I*EARN now includes school communities in approximately 28 countries: the US, former USSR, China, Costa Rica, Israel, Australia, Belgium, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico, England, Finland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland,South Africa, Indonesia, Hungary, Brazil, Kenya and Spain. In addition, we are negotiating with organizations in Nicaragua, Egypt, Cuba Singapore and Zimbabwe.

400 teachers from 19 Countries, met in Melbourne in July of 1995 to build on the enormous goodwill and momentum generated in the first I*EARN Confernece in Puerta Madryn, Argentina, in 1994.

An excerpt of the online student newsletter is below

.Day one of the I*EARN Conference started off with Bill Coppinger as the first speaker of the Welcoming Ceremony. Bill is the organiser for I*EARN Australia. He welcomed all of the delegates from around the world to the conference, and he introduced each speaker that wanted to say a few words about I*EARN.

The second speaker was Peter Copen who is the President of the "Copen Family Fund". He talked about world destruction happening with: Ê * Children dying from hunger * Rainforests that are being destroyed * The destruction to the world being irreversible * How I*EARN became possible * Rival Countries at War

The Third speaker at the Welcoming ceremony was Rosy Aguila. She read out a poem in Spanish and Bill Coppinger translated it for us. It was about brotherly love and how I*EARN is bringing people together. Rosy is one of representatives for Argentina.The I*EARN Conference was officially opened by the honourable Haddon Storey who is the Minister of Tertiary Education. He defined I*EARN for us which was "To join people together using telecommunications". Haddon also said that "Telecommunications should be used for our educational needs".

At the end of the Welcoming Ceremony, people from Russia, America, Hebrew, Spain, South Africa, Argentina, Netherlands and Korea said a welcome and thank you in their language. This Ceremony helped everyone to understand what I*EARN was about, let everyone settle in and gave people the chance to get to know each other.

http://www.whalesong.org/archive/melb95frame.html

By Grant Smith.