"I love writing for I*EARN projects I feel so thrilled that many people around the world are reading what I am writing and I preserve all their response" said a grade eight student of Sultan Mohamed Shah Aga Khan School (SMS) -Karachi. I*EARN empowers students to be proactive in issues of democracy, class, gender, human rights, ethnic differences and environmental protections. This is consistent with the educational goals of Aga Khan Schools in Pakistan which clearly emphasize the development of communication, research and problem solving skills to groom all its students to be effective members of the global society.

In fall 1999 the concept of tele-education using I*EARN Projects was introduced to schools in Pakistan by joint collaborative efforts of iEARN-USA and USIA-Pakistan.

The English language teachers of the Sultan Mohamed Shah Aga Khan School in Karachi were the first ones to pilot I*EARN projects in their ESL curricula. David Nunan (1991) cites, "learning to communicate through interaction and sharing of learners' own personal experience as strong characteristics for developing authentic communication in the teaching of ESL/EFL curricula". "... oh Madam just see this, I am so excited this has come for me from Australia, can I write more?", exclaimed a seventh grader bursting into the Head teachers' office holding in her hands a reply to one of her poems she posted online in her in her English language class , for the I*EARN project "Lewin" -a creative writing project. I*EARN projects require a lot of online e-mailing and other forms of writing. Students' contributions are read and responded by real audiences around the world. The presence of a real audience has provided teachers and students a strong reason for linking with language usage outside the classrooms thus making learning a meaningful experience. One eight grade teacher of Sultan Mohamed Shah Aga Khan School

strongly expressed that "students seem to be more in charge of their work", she further elaborated "... the fact that their work would be read and responded by others is surely exciting for them, the sudden outburst of creative writing is amazing". The students who participated in the creative writing project felt that they have a real reason to write and the idea that there would be someone responding to their work has incredibly raised the motivation for writing more. For example, the number of pieces of writing done by one student during an online project is four to five pieces of writings (in the 2nd term), compared to only one essay in the first term when I*EARN had not yet been introduced.

Following the English curriculum in the Sultan Mohamed Shah Aga Khan School, many of the relevant I*EARN online projects have replaced some traditional teaching units of Social Studies and Science, allowing students to carry out extensive research in a collaborative way. The students which wrote research papers for I*EARN projects "Reforming Customs and Traditions" felt a unique experience of learning by extensive class discussions. Group work, critically thinking about social issues and collaborating with communities within and outside the school and world-wide, thus, resulting in learning social studies in a social way, leading themselves to be effective members of a pluriculturist society. A seventh grader of Sultan Mohamed Shah Aga Khan School commented, "... well the research report was just two of pages, but I learnt more than that, I read many books and talked to people and the idea that my work would be on internet is great." She went on and said, "I especially loved working with my class fellows rather than hiding my paper from them like we do in exams."