Odd De Presono
Profile
Odd de Presno, Kidlink, Norway.
Project Director (CEO). Chairman of The Kidlink Society. Founder.
Abstract
Group: International Group Activity
Speaker: Odd de Presno (opresno@kidlink.org), Kidlink
Kidlink demographics:
Since the start in 1990, 120,000 students up to the age of 15 living in 119 countries have participated in Kidlink's free multilingual educational programs. More than half the participants are girls. Kidlink gives ample room for youth with physical or psychological disadvantages or differences.
Abstract body
Kidlink was born on a dream: By letting students through the age of 15 talk to each others, they will get a direct experience with friends having the common experience of childhood but often in very different circumstances.
By hearing a range of opinions and developing familiarity with different ideas, they can overcome some communication barriers and solve some problems in a more co-operative manner.
We hope that when Kidlink kids become adults, they will take a more global and long-term perspective on issues, rather than acting to maximize local, short-term interests.
Based on this dream, Kidlink's educators have developed a mature approach of motivating students to write and learn. It is based on the realization that curriculum contents can be boring if done outside of context. By letting students work with things close to their own hearts, our projects become creative means for education within
Kidlink has 50 public mailing lists for conferencing, a private network for Real-Time Interactions (chats), and online art exhibition sites. It is operated by 225 volunteers living in 34 countries throughout the world (Kidlink is an non-profit organization). Most of our volunteers are teachers and parents.
Conferencing is done in English, French, German, Hebrew, Icelandic, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Macedonian, Turkish, and Nordic languages (Scandinavia).
Our Japanese language activities started in 1993, five years ago. We have a teacher conference called Kidleader-Japanese, a student conference called Kidcafe-Japanese. Japanese teachers are also participating in our other language areas.
Future plans
This September, we start an eight-month educational program tailormade for European teachers. We hope this program may one day be repeated throughout Asia, in many of the region's languages. If you want it, then we can do it together!
The program builds on Kidlink's most successful educational project experiences, and will have the following contents (see http://www.kidlink.org/kie/nls/teacher.html):
o September-October 1998: :"Who am I?" and "Where do I live?"
o October 24 - December 1998: "What are my rights?"
o November-December 1998: "My friends and family"
o January-February 1999: "What are my roots?"
o March-April 1999: "Virtual Vacation"
In the last module, students reach out towards friends across country and language barriers. The process includes finding qualities of their own homes to attract virtual visitors from other places, and build positive self esteem.
An Asian Who-Am-I? program will be designed to help protect participating languages and cultures, motivate collaboration between students throughout Asia by sharing cultural information, and build friendships across the continent.
Besides being a massive training effort in the use of Internet, the program's main goal remains to help teachers enhance their existing curriculums. This will be achieved by inviting their students to join an exciting program having a meaning that youth find relevant, and by giving them an audience.
Address, e-mail, URL:
Kidlink, Skibevig ringvei 5, 4815 Saltrod, Norway.
Email: kidlink-info@kidlink.org
URL: http://www.kidlink.org
Japanese language activities: Isamu Shimazaki (isamu@imasy.or.jp)
1998.6.23 Update