The mission of Schools Online is to help students gain access and use the communication and information resources of the Internet for learning and cross-cultural dialogue.

Schools Online helps accomplish this by: providing appropriate technology and Internet access facilitating teacher professional development cultivating online educational and cross-cultural projects developing locally-driven and sustainable Internet Learning Centers sharing our knowledge and experience.

CIVICS is one of many iEARN-Schools Online collaborations. Another is the GEMS Program, which was created on the idea that schools actively involved in collaborative project work on the Internet with minimal resources would be able to dramatically increase the number of students engaged in Project-Based Learning if Internet Learning Centers, effective connectivity and teacher training could be provided. The GEMS Program is already having a dramatic impact. Working with an initial six schools in six pilot countries-- Argentina, China, India, Macedonia, Russia and Spain and South Africa, after only two months the number of students engaged in project work in the entire country has increased by an average of 200%.