"Making A Difference Through Educational Telecommunications"

--A pioneering model of international cooperation in education--

"Making a Difference in the World" is the focus of a global telecommunications network called I*EARN (International Education and Resource Network), open for the first time to schools anywhere in the world. I*EARN builds on the highly successful 5-year pilot telecommunications projects launched by the Copen Family Fund. As part of the unique I*EARN focus, students and teachers will work together with students in 21 countries on educational telecommunications projects designed to make "a meaningful difference in the planet and its people."

Until now I*EARN has been a research project, limited to 400 schools worldwide. As of September 1994, however, it now will be open to all schools throughout the United States and abroad who wish to participate.

Through I*EARN, students and teachers communicate via electronic-mail, on-line conferencing, video-speaker telephones and student exchanges to implement educational projects. Students and teachers gain experience with the Internet superhighway, cross-cultural communication skills and awareness, as well as an enhanced motivation for learning about their world.

I*EARN, a low-cost, not-for-profit educational network, works in collaboration with such organizations as the New York State Education Department, China Central Institute for Educational Research in Beijing, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Argentina Ministry of Education, Alberta Global Education Project, ORT Israel, Onderwifs Computercentrum ABC in Amsterdam, the Copen Family Fund and many other organizations in the United States and abroad.

"I*EARN builds on an existing base of over 400 schools in 21 countries," notes Peter Copen, President of the Copen Family Fund, the foundation which sponsored the creation of the I*EARN pilot project and is now

helping to launch the new open network . "More importantly, thousands of K-12 students and teachers around the world now have the opportunity to join in global interaction and learning through meaningful projects using telecommunications," Mr. Copen added.

Locations participating in the launching of I*EARN include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, England, Finland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, U.S., and the West Bank.

Examples of joint international-student projects include a deforestation treaty, literary anthologies, bringing clean water to Nicaraguan communities, environment studies and activities, news magazines, science projects, Holocaust studies and a study tour to Poland and Israel, cultural studies of heroes, rainforest preservation, a guide to US/Russia joint ventures, and many others. Schools work through one-on-one partnerships or in small cluster groups. They can use suggested "Hello" and "Student Project" outlines which are provided to them in order to to facilitate a structured learning and project development process.

Students and teachers in I*EARN use the global APC Network for both electronic mail and teleconferencing on projects initiated by students and teachers worldwide. All I*EARN participants have direct access to Internet e-mail, gopher, telnet and other research tools. Telecommunications are enhanced by exchanges and by the use of slow-scan video-speaker telephones, giving students and teachers a chance to talk to and see their counterparts in the partnered schools abroad.

I*EARN is based on a highly successful prototype project--The New York State/Moscow Schools Telecommunications Project--initiated in 1988 by the Copen Family Fund, in collaboration with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the New York State Education Department.