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FOR RELEASE
Contact: David Thomas
(202) 401-1576April 8, 1998
RILEY ANNOUNCES NEW ONE-STOP WEB SITE FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING RESOURCES
Hundreds of federal resources for teaching and learning can now be found at one web site, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley announced today.
"This new web site, Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE), offers one-stop shopping for a treasure trove of historical documents, scientific experiments, mathematical challenges, famous paintings, and other tools for teachers and students," Riley said.
A search of the web site produces dozens of resources for teaching and learning from more than 35 federal agencies. Thousands of topics can be searched -- the Civil War, the Constitution, photosynthesis, condensation, immigration, Picasso, Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Mary Cassatt, Jackie Robinson, the Amistad Case, the America Reads Challenge, famous FBI cases, cartography, genealogy, the Renaissance, calculus simulations, "today in history," the human genome project, epidemiology, "the African American odyssey," the solar system, the microbe zoo, and others. Resources can also be viewed in 12 subject areas.
"More than 35 federal agencies have collaborated for nearly a year on this effort," Riley said. "Their work -- this web site -- offers a glimpse of how government can use technology to serve citizens in ways barely dreamed of a decade ago."
The FREE site was developed in response to a directive President Clinton issued nearly a year ago. It can help make compelling online resources available in every school, which is part of the president's Technology Literacy Challenge. The four goals of this challenge are:
o All teachers will be trained to help students learn through computers and the information superhighway;
o All students and teachers will have access to modern computers;
o All schools and classrooms will be linked to the information superhighway; and,
o High-quality software and online resources will be part of the curriculum in every school.
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FREE is just a first step," Riley said. "And it is more than just another web site. It is a place where federal agencies and teachers can begin forming partnerships to develop additional high-quality, standards-based resources for teaching and learning."To that end, the Education Department today announced support for up to seven partnerships of federal agencies and teachers, as well as other organizations. Each partnership will develop two products:
o A set of Internet-based learning resources organized around a particular topic and tied to challenging academic standards. A set of resources might include, for instance, student activities, teaching ideas, primary documents, artifacts, scientific tools, and data sets; and,
o An Internet-based learning community -- a community of teachers, students, and others who use and contribute to that set of resources.
Proposals must be submitted by federal agencies on behalf of each partnership and must be received by May 19, 1998. The invitation requesting proposals and the complete application are at: http://www.ed.gov/free/980406.html.
Teachers and organizations interested in participating are invited to post a message on the "Looking for Partners" area of the FREE web site, at: http://www.ed.gov/free/partner.html.
The FREE web site is at: http://www.ed.gov/free/.
Attached is a list of federal agencies and federal organizations that participated in the FREE Working Group, which developed the FREE web site.
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Federal agencies and organizations contributing to the FREE web site:
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