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CONTACT: 212-870-2693

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EDUCATION in the INTERNET AGE: It Doesn¹t Take High Technology to Build Powerful Connections

Students around the world are defying negative images of the internet by using it to make a difference in the world. "Technology allows us to act almost as a global family to join together on issues that affect us all," notes Wileyda Cardona, a junior at the School for Environmental Studies in New York City, and student coordinator of the global technology-based environmental conference known as YouthCaN. From raising awareness about water pollution, to addressing issues of bullying, teasing and school violence, to researching and compiling resources covering the history of pre-colonial Africa, students in connected classrooms around the world are bringing new meaning to the phrase global education, demonstrating in the process that it doesn¹t take the highest technologies to create the most powerful connections. And, this July, in Capetown, South Africa, these projects and over 75 others, will be highlighted when students and teachers from the 100 country network known as I*EARN (International Education and Resource Network) come together to share their work in bridging the digital divide for the sake of improving the quality of life on the planet.

I*EARN is a non-profit K-12 network of 5,000 schools from 100 countries that collaborate through the internet on projects that show young people their ability to make a difference. The educators that make up I*EARN combine a tremendous wealth of knowledge and experience with the will, the skills, and the tools to make a positive difference in the world as part of students' education. The scope of what happens in these classrooms offers up a world of possibilities. In Sierra Leone, I*EARN activities take the form of The Child Soldier Project, an exchange of stories, drawings, music and oral stories bearing witness to the issue of the child soldier and how it affects their lives, their families, their communities and their countries. Countries in the Balkans collaborate on a multilingual project bringing together teachers and students to explore their history, culture, teen life, dream school ideas, etc. Out of the on-line and face-to-face interaction will come curriculum materials on how to teach about the Balkans, respecting differences and building collaborative ways of working together in an ethnicly diverse area. And, for indigenous youth in the USA, Thailand, South Africa, Argentina and Australia, an ongoing activity has been the First Peoples Project, which links up indigenous people around the world to conduct an exchange of ideas, cultures, and art.

Each summer, the network comes together in a different location of the globe to share their experience of teaching and learning through collaborative online projects, and to build new and ongoing project work throughout the school year. Workshops for this year's conference will again span the curriculum and the globe. Educators will come to learn how telecommunications is being used to affect education reform in Belarus...to meet and get involved with the global project community of a K-12 literary anthology...to hear a teacher from a rural school in Australia tell how one computer and one telephone line supports their entire school to participate in global projectsŠto learn how workshops in Israel and the West Bank are introducing telecommunications as a way of bridging communities and building educational partnerships across Arab and Jewish communities...to see how teachers and students from Pakistan, India, and Egypt are building online conflict resolution and civics education into their ESL curriculum, and to network with over 1000 connected educators and students from across the continent of Africa and from across the globe to bring a world of possibilities into their classrooms for the next school year.

The Eighth Annual I*EARN International Conference, hosted by I*EARN, Schoolnet SA and Western Cape Schools in Cape Town, South Africa --the first time being held in Africa, will build on earlier I*EARN international conferences, including Argentina in 1994; Australia in 1995; Hungary in 1996; Spain in 1997; the USA in 1998; Puerto Rico in 1999; and China in 2000.

Launched in 1988 as a pioneering online program among schools in the US and former Soviet Union, I*EARN currently serves nearly 100 countries. An estimated 400,000 participants interact in 29 languages through I*EARN's unique project-based learning network.

All projects within I*EARN are designed and facilitated by participants to fit their particular curriculum and classroom needs and schedules. In addition to meeting a specific curriculum need, every project proposed by teachers and students in I*EARN has to answer the question, how will this project affect the quality of life on the planet? Through participation in I*EARN projects, students develop the habit of getting involved in community issues, thus better equipping them for future civic participation.

Toward this end, all I*EARN projects involve a final "product" or exhibition of the learning that has taken place as part of the collaboration. These have included magazines, creative writing anthologies, websites, letter-writing campaigns, reports to government officials, arts exhibits, workshops, performances, fundraising, and many more examples of youth taking action as part of what they are learning in the classroom. For conference information: http://ac.wcape.school.za. For information about I*EARN: http://www.iearn.org or call 212/870-2693

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