iEARN-USA works with educational, youth service, relief and development organizations, agencies, and institutions to build a network of opportunities for young people to work together on programs that make meaningful difference in the planet and its people. Below is a list of current and past programs.

BRIDGE - Building Respect through Internet Dialogue and Global Education. Launched in the summer of 2002, the BRIDGE Project is focused on building links between students and teachers around the world. As part of the program, iEARN has built a community of over 800 schools involved in collaborative thematic online project activities and exchange partnerships. In cooperation with the US Department of State, ministries of education, and NGOs, iEARN has expanded Internet connectivity in order to link schools worldwide, provided online and face-to-face professional development programs for educators, conducted a series of international conferences for teachers, and supported thematic three-week exchange visits to the United States in which participants are hosted by their American counterparts. A highlight in2005 is be the launch of the first World Youth News Wire Service in collaboration with the Daniel Pearl Foundation. As part of this project, iEARN is able to provide Arabic-learning software donated by Rosetta Stone. iEARN works to supplement educational reform in each of its participating countries, which include: Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, UAE, Bahrain, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the United States. Teachers from Algeria, Bangladesh, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen are participating in related iEARN programs.

School Connectivity for Uzbekistan Program. Working in partnership with IREX, iEARN-US and iEARN-Uzbekistan are helping to coordinate a program to bring e-education to secondary schools in six regions across Uzbekistan through online professional development, a master trainer seminar in October 2004 in New York City, and teacher exchange visits to enhance collaboration between schools in Uzbekistan and the US. Teachers in Uzbekistan created posters for their US counterpart classes and are working on joint projects such as Learning Democracy through International Collaboration, Comfort Quilts, Get to Know Others, YouthCaN, Side By Side, Breaking Stereotypes Together, and the PEARL Project - a world youth news wire service.

Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger is a global education initiative founded by FAO, World Bank, UNESCO, AFT, NEP, iEARN and others to help youth discuss and understand issues of hunger, malnutrition, poverty and food security and to stimulate them to participate in activities to create a world free from hunger. Locally developed lesson plans and materials are used to help each community address its own problems; teachers are invited to submit lessons generated in their specific classes for use by other teachers.

Friendship through Education. In October of 2001, with the support of the US Department of Education, iEARN brought together a consortium of organizations (UN CyberSchoolbus, ePALS, Global Schoolnet, iEARN, NetAid, Worldwise Schools, People to People, Schools Online, Sister Cities, US Fund for UNICEF ) committed to creating opportunities that facilitate interactions between youth worldwide. The goal of FTE is to provide US schools with expanded opportunities to connect globally, focusing initially on links between US students and those in predominantly Muslim countries. Former Secretary Paige has commended the program, saying "I'm delighted that so many schools here in the United States and abroad have responded to the president's call, and I encourage every school to get involved in this important and rewarding project." As part of this initiative, FTE received a $3 million donation of software to assist in learning Arabic language from Rosetta Stone in 1,000 US schools

Laws of Life. In 1999, iEARN-USA launched a student essay initiative which is supported by the John Templeton Foundation called the Laws of Life Essay Project. In this project students submit essays on personal impressions of the values that have helped shape their lives. Students will write in English, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, as well as in other languages.

Linking Individuals, Knowledge and Culture (LINC) - The US-Jordan Youth Technology Leaders Program - A program to train high school students in Jordan and the USA to be technology assistants for schools in their community. The initiative is being launched by iEARN-Jordan and iEARN-USA, in partnership with MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education), which pioneered such a program in the New York City area. NYC students (Mouse Squads) will travel with an advisor to Jordan for three weeks in 2005, train Jordanian students and experience Jordanian culture. Similarly, Jordanian students will spend 3 weeks in New York City receiving training so that they can return to Amman to provide assistance to Jordanian teachers and others in their school communities, as well as train new Squads in the future. AYUSA (http://www.ayusa.org) will facilitate the student exchanges. This project is funded by the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the US State Department.

Media Mosaic Project. iEARN is working in partnership with The Center for Media Literacy, Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and Worldlink TV to provide students with tools to become better informed world citizens, with an appreciation not only of the various concerns of others, but also with a critical understanding of media’s role in shaping and addressing those concerns.

Moving Voices. On March 15th, 2004, classrooms in 16 different countries and five US states began work as pioneers of MovingVoices, a new iEARN program to explore and establish the cultural and educational benefits of making and sharing original student-made films via the World Wide Web. Support for the first year pilot is being provided by the US Department of Education as part of its “Friendship Through Education” program, Advanced Network Services, and the Longview Foundation. In-kind support is also being provided by Apple Computer® and Victor Company of Japan (JVC), through their regional subsidiaries around the world.

PEARL World Youth News. An initiative to create a unique international news service run by secondary school students from around the world. Adhering to the highest journalistic standards, participating students will select the issues to be reported, and write, edit and publish their articles on a web-based news service called PEARL World Youth News. iEARN schools will be able to print articles from the online news service to add a global component to their local publications. Co-sponsored by the Daniel Pearl Foundation, this project aims to take students beyond becoming media literate into becoming international correspondents for student publications. Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan, used journalism and music to connect people of diverse backgrounds. His skills as a foreign correspondent and his commitment to promoting understanding have inspired this initiative. The program involves schools worldwide under the leadership of a team of editor schools: Managing Editor: Spokane Valley High School (Washington, USA); News Editors: Habib Girls School (Karachi, Pakistan), Aga Khan School, (Gilgit, Pakistan); Features Editors: Valley International School (Broumana, Lebanon); Commentary Editors: Gymnasium Parvoz (Ferghana, Uzbekistan); Entertainment Editors: Dr Beheshti Boys High School (Rasht, Iran) and Ardeshiri Girls High School (Rasht, Iran).

World Education Corps, iEARN and Oxford University partner to create a Global Education Technology Corps. As part of the program, iEARN Coordinators in 10 countries will recruit the first participants in the newly created World Education Corps (WEC) -- an innovative program through which volunteers to serve for a year in one of 10 initial countries in the field of digital technologies in education. The initial 10 countries are Jordan, India, Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, Pakistan, China, USA, Nigeria and South Africa. All exchanges of volunteers will be two-directional in this non-governmental initiative and, therefore, may involve Ugandans serving in India and Pakistanis serving in Ghana, etc. Seed funding has been provided by Jim Martin, one of the earliest visionaries of how technology would impact the lives of people throughout the world. In 1977, Jim Martin wrote "The Wired Society," in which he predicted the widespread use of personal computers and Internet, long before either existed. His new book, "The Meaning of the 21st Century" is to be published in 2005--the year that the first WEC volunteers receive their orientation at Kellogg College at Oxford University and then arrive in their host countries to start their year of service. The WEC will cover all expenses of transportation, room, board and a stipend for each volunteer. For information:on the WEC: http://www.worldeducationcorps.org.

Yemen Connectivity. The purpose of the program is to connect schools in Yemen to the Internet in order to 1) improve teachers' ability to facilitate student-centred lessons, including inquiry teaching and cooperative learning, throught the use of the Internet to connect with peers in Yemen, the region, and the US; 2) improve student learning by allowing Yemeni students, and girls in particular, to do research, access information, share information with and learn from other students in Yemen, the region, and the US; and 3) assess the impact of the use of the Internet as a teaching and learning tool in the selected schools in Yemen.

The YES Program. A program for secondary school students from Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, West Bank/Gaza, Egypt, Kuwait, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia to spend up to one academic year in the US. iEARN is partnering with a number of other organizations, including AMIDEAST, ASSE, Close Up Foundation, and Sister Cities International to enhance the program through ongoing online project partnerships among participating schools.As part of the program, participating students exchange experiences via iEARN cyber-diaries. Through a donation from Rosetta Stone, software for learning Arabic is donated to schools hosting YES students.

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Past Programs

The Armenia School Connectivity Program. In partnership with Project Harmony, iEARN developed and facilitated a 7-day professional development workshop for Armenian educators in Vermont in October of 2003, followed up by a 9-week online iEARN professional development course.

The After School Program. Working with the Open Society Institute in New York and the "The After School Corporation," iEARN teamed up with New York University to implement an innovative afterschool program at PS 123 in Harlem, New York City, to integrate on-line projects on the elementary school level.

Alliance for Global Learning (AGL). iEARN-USA partnered with Schools Online and the World Links for Development program in 1999 to create the Alliance for Global Learning, a five-year, $30 million initiative to build sustainable models for school networking in developing countries and to address the inequities in access to technology and the Internet. The Alliance has been featured in the New York Times and Wired News.

Alliance For Global Learning United States-Africa HIV/AIDS Initiative. The AGL sponsored this initiative with the support of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. The goal is to expand and develop a model of Internet-based HIV/AIDS education with U.S. and African schools and support a dynamic and meaningful HIV/AIDS education dialogue among U.S. and African educators and students and their peers worldwide. The basis of the project is the HIV/AIDS Collaborative Learning Project of World Links.The United Negro College Fund Special Programs Corporation and Metro TeenAIDS are facilitating the participation of U.S. schools in this project.

American Red Cross. iEARN-USA has worked with the ARC and Red Cross organizations in other countries to mobilize young people for relief projects.

Balkan Voices - The Balkans in Our Eyes. Working in partnership with the Open Society Institute, iEARN facilitated a new project under its Balkans Voices Program. The goal of the The Balkans in Our Eyes Project was to establish on-line and face-to-face interaction and collaboration among students and teachers in the Balkan and neighboring countries. Through this project, a guide to the history and culture of the Balkans, "The Balkans in Our Eyes" and a WWW site was developed on cross-cultural interaction and Respect.

Community Voices, Collaborative Solutions (CIVICS). In 1999, iEARN-USA launched CIVICS to enable ESL/EFL teachers in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to work together online with their U.S. counterparts to discuss and help their students take action on pressing community issues.

Clean Communities. In 2000, the Youth Programs Division of Department of State selected iEARN-USA to conduct the U.S.-Belarus Clean Communities exchange program, which was part of YouthCaN.

DEEP (The Democracy Education Exchange Program - an International Educational Exchange Program, funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement and administered by a consortium of nonprofit organizations: The American Forum, Inc., Center for Global Change (Indiana University), Center for the Study of Global Change (Harvard University), Close Up Foundation, Constitutional Rights Foundation, Constitutional Rights Foundation, Council of Chief State School Officers, iEARN, Mid-America Center, Social Science Educational Consortium, and Street Law, Inc.

Discovery Channel. I*EARN-USA and the Discovery Channel School co-sponsor "China: Building Cultural Bridges," an exploration of Chinese culture through broadcast media and an interaction among teachers in China, US and other countries on topics of mutual interest.

GEMS. At the 2000 iEARN Annual Conference in Beijing, China, iEARN-USA and Schools Online launched GEMS, one of the largest educational technology initiatives ever to impact international school networking and demonstrates the power of working collaboratively.

HP Digital Cultural Exchange Program. The HP Digital Cultural Exchange charged classrooms in the U.S. and abroad with learning about each other's countries, customs, and cultures through an exchange of photo essays, using HP digital imaging equipment. The students places a special emphasis on learning about one another's environments and the problems each country faces (i.e. pollution, water contamination, etc.) This culminated with sharing their work at YouthCaN 2003 in New York.

Kodak. iEARN-USA and Kodak implemented a "Global Youth Photographic Exhibit" in conjunction with the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

IBM. iEARN-USA helped to facilitate a two-year interactive student discussion on the role of technology in education as part of an IBM-Sponsored Education Summit held in 1996.

Manhattan 21ST Century Community Learning Center. Working with the The Office of the Superintendent of Manhattan High School, iEARN is building opportunities for students to engage in networked project-based learning activities with students worldwide as part of the afterschool activities of five centers: Park West, Frederick Douglass Academy, Washington Heights, Edgecombe, and Louis D. Brandeis 21st CCLCs.

North Hudson Electronic Education Empowerment Project (NHEEEP). Thirty-eight upstate New York school districts joined in a $2.5 million Title III Literacy and Technology Challenge grant consortium to NHEEEP to promote education through the use of technology. iEARN has provided workshops on student-centered collaborative projects for approximately half the schools in the district.

Save The Children International. iEARN-USA worked together with Save the Children to make it possible for Native American youth in Zuni, New Mexico to participate in global networking.

NIS Secondary Schools Program. From 1997 -1999, I*EARN partnered with Sister Cities International to provide support for schools in Armenia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan for the NIS Secondary Schools Program, sponsored by the Youth Programs Division, Office of Citizen Exchanges, U.S. Department of State.

Regional English Language Office, U.S. Department of State. In Spring 2000, students in sixteen schools in Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan completed the third year of a project co-funded by the Regional English Language Office in Vienna, Austria. Beginning in October 1997, this project examined the impact of participation in I*EARN on-line social studies projects on ESL/EFL in the target countries. Test scores rose at each of the participating schools as a result of on-line discussions on issues of civic responsibility, cultural identity, school, bullying, media influence on teenagers, charity, and substance abuse.

The Smile Train Cleft Buddy Project. iEARN worked with The Smile Train on the Cleft Buddy Project, which is designed to create understanding, acceptance and tolerance toward children who suffer from cleft lips and palates, a birth defect affecting millions of children worldwide.

Training a Community of Learners. iEARN-USA collaborated with IREX on the Internet Access and Training Program, a U.S. State Department program which provides training seminars for educators in nine Eastern European and Central Asian countries. iEARN's component of the program is Training a Community of Learners.

US-China Youth Exchange PIlot Program iEARN and its partners launched the first government-sponsored exchange between U.S. and Chinese secondary schools. This historic initiative was supported by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

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