Annual report 2020 plan 2021

To be approved by the KA AM December 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
  6. What Kidlink Offers
  7. Other Forms and Media
  8. Other Social Networks
  9. Youth Engagement
  10. Projects
  11. The Future of Kidlink

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1. Board Meetings

REPORT 2020
The Board members 2020 are listed in http://www.kidlink.net/index.php/ka-board-2020/ 

The Board had a total of 6 meetings, one meeting every month except in October, 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). In November we started working with the plan for 2021. Board meeting minutes were sent to the members as soon as they were approved by the Board.

The board elected David Greenfield to take over Mary Roenneburgs chair as she was vacant. KA members were informed.

PLAN 2021
The Board will continue its dialog in the private Board group in https://www.facebook.com/groups/ka.board, in Skype and Google meet.
We have a new board meeting calendar with fewer board meetings 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 2020 

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


PLAN 2021

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 2020

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 Sri Lanka, Russia, Pakistan and India involved in our projects.


PLAN 2021 

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

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4. Kidlink Dialog and Documentation

REPORT 2020
We had a  Kidlink dialogue active in the Messenger group “Kidlink World Cafe” that Anil created.
We had an activity in the  FB groups: Kidlink friends /Sri Lanka /Armenia/Russia. together with projects. 

In 2020, we migrated the Wall of Fame information from Drupal to www.kidlink.net.

PLAN 2021

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 Whatsapp groups.

We will continue to manage Facebook groups in several languages and 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 will try to share videos on our youtube channel. www.youtube.com/user/KidlinkProject

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

Our information must be written in a 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

REPORT 2020

During 2016-2020. Kidlink Association has worked with project dialogues including Online dialogues in Kidspace, Facebook and mail.

Read more about these projects in item 10. Projects.

PLAN 2021
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 doesn’t work well as said above.
We will explore how kids can have moderated secure dialogs in Moodle that Manoel and Bonnie plan to use during 2021. If dialogues work there, we should migrate more projects to Moodle.

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 problem. 

We will try Flipgrid for asynchronous project dialog. 

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6. What Kidlink offers

REPORT 2020 

We have installed Moodle on our linode server. 

PLAN 2021 

We continue to explore youth dialog tools for our projects.

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7. OTHER FORMS AND MEDIA

REPORT 2020 

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 the project Schools Around the World. Flipgrid is very easy to use for students and teachers.
Larisa is using Facebook for Doves for Peace.

PLAN 2021 

Manoel, Hugo and Bonnie will work with the Kidlink Moodle during 2021. 

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  gets schools around the world interested in our projects.

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8. OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS

REPORT 2020 

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.

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.

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 2021
We must continue to stay updated with the social media world and will study the alternatives more closely during 2021 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. 

 

 

9.YOUTH ENGAGEMENT

REPORT 2020
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 2021 

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 become manager/s of our old Kid center.

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10. PROJECTS

REPORT 2020  

In 2020, Kidlink managed projects that were run in Kidspace and in FB groups including: :

    1. DD (has been taken over by David Donat and Stellan Kinberg)
      Did not run this year. Is planned to start 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 could not start this project because of Covid Pandemic

 

    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. School Around the world  (FB group with manager Lusine)

 

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

 

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

Doves, GRC, and Moon were presented at the Kidlink conference held in Google meet December 31 November 1.

PLAN 2021
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 Brasil will try to start the  “FAST PLANTS” project. 

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

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11. The Future of Kidlink

Our major participation from 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,  Lucine from Russia and our two teachers from Taiwan. 

We plan to start a Kidlink Academy during 2022. We will run webinars about diffferent issues, e.g. webinar about  education services.

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