Annual Report - Report 2009AofA Art 5 says: "The Board's Annual Report and Financial Statement must be sent to the members together with the notice to the Annual Meeting." Once approved by the Annual Meeting 2010, the Document will be made public from http://www.kidlink.org/kidspace/start.php?HoldNode=26767 Kidlink Association Financial Report 2009 - Kidlink Association Financial Report 2009 was sent as a separate document. (Link)
Board Meetings - The Board had eight official online Sunday (we should put the dates in) meetings on Skype.
- The Board had one official face-to-face meeting on June 14 in Monza, Italy. Pia, André, Nicolò and Stellan attended in Pia's home. Bonnie participated through Skype. Andrea, Domenico and Graziella were guests at the meeting.
Kidlink Association Membership - We have invited all Kidlink Project members to become members in Kidlink Association (KA) with information on our site and in the Kidlink listserv list.
- To allow members in any country to pay for KA membership, we have now a flexible fee based on Gross National Income per capita.
Kidlink Dialog and documentation - Our dialog is now held mainly in Skype and in these Google groups: "Kidlink", "Kidlink Association" and "Kidlink Board". All adults who registered 2009, about 400, are subscribed to the "Kidlink" Google group. There is now a new dialog going on in "Kidlink" between adults we have not known about before. All Kidlink Association members are subscribed to "Kidlink Association". "Kidlink Board" is used for Board only dialogs.
- All Kidlink Project members, about 7000 adult and youth users, are now subscribed to the Kidlink listserv list. This allows us to send information to all Kidlink Project members.
- The Kidlink Association Board keeps all documents in Google documents. Because Google documents are blocked in China, we have moved some of our documents to Google groups.
- The Board is now testing Google Wave to develop Annual Reports.
- We have removed the access to all the Kidcom rooms except one. We hope that this will help the youth to find each other in chat dialogs.
The Kidlink Site - The Kidlink site is now more visible. Titles and descriptions have been changed to make it easier to find www.kidlink.org in Google. Google Webmaster tools are being used.
- The entire Kidlink site is now based on the KidSpace database driven, php based web application. We have made efforts to get one common layout for all Kidlink pages.
We have built up a different node structure organizing the different nodes under "Centers", like Language Center, Project Center, KidCenter etc. We hope this will improve navigability.
Andrea Simonetti helped us to activate a daily backup system. The backups are done for the database and for the pages in Andreas server. The Board has access to these backups.
- The Kidart Gallery is in http://gallery.menalto.com. We have one login page at www.kidlink.org.
- The Board is looking for alternative solutions for the next Kidlink site that may improve our services further.
Privacy and Security - In April 2009, the KA Board contacted Swedish Data Inspection Board (SDIB, Anders Wiklund) about security issues. SDIB replied asking us to clean-up old registration data, thus keeping registration data only for youth and adults that are active in Kidlink. The KA Board accomplished this during the summer 2009. We had data for about 50,000 users in spring, 2009. After the clean-up, we have about 7000 registered users most of whom joined Kidlink in the last two years. The database is updated continuously.
- SDIB informed us that it is important that user data be kept safe and available only for people working with registration. Only the KA Board is allowed to access user data.
- According to SDIB, it is important to make a distinction between children and teenagers. While children are required to have parental authorization to register for Kidlink, this is not the case for teenagers. But there are no clear rules about this in Sweden. We must judge the registering youth to ensure he/she understands the implications of registering for Kidlink. This is especially important for kids that are 12 years or younger.
- We have changed the permissions of the site so that only Kidlink registered and approved project members who are logged in can look at the youth personal pages (profile/mypage). They only see the nickname, the answers to the four Kidlink questions, and the photos the user has added to that page. Only the KA Board members are able to read the users family name and email.
- We only allow adults to register in Kidlink if they work with children and plan to participate in school projects. We ask them to tell about their work and their Kidlink plans. We also require them to send a personal photo. We think that we have good tools to keep inappropriate adults out from the Kidlink community.
- With the help of Dan Wheeler, we have archived most of the pre 2008 Listserv lists, the registration Response list among others, onto DVD's that now are in custody of the Board members.
- We have done our best to remove illegally uploaded, copyrighted material and informing users to not upload such material.
- Our plans for 2009 included giving users the option of making their Web page content readable only for themselves (e.g. Kidpages), for Kidlink members, or for the world. This has not been accomplished but we plan to implement this next year.
Registration - We have changed the four registration questions. The old Response questions now belong to a separate project found in our site.
The registration questions are now: 1. Who am I? 2. What do I like? 3.What are my dreams? Why? 4. Why am I here in Kidlink?
- We ask the adults to focus on school work and projects in questions 3 and 4: "3. What are my dreams as a teacher or youth assistant? Why?" and "4. Why am I here in Kidlink? About your Kidlink project plans and ideas."
The adults are requested to upload a portrait photo.
- Youth that have difficulties writing are allowed to answer questions 2, 3 and 4 with drawings. So far no children have chosen this option.
- All newly registered are added to the Kidlink Listserv list. All adult registrants are also added to the Kidlink Google group.
- We have held a Registration moderator workshop and written a handbook to help moderators do better work.
Language areas and Kid Centers - We have four active language areas. These are the Italian, Swedish, Spanish and Catalan areas. The new Spanish area is managed by a-LuisP, Mexico. He is working strongly and quickly to reorganize this area. A-DavidD in Spain is taking care of the new Catalan area. A-StellanK is taking care of the Swedish area. A-GraziellaS has continued her successful work with the Italian area.
- We are trying to keep the language area main pages updated with relevant and interesting news for the area.
Youth Engagement - We have tried letting Kidlink youth taking care of the Swedish, English and Italian Kid Centers. The English Kid Center managed by a girl in India had a good success. We have not been able the follow up this work in other language areas.
Projects - Advertising has been done to better promote Kidlink projects through useful websites like e.g. http://www.didaweb.net/informa and http://www.scuolaer.it/
- All Kidlink project pages are now found in Project Centers. Some are found in Language Area Project Centers (Italian, English, Catalan, Svenska, Spanish), some in the "Multilingual area". Old projects are now in the "History area" (archive for old projects). General information is found in the "Tips & Tools Area".
- Work has been done to make projects easier and interesting to participate in with new information, new layout and features. We have updated instructions and help pages in Italian, English and Spanish.
- We restructured WAI project (for the moment Who Am I? and Where do I live?) in English and Italian, soon also in Spanish.
- The Response project is now available for individual kids. All youth are invited to participate in Response through the registration confirmation email and information on the site main page.
- We have restructured the Kidlink Gallery with different albums like "Showcase", "Ecards", "KidArt Competition", etc.
- We have also restructured the Ecard project. Now it's possible to send Ecards directly from the Gallery where they are all stored. A-DomenicoF is the coordinator of this project.
- We have reorganized KidArt. KidArt area is now open and working.
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