To be approved by the KA AM February 2022

 

Contents / Chapters 

1. Board Meetings
2. Kidlink Association Membership and Sponsorship
3. Kidlink Volunteers
4. Kidlink Dialog and Documentation
5. Global Dialog Among the Youth and Youth Engagement
6. What Kidlink Offers
7. Other Forms and Media
8. Other Social Networks
9. Projects
10. The Future of Kidlink

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1. Board Meetings

REPORT 2021
The Board members 2021 are listed in http://www.kidlink.net/index.php/ka-board-2021/ 

The Board had a total of 7 meetings, April, May, June/July, August, October, December and January, starting the first Sunday in asynchronous mode and ending the second Sunday in Skype Board chat or Google Meet at about 18.30 IST (IST=India Standard Time). Board meeting minutes were sent to the members as soon as they were approved by the Board.

The board decided that we shall have an Executive Board (Stellan, Bonnie and Terry), preparing board meetings. This allows us to plan ahead for making the board meeting agendas and support the various Kidlink affairs.

The board discussed how a nonprofit KA could be registered in USA, but we decided that it was too expensive and are keeping the registration In Italy.

Trademark Issue –  We discovered that our trademarked named Kidlink is being used by other organizations. We investigated how to keep others from using our trademark by conferring with an attorney (Gary A. Hecht) of Fox Rothschild LLC in Philadelphia, PA. The answer was that because the other organizarions were using the name for different “goods and services” we could not force them to cease and desist unless we were prepared for long expensive court sessions. We decided that Stellan would mark all Kidlink web pages with information stating that we had been using this trademark since the early 1990s.

PLAN 2022
The Board will continue its dialog in the private Board group in https://www.facebook.com/groups/ka.board, in Skype, Google meet and Zoom.
We would like to test a private Board group in What’s App.
We have a new board meeting calendar for 2022 and better final meetings times, in
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1foCkZ2v-eAq-RqsZCNH3yca_XAZGevPPx8c5krq2JhY/edit?usp=sharing 

We invite kidlink managers to our Kidlink Board meetings when we discuss their projects.

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2. KA- Membership and Sponsorship

REPORT 2021 

Kidlink Association had positive numbers. This year we have maintained low membership fees for low-income countries.

PLAN 2022

We are thankful for the donations given by our Kidlink Association members. Donations allow us to develop our content management system (cms).

We are now thankful that our Canadian technician offers us one hour per month for free.  But we need more technical support and expertise. It would be nice if we could have one registration system for our cms Kidspace, WordPress and Moodle.  We would appreciate it if Kidlink Association members contact the Board with good ideas about how to finance our online services.

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3. Kidlink Volunteers

REPORT 2021

We always need more Kidlink volunteers: to help in moderating projects, to support participants, and to spread Kidlink projects among their colleagues. This year we have had new schools from Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Russia, Pakistan, and India involved in our projects. We reached out to participants during the Kidlink 2021 Online Conference asking for new volunteers to join us.

PLAN 2022 

We need more younger volunteers that can take over the management of the Kidlink Project.

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4. Kidlink Dialog and Documentation

REPORT 2021

Stellan has suggested the creation of a Kidlink Youth Dialog app. This is still in the idea and thinking stage but seems like a step that could be beneficial to more communication among youth within Kidlink projects.

PLAN 2022

Kidlink Friends Day,  November 11 (11/11)
Like the old Kidlink Birthday where we had chats in IRC, we will try to organize a  day where we can have dialogs with our project friends in our project FaceBook groups. Chats can also be organized by the project managers in Skype and What’s App groups. We need a volunteer or organize Kidlink Day in 2022

We will continue to manage Facebook groups in several languages, support the dialog in these groups and give information about our projects.
We will try to be active in our Twitter group https://twitter.com/KidlinkProject
We need someone to manage the Twitter group.
We will try to share videos on our youtube channel. www.youtube.com/user/KidlinkProject

All information about Kidlink and its projects is published in www.kidlink.net. We must check that the information is updated and correct. 

Our information must be written in English with a high readability index, so that Google translate and similar online translation services can make readable translations.

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5. Global dialog among the youth
and Youth engagement

REPORT 2021

During 2016-2021. Kidlink Association has worked with project dialogues including Online dialogues in KidSpace, Facebook and mail.
Bonnie has successfully used Padlet for successful asynchronous communication between teachers and students.
Other Kidlink Leaders have used Flipgrid for asynchronous project dialog.
In DD comments were made Google drive and linked in KidSpace. 

Read more about these projects in item 10. Projects.

We are still having a hard time finding good youth leaders, that are willing to help out with the youth committee and in the board meetings. 

PLAN 2022
AofA Article 3 says about Kidlink Association, “Its purpose is to promote a global dialogue among the youth of the world….  The Association emphasizes online communication, but also supports communications in other forms and media.
Kidlink does not have tools to allow kids to dialog between them. KidSpace is the only communication tool we own and can control, but it was designed to be asynchronous. 
Kids can have moderated secure dialogs in Moodle, however project leaders need to plan and open the chat when they want to use it.  To have  open dialogues work in Moodle, we need a volunteer to be a responsible moderator.
Stellan is in contact with a Swiss professor about having his students write a Kidlink Smartphone app for kids who are active in our projects.  To participate kids will need to be officially recognized as Kidlink students.

We invite and help our teachers to connect their students within the projects in a safe way. With time and patience, we will find solutions to our problems. 

We will continue to use Flipgrid and Padlet for asynchronous project dialog.

We think about informing project students about the possibility to become a Kidlink volunteer helping us to achieve the goals in article 13,“to promote a global dialogue among the youth of the world”, for example. It would be nice to have a studen/s create. replace, and manage an application that would replace our old Kid center. Perhaps this could be included as part of the new Kidlink Smartphone app.

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6. What Kidlink offers

REPORT 2021 

We have installed Moodle on our linode server.
Bonnie has Padlet working well for dialogues between students and teachers.  Teachers manage student exchanged comments each much like they did KidSpace. 

PLAN 2022 

We continue to explore youth dialog tools for our projects.
We will discuss and possibly install WordPress CMS for Projects and dialogue. WPCMS could run our server and use the same user database as Kidlink.net.

We have looked at United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS), https://sdgs.un.org/goals and would like to have them recognized within our projects. The image for this will be added into our project center. How are we helping/supporting Children of the World with our projects?

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7. OTHER FORMS AND MEDIA

REPORT 2021 

We had two Zoom sessions. At the first session, we talked about the Moon festival in Taiwan with ChienWei and Claire and had a Padlet workshop with Bonnie. At the second session, we had a Padlet workshop with Bonnie, Anil, and David G. Anil talked about Spark Adobe.

Bonnie has made tests using Moodle. Messenger has been used as a communication tool between project managers and participating teachers. Bonnie has used Moodle chat with some students in her projects. 

Flipgrid has often been used by Lusine in her project “Schools Around the World.” Flipgrid is very easy to use for students and teachers.
Larisa is using Facebook for “Doves for Peace”; Terry is using Facebook and Kidlink.net for “Landmark”.

PLAN 2022 

Manoel, Hugo and Bonnie will work with the Kidlink Moodle during 2022. 

While protecting the security and privacy of our youth, good examples of student work will be made visible by the project managers in our project information pages in www.kidlink.net and in Kidspace at www.kidlink.org. Good examples of work completed in Kidlink are used to encourage interest in schools around the world to be interested in our projects.

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8. OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS

REPORT 2021 

Not all students and teachers are using FaceBook. Teachers in Russia use https://vk.com  and https://ok.ru/  that are very popular and growing. Some teachers used Twitter chats. An example is called #worldgeochat. We did not do a Twitter chat for Kidlink in 2021.

Pinterest is also important social media. The account http://www.pinterest.com/kidlink  was created by Joyce in 2014 and has been used by four followers with 47 likes. Google plus has been discontinued.

Instagram seems to be widely used in Europe. Current Kidlink projects did not use Instagram in 2021.

Padlet is also being used widely for sharing work and making comments.  Bonnie will be using Padlet in Moodle as part of the sharing in Moon Over Us.  The social media world is not limited to FaceBook.

Kidlink FaceBook closed groups are:

“Kidlink friends /Pakistan” moderated by Anil.

“Kidlink friends /India” moderated by Anil.

“Landmark” moderated by Terry

Read more about the projects in 10. Projects

PLAN 2022
We must continue to stay updated with the social media world and will study the alternatives more closely during 2022 and maybe find ways to deal with the variety of options.

Twitter   We have a Kidlink Twitter account “@KidlinkProject”. Twitter edu chats are big in USA. We should have a discussion in the board meeting about how a Twitter chat might be done – and decide if this helps Kidlink.  We need a moderator for our Twitter account.

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9. PROJECTS

REPORT 2021  

In 2021, Kidlink managed projects that were run in Kidspace and in FB groups including: :

1. 1. DD (has been taken over by David Donat and Stellan Kinberg)
       Started in January 2021.
   2. Doves for Peace  (FB group with manager Larisa),
      youth created paper works, wrote messages on them and sent these with ordinary post to other participating schools.

• Fast plant
  Manoel will start this project again in 2022 – it had been delayed because of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

1. 1. Landmark Game  (FB group with manager Terry),
      Landmark Game with Terry as manager like  Doves for Peace with Larisa have been great successes. . These 2 projects have their descriptions and instructions in the Kidlink website www.kidlink.net, but they took place only in FB private groups. Many schools from all over the world participated.
   2. Schools Around the world (SAW( (FB group with manager Lusine) – SAW has had great success with Lucine’s promotions and presentations and guidance for the project.

• Global Reading Club. Larisa (Russia) and Hugo (Mexico) started this project during 2020 and it continued into 2021.

Our Project Managers have documented part of the Facebook work in Kidspace and www.kidlink.net.

Doves, GRC, Landmark, Fast Plants, and Moon Over Us were presented at the Kidlink conference held in Google meet October 16 and October 17. Larissa was unable to attend because of illness, so a participant of Doves gave the presentation.

PLAN 2022
We plan to have a new Kidlink conference with better recording of project presentations.

We will elaborate rules for reminding procedures and Rules for Awarding certificates
We will try again to find a manager for Kidart .

Manoel in Brazil will try to start the  “FAST PLANTS” project. 

Bonnie, USA, will encourage participation in “Moon Over Us” starting Jan. 7.

Stellan will do his best to re-write the project “Response”.  It will be available for all interested  teachers.

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10. The Future of Kidlink

This needs to be re-written and include a more positive statement.

We need to look up WPCMS and have it added to our WP at Kidlink.net. One Idea that came out of the last two board imeetings was Kidlink Academy.

We also need to talk about executive board changes.

We have poor participation in Australia, New Zealand, South America and Europe with participation in Asia is really growing. To secure a long life for Kidlink it is important that we continue our work, the successful work done by leaders like Larisa and Lucine. 

We must continue to look for new projects and advertise our Kidlink projects as much as possible to new continents and areas, like South America, Africa, Middle East and Australia.

We must  talk about our projects in conferences, articles and workshops all over the world.

Some of the Kidlink projects are very popular thanks to the active coordinators who keep the teachers updated and share experiences at conferences and workshops. Conferences and diplomas for achievements are important and have to be developed.  We have to make Kidlink visible in Global teachers network.