"Share and Unite"

Schools & Their Communities

MCI And Cisco Systems Sponsor International Cyberfair For Schools On Internet

WASHINGTON, D.C., OCTOBER 18, 1995 -- MCI and Cisco Systems today announced they are sponsoring the International CyberFair for Schools as part of the upcoming online world's fair on the Internet, The Internet 1996 World Exposition. The CyberFair is a demonstration of how schools can share the knowledge and skills of their teachers and students on a world-wide basis.

Building on the global Internet platform, International CyberFair participants will effectively create curricular content for use by students around the world through cooperation, mutual discovery and content creation. Participating schools will be asked to conduct a research project involving community resources and publish their project on the Internet's World Wide Web The Internet 1996 World Exposition, modeled after the great world's fairs at the turn of the 20th century, will start on January 1, 1996 and run the entire year. The International CyberFair , sponsored by Cisco and MCI, will begin in January and run through June.

"The International CyberFair will help fulfill some of the promise of the Internet as a platform for bringing the world's cultures, schools and young people together," said Vinton G. Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet and senior vice president of data architecture at MCI. "We hope it will promote the notion of knowledge sharing which has been such a positive factor in the evolution of the Internet for all its history."


OPEN TO ALL SCHOOLS AROUND THE WORLD

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The International CyberFair for Schools, which is open to all K-12 schools on the Internet, is a demonstration of educational electronic publishing and use of the Internet's World Wide Web. "Share and Unite" is the theme of the CyberFair and will encourage schools and their communities to use the Internet to share resources, establish partnerships, and work together to accomplish common goals. Some examples of projects are: documenting historical landmarks, showcasing local specialties, and/or involving local tourist attractions. Students and teachers from individual schools, or group of schools such as a school district, will work together on a community-based educational project and publish their information within the Global Schoolhouse pavilion of the Internet 1996 World Exposition.

"Cisco believes that projects like the International CyberFair for Schools enable students to explore their technical and creative capabilities through the use of networked multimedia resources such as the World Wide Web," explained Ed Kozel, chief technology officer and vice president of business development at Cisco Systems. "We have made a commitment to provide opportunities like the CyberFair to schools to help students experience firsthand the advantages of Internet connectivity in the classroom."

"The Internet, which already is well established in the college and university arena, is becoming more and more an integral part of many high school and even grade school curricula," explained Lance B. Boxer, senior vice president of MCI's Data Services Division. "The goal of this program is to promote Internet literacy in the schools as well as to demonstrate the utility of the Internet in classes and the community."

The International CyberFair will be a featured activity in the Internet 1996 World Exposition, a world's fair for the information age. This world's fair will last all of 1996 and already includes participants from over 25 countries. "This world's fair is building a public park for the global village," said Carl Malamud, secretary- general of the World Exposition. "One of our highest priorities is the Global Schoolhouse Pavilion. We're delighted that MCI and Cisco are joining with groups such as the Kennedy Center in Washington and the Tokyo Aquarium to make the Global Schoolhouse a reality."

The International CyberFair for Schools is patterned from a CyberFair that MCI and Cisco implemented earlier this year with the Allen (Texas) Independent School District. More than 100 seventh and eighth grade students and 15 of their teachers from the Curtis Middle School participated in the cyberlearning experiment by creating their own sites on the World Wide Web. According to Curtis principal Ted Moore, "Our students and teachers learned a lot on this project -- from researching their projects on the information-laden Internet to learning and using HyperText Markup Language (HTML) in creating some very interesting and informative homepages on the World Wide Web. It was a very valuable and worthwhile experience for all of us."

The Global Schoolhouse/Global SchoolNet Foundation, will be coordinating many aspects of the International CyberFair for Schools.


TO BE PLACED ON MAILING LIST:

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Registration for the International CyberFair begins in November and closes on January 15. Schools will be able to register at the Global Schoolhouse pavilion on the Internet 1996 World Exposition beginning next month. Following registration, from January through mid-April, schools will be able to sign-up for CyberFair activities and work on their projects which are due April 15. Entries will be judged on presentation and content by participating schools and well- known Internet industry figures. Awards will be presented live on the Internet in June 1996.

To be placed on an electronic mailing list to receive CyberFair updates and for more details, school representatives can send an e-mail message to:

lists@gsn.org

subscribe cyberfair@gsn.org .


MORE INFORMATION

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To find out more information about the Internet 1996 World Exposition, Internet users can point their browser to:

http://park.org/fair or send an e-mail to luther@radio.com

Since 1985, the Global SchoolNet Foundation has been a leader in the instructional applications of telecommunications. Today the Global SchoolNet Foundation, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit corporation, is a major contributor to the philosophy, design, culture and content of educational networking on the Internet and in the classroom. The Global SchoolNet Foundation is headquartered in San Diego, California.

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the leading global supplier of enterprise networks, including routers, LAN and ATM switches, dial-up access servers and network management software. These products, integrated by the Cisco IOS software, link geographically dispersed LANs, WANs and IBM networks. Cisco Systems news and product/service information are available at World Wide Web site http://www.cisco.com. Cisco Systems is headquartered in San Jose, California.

MCI, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is one of the world's largest and fastest growing diversified communications companies. With annual revenue of more than $13 billion, MCI offers consumers and businesses a broad portfolio of services including long distance, wireless, local access, paging, Internet software and access, information services, business software and advanced global telecommunications services.

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