WHAT IS KIDLINK / KIDS-94?

KIDS-94 is a grassroots project aiming at getting as many children in the age group 10 -15 as possible involved in a GLOBAL dialog. The project will continue until May 7, 1994.
KIDLINK is the name of the organization that runs the yearly KIDS-nn projects.
The preceding projects, KIDS-91, KIDS-92, and KIDS-93, had around 10,000 participating children from 50 countries on all continents.
In its simplest form, the dialog will be an exchange of personal presentations and views on the desired future of this world. The means of communication may be ordinary mail, fax, video conferencing, ham radio, or whatever.
We hope that your children be allowed to participate fully, so that they can join the other kids in the ongoing global discussion using electronic mail (email).

It is not so difficult, and remember: World-changing marvels to us, are only wallpaper to our children.

To learn about our projects, and keep current about important developments, just subscribe to the KIDLINK news service. You do this by sending an email message to LISTSERV@vm1.NoDak.EDU with the following command in the TEXT of your message: SUB KIDLINK Your-first-name Your-last-name.
Please use your real name, not a computer name or "Your-first-name Your- last-name". And please note: If you don't subscribe to the KIDLINK service, then you won't know what is going on.

THE FIRST STEP: The Personal Presentation

KIDLINK is free. The children do *not* have to pay money for using our various services, but there is one requirement: The children _have_ to answer these four questions _before starting_:

1: Who Am I?

Say a little about yourself. What is your name? How old are you? What are some of your interests, your hobbies, your concerns? What else do you want others to know about yourself? Please tell us where you live/the name of your school.

2: What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up?

Share your vision of what you want to be when you grow up in terms of work, education, and in general.

3: How Do I Want The World To Be Better When I Grow Up?

How would you like to improve the way we treat each other and the environment we share?

4: What Can I Do Now To Make This Happen?

What steps can you take now to realize your personal goals and your vision of the world?

If you are a teacher or a parent monitoring the young people when they write their answers, please ask them to take the task seriously. Short one line answers are just too "cheap". Answers that are copies of what others write, are no good. Ask them to think independently.
Send the answers to the four questions by email to RESPONSE@vm1.nodak.edu
When this is done, the kids are welcome to join and enjoy the rest of what KIDLINK has to offer.
Note: Only responses from kids 10 - 15 years of age are allowed to be posted in RESPONSE. Also, please do not send to any other KIDLINK forum! English is the preferred language, but _not_ a requirement.

Tip to teachers

It is a good idea to subscribe to the RESPONSE service for some time before asking your kids to write the responses. Consider sharing with your class. Consider using some of the answers in geography or whatever.
To get the answers that KIDLINK receives from children around the world on a daily basis, subscribe to the RESPONSE service. You can do this by sending a message to the LISTSERV (see the address above). Write the following command in the body of the text SUB RESPONSE Your-first-name Your-last-name
The children's answers will be sent to you regularly as email messages.

THE DISCUSSION

The discussion between the KIDLINK people takes place day and night through different computer conferencing systems, bulletin boards, computer networks, and through individual mailboxes.
KIDS-94 is not a file area on a hard disk. It is the name of our current email-based project.
KIDLINK organizes a series of 24-hour-a-day discussions between children, between adult coordinators, teachers, parents, and other interested persons. The topics are many. Think of it as a series of 24-hour-per-day conferences based on email.
You will get more out of your participation in KIDS-94, if you know a little about how things work. So, here we go:
What makes our global discussions possible is a computer program running on a large computer in North Dakota, USA. This program is called a LISTSERV. Its purpose is to administer 'discussion lists'. A 'discussion list' is simply a list of email addresses.
If you subscribe to the RESPONSE list as explained above, then your email address will be added to the RESPONSE address list, and the LISTSERV will subsequently forward to you all new email sent to RESPONSE@VM1.NODAK.EDU.
If you subscribe to the KIDLINK news service as explained above, then your personal email address will be added to the "KIDLINK" address list. Later, when the next issue of the KIDS-94 newsletter is ready for distribution, the editor will send it to the "KIDLINK address list" in North Dakota. The LISTSERV program will be the real recipient of the newsletter. Immediately upon receipt, it will forward copies to all addresses on the address list.
Only a few people can send messages to the KIDLINK 'discussion list'. It has been set up to be a distributor of official news and announcements.
On other lists, like one called KIDCAFE, there are no such restrictions. Any 10 - 15 year old kid can send a message to KIDCAFE using the address KIDCAFE@vm1.nodak.edu
The LISTSERV will distribute the message to all email addresses on the KIDCAFE list. Thus, it will go to a large number of participants around the world.
The "global village of KIDLINK" is a series of such discussion lists, or conferences if you like. All messages in all conferences are routed via the center in North Dakota.
Some participants receive the messages directly from this source. Others receive them via other services like the ARCI Computer Club's computer in Bologna, Italy, or the Skole-KOM computer center in Denmark. Please note that the many references below about how to subscribe to the various lists do not apply for those participating through other services.

OVERVIEW

Currently, KIDS-94 operates the following discussion lists and services. All of them are for free:

KIDLINK	The announcement service explained above.
RESPONSE	The destination for the childrens answers to the 4 questions. Read-only for people outside the 10 - 15 age range.
KIDCAFE	A forum for kids aged 10 - 15. Read-only for people outside this age group.
KIDCAFEP	A Portuguese language version of KIDCAFE
KIDFORUM	an outlet for works by kids on a series of topics specified in advance to promote exchanges between classroom groups of students. Monthly topics are selected and scheduled in advance so that teachers can make plans for their classes to participate.
KIDPROJ	a forum enabling teachers/youth group leaders to provide projects for children through the KIDLINK network.
KIDLEADR	an informal meeting place for teachers, coordinators, parents, social workers, and others interested in KIDS-94. This is where we exchange curriculum ideas, network on a personal level, ask for help, request hello messages, present ourselves, etc.
KIDLEADP	A Portuguese language version of KIDLEADR
KIDPLAN	is a forum for detail planning of KIDS-94 and beyond.
KIDS-ACT	Another forum for kids. Temporarily closed.

STEP TWO: KIDCAFE and/or KIDCAFEP

These forums are *only* for kids aged 10 - 15. Here, they can talk about whatever they like, find new friends in other countries, discuss the future, hobbies, environment, school, or whatever.
KIDCAFE is for any languages. KIDCAFEP is for Portuguese language only.
Note: KIDLINK is working to establish more special language KIDCAFE forums. For simplicity, we are referring to KIDCAFE in all examples below. If you are interested in a special language KIDCAFE forum, replace all references to KIDCAFE with the name of your preferred forum.
If you are a teacher, a good strategy is to have at least two mailboxes. You should have one mailbox for your personal use. The others are for your your students. In this way, it will be easier to separate your private email from mail to your students, and it may become easier to ask the students to help out with the KIDCAFEn work.

The recommeded route

Subscribe to KIDCAFE to familiarize yourself with this forum. Unless you have a capacity for handling a large number of messages every day, we suggest that you do it in the following way:

Action 1:
Subscribe to read all KIDCAFE messages for a limited period of time.

Action 2: (24 hours later)
Replace the flow of full messages with a daily LIST of messages, from which you can select individual messages to read. NOTE: You should not wait much more than 24 hours before doing this!

Action 1: Subscribe to KIDCAFE

Do this by sending another message to LISTSERV (using the address above). In the TEXT of the message write sub kidcafe Your-first-name Your-last-name
(Use "sub kidcafep" if you want the Portuguese language KIDCAFE.)
When you subscribe to any of KIDLINK's lists, you will get a welcome letter explaining more about how the list is used. If you want to get a copy of the welcome letter without subscribing, send a command like this to the LISTSERV: GET <listname> WELCOME (As in "GET KIDCAFE WELCOME".)

Action 2: After 24 hours or so ..

Send a new message to the LISTSERV containing the following commands:

set kidcafe index
get kidlink tips

The first line will stop the flow of messages, and give you a short daily report of the mail in KIDCAFE. The second will send you a document, which explains how to retrieve individual messages based on the daily report.

Action 3: Involve the students through your mailbox account

Present KIDCAFE to your students. Post lists of messages, examples etc. on the wall for all to see. Discuss. Help them write their first messages.
Messages to the other children in KIDCAFE should be sent to KIDCAFE@vm1.nodak.edu
Make sure that the sender of messages write the name of the receiver in the subject title. Example: Subject: To Elisabeth Wu/Panzini school
Note: The local adult coordinators should make sure the kids understand that their messages are public and should help them deal with the issues of what is appropriate in a public forum. There will be differences among the sites in both the procedures and the judgements of appropriateness. For instance, some sites may ask kids not to post home addresses, while home addresses may be perfectly acceptable in other areas. Foul language is not permitted.
Suggestion: Regularly print out messages from RESPONSE, and KIDCAFE. Post the printouts on the wall, publish it in daily newspapers, or make it available for all participating children in other ways. Use the information in geography, environmental studies, history, etc.
Try to get a group of students to take care of the KIDCAFE work on your behalf, so that you can devote your time to the next steps. KIDCAFE is a wonderful "self-teaching mechanism". The kids will learn from the exchange of email without noticing it.

Action 4: Let the kids use their own mailbox

This option is not available to all teachers. If it is, we recommend that you start with one mailbox only to get some experience.
Subscribe this mailbox to KIDCAFE. If your school's name is "Arendal Skole", you may want to subscribe by sending the following commands _from this mailbox account_ to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu :

sub kidcafe Students at Arendal Skole
set kidcafe index

Ask the students to print out the daily list of messages in KIDCAFE and post it on the wall. Let them administer this account. You may even allow some of them to use it from their homes during evenings.
Teach them to use the /ship command (explained in the KIDLINK TIPS file, that we told you to retrieve above).

Action 5: Adding more mailboxes for the kids

Some teachers take in all messages from KIDCAFE in full. If you want to do this, please *do not* use more than one mailbox for this. Occasional email network problems may otherwise create a substantial amount of work for the KIDLINK administrators.
Either subscribe these mailboxes as given in Action 4 above, or use the following command lines:

sub kidcafe Students at Arendal Skole II
set kidcafe nomail

The latter command makes sure that NO mail is sent to this mailbox from KIDCAFE, while at the same time enabling the kids to send mail to KIDCAFE from this mailbox.
Note: When kids first start sending messages to KIDCAFE, they may get back a message saying that their message has been to the list editor for approval. This is our normal procedure. After several messages are sent, the list database will be updated so that messages go straight through to the list without being delayed.

STEP 3: KIDFORUM

Subscribe to KIDFORUM to learn how this service works. New topics are being discussed in the KIDLEADR forum, and then announced through the KIDLINK announcement service.
Participate with your class in topics that fits your curriculum.
Subscribe to KIDFORUM by sending a message to the LISTSERV containing the following command: SUB KIDFORUM Your-first-name Your-last-name

STEP 4: KIDPROJ

Subscribe to KIDPROJ to learn how this service works. It has been set up for curriculum exchange between schools. New projects are regularly being announ- ced here. Participate with your class in projects that fits your curriculum.
Subscribe to KIDPROJ by sending a message to the LISTSERV containing the following command: SUB KIDPROJ Your-first-name Your-last-name

STEP 5: KIDLEADR, KIDLEADP, etc.

KIDLINK is working to establish more special language KIDLEADR forums. This is the place for "networking" with other adult coordinators. Subscribe by sending a message to the LISTSERV containing the following command: SUB KIDLEADR Your-first-name Your-last-name
Replace KIDLEADR with KIDLEADP if you want to subscribe to the Portuguese language forum, etc.

STEP 6: JOIN OTHER SERVICES

By now, you will probably have a feeling for what KIDS-94 is. Consider joining KIDPLAN. Subscribe by sending a message to the LISTSERV containing the following command: SUB KIDPLAN Your-first-name Your-last-name
KIDLINK welcomes all the help that we can get. Volunteers may signal their interest in assisting through these two lists, or by private email to the Project Director, Odd de Presno, at opresno@extern.uio.no .

STEP 7: BROWSE KIDLINK'S FILE ARCHIVES

A considerable amount of information is available by e-mail from KIDLINK's various archives. Retrieving files from these archives are administered by the LISTSERV program. The most commonly used commands (which must always be sent to the LISTSERV) are:

GET <archive> <filename> - to have a file sent to YOU by email
INDEX <archive> - to get a list of files in an archive
GIVE <archive> <filename> TO <email address> - to send a file to another person

The most important archive is associated with the KIDLINK announcement service. For an overview of these files, use the GET command to retrieve the file KIDLINK MASTER. This is done, as explained above, by sending a message to the LISTSERV containing the following line in the TEXT: GET KIDLINK MASTER
Here is a list of some other KIDS-94 archives:

KIDART		is the file archives of the KIDLINK Gallery of Computer Art. For more information about the Gallery and about how to use it, send an e-mail to either LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNET or LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU containing the commands: GET KIDART ARTHELP GET KIDART ARTCAT
KIDBIN		contains binary KIDLINK files in their true binary format. These files are *only* avaible by FTP transfer. Among the files available is the KIDSHOW "electronic book about KIDLINK".

If you want to check up on the early history of KIDLINK, look into the KIDS-91 and KIDS-92 archives. To get a list of files in these two libraries, use the commands:

INDEX KIDS-91
INDEX KIDS-92

MESSAGE LOG FILES

All messages from all discussion groups are stored in publicly accessible archives on the North Dakota State University computer system. No specific permission is necessary to use them for research or publicity purposes.
We expect those who use the archives to give credit to the source and to use them only in ways which respect the integrity of the kids and adults involved in the KIDLINK projects.

THE CELEBRATION

Each year in May , at the conclusion of our projects, we invite "our" kids to "chat" with each other in a global electronic dialog. Information about our next Celebration Event will be announced through the KIDLINK service.

THE KIDLINK SOCIETY

KIDLINK is operated by a non-profit organization called the KIDLINK Society. The full text of the Articles of Association is stored in the file KIDLINK AOFA . To retrieve this file, send a message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu . In the TEXT of the message write GET KIDLINK AOFA
We quote from the Articles of Association:
Membership in the KIDLINK Society is open to any person or organization wishing to support the purpose and goals of the KIDLINK Society.
There are three types of membership: (1) individual membership, (2) organizational membership, and (3) youth membership. ...
By the end of KIDS-94, there will be a common election among all members. The KIDLINK Board is to consists of one representative from each of the following six world areas: (1) Europe, (2) Africa, (3) Asia, (4) Pacific, (5) North America, and (6) Central and South America, plus the Project Director.
We currently only have dues established for individual members. The Society has the folloing two types of individual membership:

Ordinary member: US$ 25,-
Sponsoring member: US$ 100,-

Payment of dues may be done using VISA, EuroCard/Mastercard, and American Express, as well as by bank transfer.
IMPORTANT NOTE: You do *not* need to be a member to participate in KIDLINK. All our activities have been free and will continue to be free!!!
The membership application form is in the file KIDLINK DUES . Add the command GET KIDLINK DUES to the command above to get this form.

NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTIONS

Our newsletters are always distributed through the KIDLINK announcement service. If you subscribe to this service, you do not need to do anything to get them.
You can also get the newsletters from the KIDNEWS subscription service. Just send a message to the LISTSERV containing the following line: SUB KIDNEWS Your-first-name Your-last-name

FOR MORE INFORMATION

about KIDS-94/KIDLINK or if you want to help out or participate, write to KIDLINK at kidlink-info@vm1.nodak.edu or Odd de Presno (opresno@extern.uio.no), Mail: KIDLINK, 4815 Saltrod, Norway. Phone: +47 370 31204, Fax: +47 370 27111, or one of our support people in your country.
To get a list of local support people, send an e-mail message to LISTSERV@NDSUVM1.BITNET or LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU containing the command: GET KIDLINK CONTACTS

Appendix 1: List of alternative e-mail addresses for sending the kids's responses to the RESPONSE discussion list.

FidoNet:

Internet/ARPA/EAN, etc.:	RESPONSE@VM1.NODAK.EDU
BITNET/EARN/CEARN, etc.:	RESPONSE@NDSUVM1
UUCP/EUnet:	vm1.nodak.edu!response
JANET:	response%vm1.nodak.edu@eanrelay.ac.uk
CompuServe:	>INTERNET:response@vm1.nodak.edu
MCI Mail:	At TO, type RESPONSE and the word EMS in parantheses. At EMS: type INTERNET. At MBX, write: RESPONSE@VM1.NODAK.EDU
AppleLink:	RESPONSE@VM1.NODAK.EDU@INTERNET#
SprintMail:	("RFC-822": <response(a)vm1.nodak.edu>, SITE:INTERNET)
Send to user UUCP at 1:105/42. The first line of text in the body of the message would be To: response@vm1.nodak.edu The next line should be blank.
AT&T Mail:	internet!ndsuvm1.bitnet!response
X.400:	(C:US,A:Telemail,P:Internet,"RFC-822":<response(a)vm1.nodak.edu>)

If this fails

If you have access to one of the addresses above but fail to send to RESPONSE (say you get an error message claiming illegal host name or something), try send a request for help to the following addresses: kidlink-info@vm1.nodak.edu

If you are not connected to any of these networks

Not connected to any international email network:	Upload the file to the following Bulletin Board in Norway c/o Sysop. 8 bits, N parity. Phone: +47 370 31378. 300-9600 bps (CCITT)
If your network has a link to DASnet	Send to [DEZNDP]opresno

(DASnet can send email to ABA/net, BIX, CIGnet, Connect, Dialcom, EasyLink, Envoy 100, GeoNet, INET, MacNET, MercanMail, Telecommunications Ltd, NewsNet, NWI, OnTyme, PINET, The Portal System, Glasnet, PsychNet, and many others.)

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