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The KIDLINK Newsletter
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IN THIS ISSUE |
Note: Most of the discussion
in KIDLINK take place by electronic mail using a technology called mailing
lists. It is simply a program that distributes discussion items to all
participants in the various forums.
Throughout this
newsletter, references are made to the LISTSERV. The full email address to
this resource is LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU . Note that all commands to the LISTSERV
must be written in the body of your mail.
The goal of KIDS-96 is to involve as many 10-to-15-year-old
youth as possible in a GLOBAL dialog continuing until May 4th 1996. On May
5th, 1996, we will start the KIDS-97 project.
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?
KIDLINK has received
answers to these questions from over 50,000 kids living in 82 countries around
the world.
Here are some recent
responses:
* Istanbul, Turkey *
(1) Merhaba (hello) to all ! I am Deniz Kusefoglu, 11, girl. Yuzyil Isil
High School. I like horseback riding, computers, music and dancing. I'm
interested in the environment.
(2) I want to be
a computer engineer when I grow up. I also want to work on issues about the
environment. I'm especially interested in desertification. I want to fight
desrtification and help preserve wetlands.
(3) I want a word
where people don't fight each other. I want a world where children are not
afraid. I want a world where there is no threat on the environment.
(4) I give talks
in schools about the environment to make children more aware of the threats
on the environment. I want to make as many friends in many countries so we
can share our ideas about tomorrow.
* Manama, Bahrain *
(1) Matt Clayton, 13, Boy. International School of Bahrain. I like to
play baseball, basketball, and tennis. I collect baseball cards and I like
to listen to music on my CD player. I have l ived in many countries(Iraq,
Switzerland, Cyprus, and Bahrain. I have also lived in the united States
which is where I am from).
(2) When I grow
up I want to be one of two things. 1. An umpire in the sport of baseball.
2. A sports broadcaster. That is a person w ho commentates during a sports
game that is on TV or the radio. I would like to broadcast for baseball,
basketball, football, or tennis.
(3) I would like
the world to be violence free and pollution free.
(4) I could start by cleaning up trash to help pollution. And as for violence
I don't know how I can stop it.
* Sopron, Hungary *
(1) My name is PETER GA'L. I am 11. I'm a boy. I go to Saint Orsolya Roman
Catholic School. My hobbies are: Fencing, and playing on my PC.
(2) I want to be an export manager.
(3) In saving the rainforests, and I want NO WARS.
(4) I can read more in information about rain forests, and how we could
save them.
** Malta **
(1) Patricia Damato, 15 , Girl. St. Joseph School. Hi, I live in Malta.
A little island in the Mediterranean. I like to go out with friends as well
as writing to penpals. I speak English, Italian, French and MALTESE (my native
language). I like to 'fiddle' around with computers and descover new things.
And now that my father got the internet it's a great pleasure for me to navicate
and browse with it ! I play the piano and I like all sorts of music.
(2) Actually, I'm
not really sure what I want to become. I though of becoming a physics or
computer teacher but its a job that requires a lot of study and you've got
to be pass from the Public Exams. Sometimes I even think of becoming a Police
Woman as I like their job, but unfortunately I'm not tall enough and I need
at least an other 5 cm, so I did not give up, I may still grow taller in
2/3 years time can't I ? As you've seen I'm still quite confused so I'll
just wait and see what the future reserves for ME!
(3) I'm a sensitive
girl and I get impressed seeing some videos about the people in 3rd World
Countries and in those countries where a war is going on. Therefore I really
wish that all the wars will stop once for ever, and that everyone has the
opportunity to live happy. When I see children who do not have anything to
eat or even dress, I realise how lucky I am to have a family who loves me.
I even like the environment
and nature and now that the air is being poluted I realise how presious it
is.
(4) About the wars,
I can't do much, but I can always try to keep peace around me, so that when
I grow up there will be civilized people ruling the world.
Malta, this year, has
realised how important it is to keep the air clean, so it's doing campaigns
to keep Malta clean and is transmitting it all over the schools so that we,
students start from now, TAKING CARE OF THE ENVIRONMENT.
During a KIDLINK workshop in Rio de Janeiro last November,
eleven year old Michelle Lerner Melamed gave a touching speech about how
important Kidlink became in her life after joining:
"Good afternoon!
Well, the first time I used Internet, although I already had a good relationship
with computers, I have to say it was not easy. I was anxious to answer the
four questions and take part in the Kidlink group. I had prepared a message
and then the problems started.
The first one was to
send the message. That was only possible on the second day of attempts, when
I decided to do a step by step procedure with Marisa Lucena, by phone. Maybe
this difficult was due to the fact I am used to make use of programs with
more friendly interface by means of icons as in Windows, WinWord, or even
on Print Shop Deluxe.
After sending the message,
my expectation were very high. On that day I opened the mail about 20 times
waiting for new messages. Soon, greetings started to arrive. I share the
mail with my mother and when there is not even a small message for me it
is quite a disappointment.
The Kidlink space was
very important to me, because there young people from all over the world
describe their experiences, all of them aiming the same thing: new friendships.
Something good that
had happened was taking part on a recipe book, not only with Brazilian recipes,
but also from many different part of the world. In this project it was clear
that neither the distance nor the language had served as any kind of obstacles
to the work.
We have also received
messages about Timor, somewhere that I had never heard before. I had to look
up on maps to be able to find it, but the information that Timor was a colony
that had achieved its independence from Portugal in 1974, and in 1975 it
was invaded by Indonesia for economic and political affairs, was something
I learned through Kidlink. This shows the power of the divulgence of the
information through the Kidlink net.
Finally, I would like
to say that undoubtedly through the Kidlink net we can meet people and visit
places that we would hardly have the opportunity to know personably."
The Kidlink idea is a winner in Brazil. The story is told
by Marisa Lucena in a report about "KIDLINK in BRAZIL from 1995 and up to
the present". The full text is at
http://csgwww.uwaterloo.ca/~marisa/kidlinki.html.
Here is an abstract:
The KIDLEADER-PORTUGUESE
staff started by inviting new people to join the so-called "Brancaleone's
Army," and the many new faces entered the forum. Its members discuss projects,
post announcements of school activities, promote Kidlink's national workshops
and seminars, present Kidlink's international projects in KIDPROJ, KIDFORUM
and KIDART, and help put people and schools in contact with each other.
The staff (and kids!)
of KIDLEADER-PORTUGUESE are also interacting well with the KIDLEADER-SPANISH
conference.
Many public and private
schools are participating. They are spread over the Brazilian states as follows:
Ceara (2), Bahia (2), Sao Paulo (17) and Rio de Janeiro (10). Some are in
Portugal, Figueira da Foz, and one is in Toronto, Canada. 25 more public
schools are due to join from Salvador, Bahia, by June.
Discussions about internal
social and cultural differences and similarities in Brazil has been in focus
on KIDCAFE-PORTUGUESE. The kids also use the forum to chat and share personal
experiences, to discuss specific subjects (like urban violence), or gather
facts (like Timor's problem), and to participate in coordinated projects.
After last year's Recipe
Project contest, the children of Escola Corcovado printed a beautiful recipe
book, and mailed it to all the participants.
A new project, the
Virtual Dictionary, has received contributions from students in Brazil, Portugal,
and Canada.
A new project called
"Graphics on the Internet" is been discussed between Portuguese and Spanish
teachers. They want to involve all KIDLINK's KIDCAFE forums in a dialog without
words.
Soon, there will be
a Brazilian Club on the IRC, coordinated by Eliz Silva in Piracicaba, Sao
Paulo. Texts are now being translated for a tutorial.
So, you think everybody speaks English on the Internet?
Wrong! Just watch all the volunteers busy translating key KIDLINK texts between
languages under the leadership of hard-working Marisa Lucena, Brazil.
Usually, it starts
with an innocent request for help. This is a sample reaction recently posted
to the KIDLEADER-SPANISH list:
Buenos dias Marisa e Lely!Quiero contribuir - con un granito de arena - con los esfuerzos que ustedes hacen para mantener esta gran maquinaria andando. Lely, enviame el proyecto que necesitas que sea traducido para espanhol. Creo que es el de las plantas medicinales, pero no estoy segura.
Espero el mail...
Besos, Gisela
Lely Nunez (Uruguay), of KIDFORUM and IRC fame, responded:
"Bienvenida al grupo Gisela!!!!" Ahora te mando el archivo del proyecto de las plantas medicinales. OK??
So, now information about a project on medicinal plants
(herbs) is being translated into Spanish.
Tor Arne Richvoldsen
put up a set of Norwegian language pages on our Web server. View them at
http://www.kidlink.org/NORWAY/index.html. By the way, one of the Norwegian
language translators is from Brazil. Fabio Castilho, who is currently studying
in Norway, was recruited by Marisa while crusing the streets of Oslo by bicycle
last summer.
KIDLINK's international
team of translators also works in Russian, Danish, Swedish, French, German,
Japanese, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Finnish, Arabic, Chinese, Polish,
Turkish, and other languages. The Portuguese language team, coordinated by
Angela Teixeira in Sao Paulo, Brazil, counts seven persons! Stephan de Haas
in The Netherlands is our Dutch language translator, etc.
We are constantly looking
for more volunteers. If you want to lend a hand, write to Marisa Lucena at
mwlucena@ax.ibase.org.br.
When KIDLINK began, we had a conference called KIDCAFE
going on a computer in Toronto, Canada. When we moved our operations to the
Internet, it was turned into a mailing list. The date was October 23, 1990.
In those early days,
everything was simple - except the number of messages per day. We found ways
of making things easier for participants, but growth just would not stop.
KIDCAFE had to be split into many mailing lists, each with a different purpose.
Today, there is no
KIDCAFE. Instead, we have KIDCAFE-INDIVIDUAL, KIDCAFE- SCHOOL, KIDCAFE-TOPICS,
KIDCAFE-QUERY, KIDCAFE-COORD, KIDCAFE-JAPANESE, KIDCAFE-PORTUGUESE,
KIDCAFE-NORDIC, KIDCAFE-SPANISH, and soon also KIDCAFE- HEBREW. All except
KIDCAFE-COORD are for kids only.
While we invite dialog
in any language on the first four of these lists, most of the discussions
are in English. Therefore, you may think that we consider them to be a
KIDCAFE-ENGLISH group. Wrong! We think of them as part of a KIDCAFE-MULTIPLE.
All languages are accepted.
In the KIDCAFE-MULTIPLE
domain, non US-countries are becoming more active, writing many messages.
Sometimes there are messages in Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and many in
German. Also the amount of messages from Asian and African nations is growing,
something that makes us feel very happy and pleased. Kidlink is reaching
kids all over the world!.
KIDCAFE-SCHOOLS now
has over 300 schools registered. It is an unmoderated list where schools
can participate in planned activities. This unmoderated method is much easier
for teachers to manage.
KIDCAFE-TOPICS is used
for discussing debates. Some examples of recent topics discussed include
"band practise," and "about being a geek or a nerd."
There's a lot of interest in the IRC, but also confusion.
The environment is so different from conferencing by electronic mail.
To learn more, join
the special training sessions that are regularly being arranged on the IRC.
Any kid can join and ask all the questions they have about KIDLINK, the special
IRC commands (/list, /names, /whois and /whowas, /nick, /join, /msg), and
topics like Basic Netiquette, how to decipher GMT, setting up IRC sessions
(for sites and adults), prefixes before names and what they mean, and how
to get more training.
The training sessions
are usually given on the first Wednesday of the month. All you have to do
is 'join #tutor'. The lessons are given by member of the Kidlink Irc team.
There are also training sessions in Spanish. If you want Spanish, 'join
#tutorSp'.
The fabolous KIDPROJ project reappeared in March. Students
around the world have been sitting glued to the computer screen while students
from Hong Kong International School report from their exploratory trips into
China.
The Hong Kong students
were split in two group. The first group made a one- week bicycle trip in
rural Southern China. The other made a week-long trip to Xi'an, home of the
famous Terracotta Soldiers. Both trips offered the opportunity to create
memories to last a lifetime.
The students posted
their daily writings on KIDPROJ under the subject heading "Virtual China".
All groups brought a digital camera and a laptop computer to capture digital
images. We hope soon to see them on
the World Wide
Web.
KIDPROJ students from
around the world were "travelling along," and asked email questions to the
groups throughout their trip. Great fun!
In "Blue Print Earth," which ended on March 15, 1996,
the kids discussed our environment. They tried to identify the earth's problems,
and possible solutions. They designed products to solve the problems, planned
marketing of these products, and arranged a week of auctioning. Some of them
also published essays.
Moderators Indu Varma
(Canada) and Tor Arne Richvoldsen (Norway) worked with kids from 26 countries.
See http://www.kidlink.org/KIDFORUM/BluePrint/ for details. Participants
that have answered all parts of the project will receive a nice diploma.
The current KIDFORUM
topic is "Children's Bill of Rights." Moderators are Lena Rotenberg and Lawrence
de Bivort from USA. It will continue until April 20, 1996.
The participants are
to draft a document listing the rights that all kids should have in order
that future generations all over the Earth can thrive. The beginning of the
text is to start like this:
"We, representing
Children from X countries, and having communicated with each other over the
Internet, agree that the following are natural rights of Children all over
the world: ...."
Over 650 kids from
16 schools and 5 individual students are very energetically explaining their
opinions.
On April 20, "Children's
Bill of Rights" will be replaced by "Traffic." This topic will include the
exchange of views on trafic laws, pollution caused by cars, alternative types
of fuel, accidents in the streets, schools and traffic education, women by
the wheel, racing, speed limits, old cars, insurance, stolen cars, and much
more.
The Annual Celebration is Coming, FAST! It's never too
soon to begin preparing for the three-day Annual Celebration that begins
on 2 May 1996. Coordinating this year's event will be Manorama P. Talaiver
and Sharon K. Oconnell, both from the USA. For more information via e-mail,
send an inquiry to: celeb-info@kidlink.org
On the World Wide Web,
check out http://www.kidlink.org/celebrate
The move was very
successful. Connecting to http://www.kidlink.org is now faster than ever
for users from other countries. Thanks to Dan for making the move, and to
the University of Cincinnati for becoming the new home for our Web server!
Oscar is employed by
IBM in Peru, and is a professor at the School of Education of the Catholic
University in Lima. He is on the Board of the KIDLINK Society, and was one
of the Society's founding members. We thank Oscar for his service for KIDLEADER.
Claus is a long-time
KIDLINK board member and participant. His previous KIDLINK position was as
RESPONSE coordinator, a position that he held since volunteering for the
job on February 14, 1992!! For several years Claus has trained teachers to
use telecommunications in the classroom and promoted KIDLINK in the schools
in Denmark.
The Hebrew language
KIDLINK team is also working on the development of WEB pages, and these will
hopefully be available soon on KIDLINK's WWW server. KIDCAFE-HEBREW is in
the planning stages. The Hebrew team consists
of a number of people from Israel. They are now looking for volunteers from
other countries who can help translate files from English to Hebrew, and
help in other ways.
is run by the KIDLINK Society, a non-profit organization.
Most of the dialog is based on electronic mail.
KIDLINK is impartial
as to what methods are being used to solve the problems of the world. KIDLINK
does not promote specific solutions to problems or political points-of-view.
The KIDLINK mailing
list is an announcement service. KIDPLAN, and the coordinator forums are
meeting places for teachers, parents and other adults involved with the KIDS-96
project.
To join KIDLINK, send
the command "SUBSCRIBE KIDLINK Your Name" to LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU. Replace
"Your Name" with your real name. Put the command in the TEXT of your mail.
KIDS-96 operates the
following coordinator forums: KIDLEADER, KIDLEADER- PORTUGUESE,
KIDLEADER-JAPANESE, KIDLEADER-SPANISH, KIDLEADER-NORDIC, KIDLEADER-HEBREW,
KIDCAFE-COORD, KIDART-COORD, KIDFORUM-COORD, KIDIRC- COORD, and KIDPROJ-COORD.
The mailing lists below
are for those 10 - 15 year of age:
RESPONSE is where the children send their responses to the required four introductory questions. It has no dialog!
There are several KIDCAFE forums. Here, kids can 'talk' about anything they like:
KIDCAFE-PORTUGUESE Portuguese language KIDCAFE-SPANISH Spanish language KIDCAFE-JAPANESE Japanese language KIDCAFE-NORDIC Scandinavian language KIDCAFE-INDIVIDUAL KIDCAFE-SCHOOL KIDCAFE-TOPICS KIDCAFE-QUERY KIDFORUM is for exchanges between classroom groups of students. KIDPROJ is for long and short-term projects
These mailing lists are also available through conferencing
system and mail exploders around the world. Write us for more information.
All forums are open
for everybody, but only kids between 10 - 15 may write messages in the mailing
lists set up for this age group (see above).
Information is also
available on KIDLINK's interactive information servers:
World Wide Web address: http://www.kidlink.org
gopher://gopher.kidlink.orgGopher to: gopher.kidlink.org
If you only have email access to the Internet, it is still
possible to use our Web and Gopher. This is explained in the KIDLINK GENERAL
file. To retrieve this text, send the command GET KIDLINK GENERAL to the
LISTSERV. Note: All persons involved with KIDLINK _must_ read this file!!
The KIDLINK newsletter
is an information bulletin for teachers, parents, participants, sponsors,
mediators, promoters, and others. Suggestions and contributions are invited.
The newsletters are
distributed through the KIDNEWS mailing list, the KIDLINK announcement service,
the Gopher and Web servers.
Subscribe to KIDNEWS
by sending email to the LISTSERV with the command "SUBSCRIBE KIDNEWS
Your-full-name" in the text of your mail. (Please use your real name instead
of "Your-full-name".)
Editor: Odd de Presno <opresno@kidlink.org> Writer: John Ost, USA <jost@mv.mv.com> Reporters: Carolina Capatto, Argentina <caro@orion.sfp.ar>
Stefano Epifani, Italy <stefano@info.it>
Rebecca Lawson, USA <Rebecca.Lawson@InfoAve.Net>
If you need help, or want to help out with KIDS-96, write
to kidlink-info@kidlink.org
You can also write
to our local contact persons around the world for information about how to
join and more. Retrieve the file KIDLINK CONTACTS for a list of addresses.
KIDS-96 has local
representatives in Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile,
China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Guatemala,
Honduras, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand,
Norway, Peru, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Sweden, The Netherlands,
Thailand, United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the United States.
Finally, you can also
write to KIDLINK, 4815 Saltrod, Norway or just join ...
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Updated by Odd
de Presno - June 20, 2004.
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