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

Issue number 3, January 21, 1993

1. "I want peace"

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 participating children are required to answer 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:

** From Bucharest, Romania **
1. I am Cristina Izabella Staicut. I'm 13 years old. I'm at school no. 17 in Bucharest, Romania.
2. I want to be a surgeon.
3. I want peace, faithfull, respect for human beings and happiness.
4. I can learn very well and do what I want the people do in future.

** From Madrid, Spain **
1. My mane is Patricia Mosulen Sanchez.I am 15 years old.I live in Madrid.I study 2' B.U.P..
2. I want to be economist or I want to study physics and chemistry
3. In the world had not contamination,war.what the poor people have got a house for family.
4. I do not use aerosols for they do not contaminate the ozone canopy.

** From Helsingin 2. normaalikoulu, Helsinki, Finland **
1. My name is Meri Torma. I am a 13-year-old girl from Finland. I like dogs, but I don't have a dog of my own. I like downhill skiing and singing. I am a cheerleader in an American football team called Roosters in Helsinki. I also play the piano.
2. When I grow up, I want to be an actor, a famous actor or maybe a famous singer.
3. There is too much pollution in the world nowadays. There are too many hungry people and dead forests, especially rain forests.
4. I am not sure if I can do anything to save the forest or something. But maybe I can join some kind of organisation that protects forests and nature.

2. Festivals and Environment in KIDFORUM

KIDFORUM is a forum set up to promote exchanges between classroom groups of students. It has been created to make it easier for teachers to have whole classes participate in KIDLINK.
The KIDFORUM topic for December was "Festivals", and Mary A. Esborn from Baldwin and Adams Middle Schools, Guilford, CT, USA was the volunteer moderator. It was a great success. 184 students in 16 schools in 8 countries took part in the project.
Approx. 30 students replied to original essays with the prize going to Iceland and Guilford, Connecticut (U.S.A.) for the most interaction. Four sites submitted a total of 83 works of art illustrating the festival theme.
The next topic started on January 1st, is scheduled to continue a little into February, and has been called "Environment - 2093". Joann E. Wilson, who is teaching for a living in two rural schools in Nebraska, U.S.A., volunteered to be the moderator. She described the January topic using these words:
Many of you suggest in KIDLINK Responses that the world will be better if we care for our environment. You show concern for clean water, clean air and a countryside without litter. Imagine a time 100 years from now. Do you see an environmental picture of doom, or of hope?
Be science fiction writers. Describe something in your community in the year 2093 which shows the environmental picture you imagine. Try to fit your writing into one paragraph. Use a creative title for the KIDFORUM subject line. Include your name, age and location at the end of your paragraph.

3. Oscar Becerra from Peru appointed KIDLEADR Coordinator

In December 1992, Oscar Becerra of Lima, Peru accepted the role as coordinator of KIDLEADR. He replaces Dan Wheeler (U.S.A.), who acted in this capacity since the startup of the KIDLEADR forum on August 15 last year.
KIDLEADR is a KIDLINK conference (discussion list) for teachers, coordinators, parents, social workers, and others interested in the KIDS-9x projects. It is an informal meeting place for the exchange of curriculum ideas, networking on a personal level, requests for help, hello messages, teacher introductions, invitations to joint class projects, and much more.
Who then is this Oscar Becerra? If you're already a member of KIDLEADR, then you may already know. This is what Oscar wrote there in response to the "four (informal) questions for adults" in September:

Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 13:19:36 EST
From: "Oscar Becerra T." <BR1BEO@PERVM1.VNET.IBM.COM>
Subject: 4 questions

Here I go,

1. Who am I?
Oscar Becerra T., Physicist, evolved to computer salesman, evolved to Education Specialist. Originally planned to be scientist, left it because couldn't make enough money to survive. Currently 38, married for the last 18 years, hopefully for the rest of my life, with 4 children: Claudia 17, Oscar 16, Javier 13 and Jose-Angel, almost 7. Wife: Martha, kindergarten teacher with postgraduate studies in special education (deaf and learning disabilities.

2. What are you now you're grown up?
Almost answered already. Not sure I am but trying to be a good father for my children, more a friend than anything else.

3. How do you want the world to be better?
We'll have a better world when people learn to trust each other and for that to be true we need to work trusting in others and trying to be somebody others can trust in.
We must learn to enjoy what we have and do and work hard to obtain what we want, encouraging others to do the same. I would like to see a world with no borders and for that we need to erase the borders we've drawn inside ourselves and open to the world.

4. How am I involved in Kidlink?
As an education consultant I am working to establish a local schools telecommunications network aimed at enhancing the quality of education. I am an active kidlinker and try to disseminate the concept. I have committed two schools to participate in Kids 93 and I am working with my youngest child in the new Kids93 offspring project INFANT.

4. Practical advice about joining KIDLINK

Over the years, KIDLINK has become like a Chinese box full of opportunities. You open one box, and there's another interesting box inside.
While this is exciting to the experienced KIDLINKer, it may represent quite a challenge for the newcomer. It is getting harder to plunge in head first.
The following is a recommended strategy for those who want to dive in more slowly. It has been written to allow you to learn as you walk (at your preferred pace), and to build a basis for future growth as resources and know-how increases:

Important. Do this!
All participants should subscribe to the KIDLINK Announcement list. This is where important information about KIDLINK is being posted.

Suggestion: Meet your colleagues
Educators and other KIDLINK adult coordinators meet in the conference KIDLEADR. Meet them there.

For your students: Required
All students *have to* send their personal introduction to the email address RESPONSE@vm1.nodak.edu

For your students: Alternatives for your classroom
You can select all these alternatives, or you can go for just one or two. Your decision.

Alternative 1:		Use the responses from kids around the world in your class. Retrieve the responses regularly from the RESPONSE discussion list, and integrate it into your programs.
Alternative 2:		Let your kids participate in the KIDCAFE dialog. They will *love* it, and they will be highly motivated to learn languages and about other cultures. Note: Consider using the KINDEX service rather than subscribing to KIDCAFE, as the number of messages per day in KIDCAFE tends to be very high.)
Alternative 3:		Participate in selected KIDFORUM classroom-to-classroom projects. One topic per month.
Alternative 4:		Participate in selected KIDPROJ projects. Many projects with varying duration.

There are other alternatives besides these, but this should get you started. See section #8 below for information about how to join these conferences, and check out the KINDEXW service if message volume is a problem. Notes about message volume
The figures below are averages developed from a detailed analysis of the message traffic for four months beginning September 1992 for some selected KIDLINK lists. The figures for KIDFORUM, however, are based on Nov-Dec 1992 because it was only activated on November 1, 1992.

List	Messages per Month	Lines per Message	Bytes per Message	Bytes per Line	Bytes per Month
KIDLINK	11	59.1	2335.9	39.5	25695
KINDEX	30	51.7	2646.7	51.2	79401
KIDFORUM	46	45.2	2177.2	48.2	100151
KIDLEADR	147	33.3	1548.4	46.4	227615
RESPONSE	251	30.1	1336.0	44.4	335336
KIDCAFE	974	22.0	1027.2	46.7	1000457

5. Research on KIDLINK messages

Dan Wheeler, KIDLINK's Director of Educational Services, teaches an introductory research class in the College of Education at the University of Cincinnati, U.S.A. Last quarter his students did mini projects on the KIDLINK messages.
Dan divided the class into four groups and let each group decide what aspect of the KIDLINK messages they wanted to study. Here is a brief summary of what they found:

Career Choices
One group categorized the answers to the second question (What do I want to be when I grow up?) to see what were the most popular career choices.
The top categories were science/technology (29%) and helping professions (25%). They expected, but did not find, large regional differences. There were some small regional differences: kids in Ohio were more interested in science/ technology, kids in Texas were more interested in the helping professions, and the kids in Denmark were more likely to be undecided.

Leisure Activities
Kids often report what they like to do in their KIDCAFE messages. There were clear gender differences in the leisure activities they reported. Boys reported more physical activities (mean: 1.72 per message) than non-physical activities (mean: 1.06). Girls reported about the same number of each (physical: 1.56 per message, nonphysical: 1.45).

World Concerns
Two major concerns dominated the kids' answers to question three (How do I want the world to be better when I grow up?), the environment and peace/violence. No other area of concern was expressed by more than ten percent of the kids. Again there were clear gender differences. Concern about the environment was expressed more by boys (53% vs 38%). Concern about peace/violence was expressed more by girls (33% vs 27%).

Writing Style
Some research has shown that there are differences in writing style between men and women. One group hypothesized that girls would write more descriptively, using more adjectives. They found that boys and girls were very close in the use of adjectives: boys used 19.6% adjectives in KIDCAFE messages and girls used 18.5%. They did find, however, that more of the messages in KIDCAFE are from girls (59%) than boys (41%). Girls also write longer messages than boys (mean 27.6 words per message vs 21.9 for boys).

Another Research Project
Last spring Kathleen Michel, a graduate student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, USA, did some research on gender differences in the messages sent to KIDCAFE as part of the KIDS-92 project.
If you are interested in reading a copy of her paper, send a message to the LISTSERV at LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu (or on BITNET to LISTSERV@NDSUVM1) with the following command in the TEXT of your message: GET KIDLEADR MICHEL . The paper is 450 lines long.

6. Around KIDLINK

Several projects are currently being coordinated through KIDPROJ. They have names like "Children's Independence", "Younger Children's project", "Prejudice and Stereotyping", "Going Global: Environmental Concerns", "KIDLINK/Kenya Schools Project", "KIDLINK/Local Radio Station Link", and "Living on an Island".
Robert Kelly and his Sixth Grade Students at the Fellows Elementary School in Ames, Iowa, USA, summarizes the KIDPROJ "Polar Walk" project in the following words:
On Friday, January 22 at 1:00 PM CST, my students will receive a satellite relayed phone call from Morag Howel in Antartica. We will host a 10-15 minute press conference with her, allowing 8 students an opportunity to ask her a question. The event will be covered by the local print and video news media, and our university sponsor will be shooting 3/4 professional video as they have done for other projects of ours.
To help our kids feel more "connected" we are going to run the phone line outside in the snow, outside my classroom, and there in about 10 inches of the white stuff, and the chill of the air, our student questioners will speak to Antartica for the first time of their lives.
We do plan to sculpt some penguins of snow, and have them sitting as sentinels for this historic event. Our local radio station plans to cover the whole thing "live", so it should be a memorable occasion for all of us.
Everything will be taped on audio and video, so if you want a copy let me know, and I will be pleased to send it to you. Unfortunately the video will be NTSC format, so that may be a problem for you. The audio tape would work out with no trouble at all.

7. New Documents and Files

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

General information:

GENERAL		What is KIDS-93?
NATIONS		Countries participating in KIDLINK
CONTACTS		People to contact around the world for more information about KIDLINK
NEWS293		KIDLINK Newsletter #2
KIDSHOW		How to get a copy of the KIDSHOW presentation of KIDLINK (for MS-DOS computers with VGA color display.)

KIDS-93 Project Information:

PEOPLE		Kids-93 People
PROJECTS		KIDLINK Project Overview

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

New or updated files in the KIDLEADR archives:

CHINAREP Report from Mark Hunnibell's Beijing, China trip.

To get files from the KIDLEADR library, write the command: GET KIDLEADR <filename> as in "GET KIDLEADR CHAT01".
A large number of new art creations has been made available through KIDART, the KIDLINK Gallery of Computer Art. The library now contains more than 140 files. For a list of current offerings, send a message to the LISTSERV containing the following line: INDEX KIDART

8. More about KIDS-93

Most of the dialog between the kids is based on electronic mail. During the days 6 - 8 of May 1993, however, the children will be invited to "chat" with each other in a global electronic dialog.
While KIDLINK is an announcement service, our global online discussion forums, KIDLEADR, KIDPROJ, and KIDPLAN, are meeting places for teachers, parents and other persons involved with the KIDS-93 project. KINDEX and KINDEXW 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'.
KIDFORUM		for exchanges between classroom groups of students.

To join KIDLINK through Internet/BITNET, send the command SUB KIDLINK Yourname to LISTSERV@vm1.NoDak.EDU (for example: SUB KIDLINK 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, KIDS-ACT and KIDFORUM.
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 Anonymous FTP. For details on how to do it, send a message to the LISTSERV containing the following command: GET KIDLINK 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! 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.

If 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 KIDLINK CONTACTS
KIDS-93 has local representatives in Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom, and the United States.
You can also write to KIDLINK, 4815 Saltrod, Norway or just sign up ...