WASHINGTON -- Vice President Gore joined Education Secretary Richard Riley, MCI Chairman and CEO Bert Roberts, and Tech Corps Founder Gary Beach to launch the CyberEd truck, a cyber classroom on wheels reminiscent of bookmobile programs, providing local educators, community leaders and families with hands-on educational technology experience. The truck will travel to every rural and urban Empowerment Zone in the nation.
In addition, President Clinton today (4/17) signed an executive order to improve the transfer of excess federal computer equipment to schools and nonprofit organizations. Vice President Gore announced the new executive order at the event.
"This Bookmobile for the Digital Age will journey across the country to transport our children into the 21st Century classroom," said Vice President Gore. "It will be the driving force of a teacher training program that brings the technology of tomorrow to schools and communities today."
hspace=Secretary Riley said, "I believe a total national effort to make the many benefits of technology available to all of our young people can lift -- in one bold strke -- the level of the American workforce and the level of public education. This is something American business leaders have been asking us to do for over a decade."
President Clinton and Vice President Gore have launched a national mission to make all children technologically literate by the dawn of the 21st Century, equipped with the information technology essential to prepare them for the Information Age. They challenged the private sector, schools, teachers, parents, students, community groups, state and local governments and the federal government to work together to meet this goal.
In February, Vice President Gore issued yet another challenge to ensure that all schoolchildren have access to the benefits of the communications revolution. He announced an initiative to connect this year every school in Empowerment Zones across the country to the Information Superhighway. President Clinton designated 15 regions across the nation as Empowerment Zones, which bring public and private sectors together in partnership to aid the nation's most distressed communities. Wednesday's launch of the CyberEd truck helps to meet the educational technology goals set forth by President Clinton and Vice President Gore.
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