Overview
UG-LOGO		KIDLINK Logo GIF (UUE)
UG-LOGO2		KIDLINK Logo2 GIF (UUE)
UP-LOGO		KIDLINK Logo PCX (UUE)

To get a list of all available files in the KIDS-93 archives, send a message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu . In the TEXT of your message, write the command: INDEX KIDS-93
To get one of the files from the list above, write the command: GET KIDS-93 <filename> as in "GET KIDS-93 GENERAL". If you have problems downloading files, please e-mail Odd de Presno (opresno@extern.uio.no).

7. Sponsors

The main sponsors of our global projects are: North Dakota State University (Fargo, ND, USA), Norsk Faglitteraere Forfatterforening (Oslo, Norway), Arendal Naeringsraad (Arendal, Norway), Norwegian Telecom (Arendal, Norway), The Royal Department for Church, Education and Research of Norway, The Norwegian Computer Society (Oslo, Norway).
Add to this a long list of sponsors of global and local KIDLINK activites. For a complete report, send a message to the LISTSERV containing the following command: GET KIDS-92 SPONSORS

8. More about KIDS-93

Most of the ongoing dialog between the kids is based on electronic mail. During the days 6 - 8 of May 1993, however, the the children will be invited to "chat" with each other in a global electronic dialog.
Our global online discussion forums, KIDS-93, KIDPROJ, KIDPLAN, and KIDPLAN2, are meeting places for teachers, parents and other persons involved with the KIDS-93 project. KINDEX and KIDNEXW are special services set up to help participants cope with the volume of messages in our various conferences.
The project operates the following forums for the children themselves:

RESPONSE		where the children send their personal introductions (their responses to the four introductory questions)
KIDCAFE		where they can 'talk' about anything they like
KIDS-ACT		where they can discuss 'What we can do NOW to make the world a better place to live'.

To join KIDS-93 through Internet/BITNET, send the command SUB KIDS-93 Yourname to LISTSERV@vm1.NoDak.EDU (for example: SUB KIDS-93 Ole Olsen). The command should be in the BODY of the text. The discussion forums are also available through several conferencing system and mail exploders around the world. Write us for more information.
All discussion forums are open for everybody, but only kids between 10 - 15 may write messages in KIDCAFE and KIDS-ACT.
A 130+ picture slide show about KIDS-93 is available (for MS- DOS computers with VGA color display). To get a copy, send a formated 1.4MB diskette, an envelope carrying your return address, plus US$10.00 to KIDLINK, 4815 Saltrod, Norway.
You can also get this slide show by Anomynous FTP. For details on how to do it, send a message to the LISTSERV containing the following command: GET KIDS-93 KIDSHOW
The KIDS-93 newsletter is an information bulletin for teachers, participants, sponsors, mediators, promoters, and others. Suggestions and contributions are invited. But please don't wait until the next issue to plan activities in your community! And be sure to write us if you want to get on the mailing list for KIDS- 93!! Onward!

Editor/Project director:		Odd de Presno, Saltrod, Norway.
Mail address: Telefax:		Saltrod, Norway (Europe). +47 41 27111
Online addresses: Internet: UUCP/EUnet: DASnet: Saltrød Horror Show BBS:		opresno@ulrik.uio.no uunet!ulrik.uio.no!opresno [DEZNDP]opresno SYSOP. Phone: +47 41 31378.

f you want to help out with KIDS-93, or participate, contact the editor, or one of our local contact persons around the world for more information.
For a list of contact persons, send a request to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu (or LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 on BITNET) With the following commands in the TEXT of your message: GET KIDS-93 CONTACTS
KIDS-93 has local representatives in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Guatemala, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States.
You can also write to KIDLINK, 4815 Saltrod, Norway or just sign up ...