Ryan Hanson (10), USA

The KIDS-94 Newsletter
A Global Dialog for Children 10-15 Years

Issue number 1. September 3, 1993

Note: Throughout this newsletter, references are made to various KIDLINK archive files. An index of files, as well as instructions about how to get them, are given in Section 9: "New Documents and Files."

1. "Eu quero ser dentista ou medica"

The goal of KIDS-94 is to get as many 10-to-15-year-old children as possible involved in a GLOBAL dialog continuing until May 7th 1994.
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 now received answers to these questions from 51 countries around the world. Here are some recent responses:

** From Montevideo, Uruguay **
My name is Nicolas Marichal. Y am eleven years old. Y live in Montevieo Uruguay.
When Y grow up Y want to be football player. I like the world would have no war bite for good and no contamination for animals.
The ting I can do now is not to thrwo papers to the floor, and talk with all to the importat to the life and the peace.

** From Brazil (in Portuguese) **
Eu sou a Anne Thays, uma menina que estuda no Aplicacao, na sexta serie. Eu quero ser dentista ou medica.
Como eu quero que o mundo seja melhor quando crescer? Sem poluicao, com mais arvores e menos ladroes.
O que eu posso fazer agora para que isso aconteca? Botar os ladroes na cadeia e prender os homens que cortam as arvores.

2. New Portuguese language forums

KIDLINK's first special language forum opened on May 30 this year. KIDCAFEP is a Portuguese language mailing list for kids 10 - 15 years of age.
On July 8 came the KIDLEADP mailing list. It is a Portuguese language meeting place for teachers, coordinators, parents, social workers, and others interested in KIDS-94.
Pedro Falcao Goncalves (pfalcao@IBASE.BR) is moderating the two new forums. He lives in Brazil, and works in the Departamento de Informatica e Matematica Aplicada, Centro de Ciencias Exatas e Naturais at the Universidade Federal de Alagoas in Maceio.
The two forums already have many members from Portuguese speaking countries like Brazil and Portugal, as well as from Spanish speaking countries.

3. Other special language forums wanted

KIDLINK also wants to have KIDCAFE and KIDLEADR forums in other languages. We are currently discussing the possibility of setting up Japanese, Italian, Spanish, and Scandinavian language forums with other volunteers.
If you want to get involved, please contact Odd de Presno (at opresno@extern.uio.no). We are also interested in having forums in languages not listed above. For more information, retrieve the file KIDLINK NEW-LIST.
Talking about languages, this message from KIDCAFE shows what we are up against:

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993
From: Marc Erickson <Marc.Erickson@p3.f155.n633.z3.fidonet.org>
Subject: To anyone in China

~{Dc!!:C#,NR!!5D!!C{!!WS!!JG!!Bm!!?K!#
~{NR!!J.R;!!Kj!#
~{NR!!TZ!!8q!!@<!!5B!!6p!!P!!!Q'!!6A!!Ji!#
~{NR!!=q!!Dj!!IO!!Ne!!Dj!!<6!!!#
~{
~{
~{NR!!O2!!;6!!4r!!@:!!Gr!#
~{NR!!TZ!!UR!!R;!!N;!!;a!!K5!!::!!So!!5D!!1J!!SQ!#
~{!!Hg!!9{!!Dc!!T-!!Rb!!8z!!NR!!Wv!!1J!!SQ#,8x!!NR!!;X!!PE!#~}

Did you get that?
Probably not. Chinese characters are usually encoded in GuoBiao or Big5 codes. They will not display on your screen unless you have special software.
We have a similar problem with our planned Japanese language KIDLEADR and KIDCAFE forums. Here, JIS codes will be used when sending messages in kanji over the net.
The Scandinavians want their beloved special characters. The Russians want their characters, and so on. In the years to come, we are likely to learn a lot about conversion codes, special language computer operating systems, and other tricks needed to send, receive and display such special characters.

4. "Travelling In the World" in KIDFORUM

KIDFORUM is set up to promote exchanges between classroom groups of students on topics related to the KIDLINK themes (based on the four KIDLINK questions). Through this forum, it is easier for teachers to have whole classes participate in KIDLINK.
Between September 10 and October 31, the topic is "Travelling In the World - a virtual vacation". Mary Esborn from Baldwin and Adams Middle Schools, Guilford, CT, USA, will be the moderator. (Write to: baldwint@biomed.med.yale.edu)
Mary describes it as being "a way to visit other countries in the world without leaving home!" A full description is given in the file KIDFORUM FORUM993.
While you wait for the file, here's the Travel topic's First Step for Participating Kids:

Write a descriptive essay about your area and send it to the KidForum list. Some things you might want to include are: the global address (longitude and latitude) of the place, population, population density and any other interesting facts.
Describe the things you like to do, places you like to go, any landmarks, famous people that might come from your area, and any historic events that may have taken place in or near your area.
Plan a 3 day visit for guests your own age. Where would you take them? What would you feed them?

This is just the first step. The real fun starts in Step Two. . .
Talking about fun, the "Cost of living" topic gave interesting insights into what kids feel is important in their lives. Under "Basic needs", they listed food, water, shoes, and shirt, and other "essentials", like:
Air, bushes, cereal, chips, cleanliness, family, hamburger sandwich, hammer, love, pop, toilet, and wife to cook and clean.
KIDFORUM's July/August topic was "A Day in My Life." The students wrote an essay about what their day is like from the time they get up in the morning until they go to sleep at night. They wrote about what they eat, how they play, how they work, even the smallest detail, and more. Mary A. Esborn was the moderator.

5. KIDLINK over Ham Radio in October

If you're into Amateur Radio, mark off October 4th through 8th in your calendar, and start preparing. The HAM KIDLINK event will be an ideal opportunity to introduce KIDLINK over amateur radio with the aim of establishing an amateur radio club in the school.
Coordinator Peter Daly in England says:
"A school can participate in HAM KIDLINK by using any of the ham communication modes. Some use a small VHF Packet station while others, who prefer vocal communication, install tempory HF beams and run HF DX voice."
"HAM KIDLINK runs over 5 school days. This allows for antenna erection over previous weekend, as well as replies to be made to packet messages, before antennas are taken down the following weekend."
For information, retrieve the file KIDPROJ HAMOCT93, or write Peter at peted@gn.apc.org .
Peter can also be reached through Amprnet as g0gte.ampr.org <44.131.19.119>, and through Ham Pkt as g0gte@gb7spv.#33.gbr.eu . The event will be coordinated through the KIDPROJ mailing list.

6. New interactive information service

Thanks to Duquesne University (U.S.A.), KIDLINK now offers two new interactive services:

• The KIDLINK Gopher is a subject-oriented menu system that provides easy access to information about KIDLINK to those connected to the Internet.
• Our IRC (Internet Relay Chat) service is a worldwide "classroom system" that allows students and teachers to converse in real time.

The first intriguing test of the IRC took place on May 24th, when teacher Mike Burleigh in England took Patti Weeg's class (in the U.S.A.) "for a ride" around the London borough of Richmond.
A report from this very exciting experiment is available from the LISTSERV as KIDLEADR IRCTOUR1, and on the KIDLINK Gopher under the 'KIDLINK in the Classrooms' menu.
This quick glance at the dialog should give you a feeling for what the event was all about:

<mikeb> it is early evening and it is still quite light so we will be able to see all the things we talk about
<mikeb> can you find my home on the map...
<PattiW> great!
<PattiW> yes!!!! We have it marked
<mikeb> look in the bottom left corner
<PattiW> we're looking...
<PattiW> got it
<mikeb> OK I will jumpp in my car and we will drive down hurst road ...heading east
<PattiW> we've got our markers nad are ready to mark our maps
<mikeb> have you all gotour compasses?
<PattiW> yes, we have our compasses
<mikeb> Ok its only a few minutes down the road and there isn't much traffic
<PattiW> we are looking

Got the idea?
KIDLINK teachers wanting to use the IRC for lessons should coordinate with Mark L. Hunnibell at HUNNIBELL@delphi.com .
For more information about the IRC System or the Gopher, get the files GOPHER, IRCSERVR, and IRCHELP1 from the KIDPLAN archive. There are also plans to make other interactive features available from this service.

7. Sponsors

Duquesne University, Center for Communication and Information Technology, Pittsburg, PA, U.S.A. is sponsoring KIDLINK with a Gopher/IRC service. The service runs on a dedicated IBM RT, and the sponsorship includes maintenance, and T1 network connectivity. Value: US$ 10,350 per year.
The Icelandic Educational Network supports Lara Stefansdottir's local Kidlink activities during the coming school year. Value 10.000 Norwegian Krones. The support also covers bringing Kidlink into the courses that the network has for teachers about computer communication in the classroom.

8. Around KIDLINK

The KIDLINK Celebration in May was great fun, and site reports have been received from all over the world. The reports can be retrieved by email from the KIDPLAN library (see below).
In KIDPROJ, Elsmere Elementary School (U.S.A.) coordinated a popular project named "Where in the World is The Mystery Elementary School?". The students were to identify the geographic location of several mystery schools around the world. Each had a portfolio of clues, that were artistic, scientific, mathematical, historical, geographic, and cultural in nature. Great fun!
From New Zealand came a success story, well worth sharing with all of you:
"A local school has a very good program run by a mother who acts a computer support person. She has a 6 step program for the kids (who are intermediate age 10-13)

1. Learn to log in locally (they use WAFFLE, for mail)
2. Mail someone in the class
3. Join a list (RESPONSE or KIDCAFE, or both)
4. Respond to RESPONSE. (the 4 Q's)
5. Join KIDCAFE
6. Mail a penpal found in KIDCAFE

This seems to take them most of the year as they also do other local stuff on their PCs."

The KINDEX and KINDEXW services where closed down. These services are now delivered by the LISTSERV directly. For information about the current capabilities, read about the "SET <list name> INDEX" command in the KIDLINK TIPS file.
The KIDNEWS mailing list, a newsletter subscription service, was opened this summer (see below).
This spring, Dan Wheeler taught an introductory course on research methods for graduate students at the College of Education in Cincinnati (U.S.A.) His students did some interesting research on participation in KIDCAFE. Dan's report is in the file KIDPLAN RESRCH01.
Lisa Fuller, who recently graduated with a B.A. majoring in Psychology in the Division of Arts and Sciences (Miami University, U.S.A.), also researched KIDCAFE messages. Her paper is available from the LISTSERV as KIDPLAN RESRCH02.
Oh well, this may not be big news, but I thought that you would enjoy the following:

My Chapter 1 students are the 'modest achievers' of the schools. Their self esteem is low because they rarely meet with academic success. KIDLINK has made them proud! Receiving electronic mail makes them feel important.
I have also included students from both of my schools who have identified learning disabilities. I dare you to pick them out! <grin> Telecom is such an equalizer. We are people with ideas expressed in text on a screen. Anything else we wish to share about ourselves is our choice.
One of my students beamed as he realized during the IRC that his physical disability was invisible to the other participants. This is the magic of telecom! ...the magic of the KIDLINK family.
Patti Weeg (pweeg@source.asset.com)

During the June 1993 European conference on the "Use of Databases and Telecommunications in Education", Claus Berg (Denmark) edited a special KIDLINK Newsletter for the participants. The full text of this special issue can be retrieved as KIDLINK SNEKKER.
Here's what Helmut Rogge from the Deutche Schule, Hadersleben in Denmark, said to the newsletter:
....Probleme bringt natuerlich auch die Sprache mit sich: der Adressatenkreis ist doch sehr eingeschraenkt, wenn man auf Deutch kommunizieren moechte. Noch, denn die Ausbreitung der Europa sind 100 Millionen Menschen deutchsprachig, ganz zu schweigen vom europaeischen Osten, wo Deutch oftmals 1. Fremdsprache ist....
....Nun, unser erstes Jahr mit KIDLINK ist fast rum. Und trotz aller Widrigkeiten: Es macht Spass und ist faszinierend. Die Schueler sind sehr motiviert, und einige haben begonnen, sich mit Schuelern anderer Laender auch privat zu schreiben. Damit scheint dann wohl auch das Hauptziel erreicht zu sein: Voelkerverstaendigung, denn die muss hier beginnen, bei unseren Kindern. Durch das Kennenlernen und Kontakte knuepfen mit anderen Anschauungen, Einstelungen, Mentalitaeten, Sprachen, Kulturen, eine Offenheit in unseren Schuelern heranbahnen lassen, die sie neugierig auf "Fremdes" werden laesst und sie in die Lage versetzt, dies zu akzeptieren und als Bereicherung in unser aller Dasein zu begreifen.
If you read Deutch, then I guess you understand why we want two German language forums!
By the way, most of the newsletter is in English. You will enjoy reading it.

9. New Documents and Files

These are new or updated files available by e-mail from our various archives. They are also made available through the KIDLINK Gopher.

KIDLINK GENERAL		What is KIDS-94?
KIDLINK GENERALP		O que e' o KIDLINK / KIDS-94? (Portuguese)
KIDLINK MASTER		List of the most important files
KIDLINK CONTACTS		People to contact about KIDS-93
KIDLINK TIPS		Practical tips about using KIDLINK
KIDLINK INDEXHLP		How to use INDEX, /SHIP, and DIGEST
KIDLINK SOCIETY		Organization Overview
KIDLINK DUES		Society Membership Form
KIDLINK NATIONS		Countries participating in KIDLINK
KIDLINK SPONSORS		KIDLINK SPONSORS
KIDLINK PEOPLE		KIDS-94 People
KIDLINK SASHA		Speech about Networks in Education
KIDLINK SNEKKER		Snekkersten newsletter
KIDLINK NEWS593		KIDS-93 Newsletter #5
KIDLINK PROJINFO		Approval of KIDPROJ projects
KIDLINK NEW-LIST		About setting up special language KIDLINK forums
KIDFORUM FORUM993		KIDFORUM's topic for September and October
KIDPROJ HAMOCT93		The October HAM KIDLINK event announcement
KIDPLAN GOPHER		The KIDS Gopher Server
KIDPLAN IRCSERVR		How to access the KIDS IRC
KIDPLAN IRCHELP1		How to use IRC
KIDPLAN SHOW93		KIDLINK presentation for MS-DOS computers
KIDPLAN SITEK93H		KIDS-93 Celebration Ham Report
KIDPLAN SITEK93R		KIDS-93 Celebration Report Index
KIDPLAN SITEK931		KIDS-93 Celebration Reports #1
KIDPLAN SITEK932		KIDS-93 Celebration Reports #2
KIDPLAN SITEK933		KIDS-93 Celebration Reports #3
KIDPLAN SITEK934		KIDS-93 Celebration Reports #4
KIDPLAN SITEK935		KIDS-93 Celebration Reports #5
KIDPLAN SITEK936		KIDS-93 Celebration Reports #6
KIDPLAN SITEK937		KIDS-93 Celebration Reports #7
KIDPLAN SITEK938		KIDS-93 Celebration Reports #8
KIDPLAN RESRCH01		KIDCAFE Research by Dan Wheeler's Class
KIDPLAN RESRCH02		KIDCAFE Research by Lisa Fuller
KIDPLAN OPRESNO		Who is Odd de Presno?
KIDLEADR IRCTOUR1		Tour of London on the KIDLINK IRC (93.5.24)
KIDLEADR CHINAREP		Mark Hunnibell's report of Beijing Visit

To retrieve files from the list above, send an email message to LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU (or LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 on BITNET). The TEXT portion of your message should include the GET command for the file(s) you want to receive. It will look like this:

GET KIDLINK GENERAL
GET KIDLINK MASTER
GET KIDPLAN GOPHER

A number of new art creations has been made available through the KIDART archive, the KIDLINK Gallery of Computer Art. The library contains over 140 files. For a list of current offerings, send a message to the LISTSERV containing the following line: INDEX KIDART
These pictures are also available from the KIDLINK Gopher.

10. KIDS-94

is a project run by a non-profit organization called the KIDLINK Society. It started on May 9, and will continue until May 7 1994. Most of the dialog between the kids is based on electronic mail.
While the KIDLINK mailing list is an announcement service, the KIDLEADR, KIDLEADP, KIDPROJ, and KIDPLAN forums are meeting places for teachers, parents and other persons involved with the KIDS-94 project.
KIDS-94 operates the following forums for 10 - 15 year old youngsters:

RESPONSE		where the children send their personal introductions (their responses to the four introductory questions)
KIDCAFE		where they can 'talk' about anything they like
KIDCAFEP		Portuguese language KIDCAFE.
KIDFORUM		for exchanges between classroom groups of students.

To join KIDLINK through the Internet, send the command SUB KIDLINK Yourname to LISTSERV@vm1.NoDak.EDU. (Replace "Yourname" with your real name.) Put the command in the BODY of the text.
Our discussion forums 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 KIDCAFE, KIDCAFEP, and KIDFORUM.
A 130+ picture slide show about KIDS-94 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 retrieve the slide show by Anonymous FTP. For details, send a message to the LISTSERV containing the following command: GET KIDLINK KIDSHOW
The KIDS-94 newsletter is an information bulletin for teachers, participants, sponsors, mediators, promoters, and others. Suggestions and contributions are invited.
The newsletters are distributed through the KIDNEWS mailing list, and the KIDLINK announcement service. Subscribe to KIDNEWS by sending email to the LISTSERV with the command "SUB KIDNEWS Your-full-name" in the text of your mail. (Please use your real name instead of "Your-full-name".)

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

If you want to help out with KIDS-94, or participate, contact the editor, or write to kidlink-info@vm1.nodak.edu
You can also contact one of our local contact persons around the world for information. For a list of contact persons, retrieve the file KIDLINK CONTACTS.
KIDS-94 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 ...