First joint U.S. –Mexican @APEC Classroom Brings 100 American and Mexican Students and Teachers Together with Schools From 21 Asia Pacific Economies
Monterrey TEC Hosts First 24-Hour, Onsite and Online School-to-Work-to-the-World Program Between Pacific Rim Classrooms

WASHINGTON, DC - Last April’s historic joint meeting in Mexico City between the U.S. and Mexico Senate Foreign Relations Committees is being followed up this week in Monterrey, Mexico with the first ever U.S.-Mexico joint multimedia classroom on Asia pacific trade and education connecting 100 Mexican and U.S. students and teachers to schools around the Pacific Rim.

The three day inaugural @APEC Classroom starts December 12 at Monterrey TEC and is being led by America’s Virtual trade Mission Foundation, started in 1996 by the private sector leadership of the President’s Export Council at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Brenda Fisher, APEC Affairs Coordinator, and Marc Chittum, Director of the President’s Export Council, of the U.S. Department of Commerce, will accompany a U.S. delegation that includes students and teachers from Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, New Jersey and North Carolina.

The program is called @APEC – a cyber school created in honor of Mexico serving as Chair of the 21 member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum through 2002. Rounding the Pacific Rim from Korea to Chile, APEC includes almost 3 billion people and over half the world’s trade. Next October, the Heads of State and top trade leaders will meet in Cabo San Lucas for the annual APEC meeting. The students in the @APEC Classroom will join these meetings both onsite and online.

@APEC is Co-Chaired by Mexico’s Senator Fernando Margain and U.S. Senator Jesse Helms – the architects of last spring’s historic joint meeting of the U.S. and Mexican Senate Foreign Relations Committees where the concept was created. U.S. Senator Joe Biden kept things going when he assumed the chairmanship of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee from Helms shortly after the Senator’s trip to Mexico. A student teacher from Senator Biden’s Delaware schools will help lead the U.S. delegation.

The @APEC Classroom is being co-produced by America’s Virtual Trade Mission Foundation and the Jesse Helms Center in cooperation with Monterrey TEC Virtual University and Santa Catarina Campus; King’s College in Auckland, New Zealand; the University of Brunei Darussalam and Denison High School in Iowa. Since 1998, the Virtual Trade Mission Foundation and the Jesse Helms Center have led APEC learning initiatives in over 15 Asia Pacific Economies involving thousands of their students and teachers. Sponsors and Strategic Partners include General Motors, Apple, Cemex, Grupo Vitro, the U.S. Department of Commerce and President’s Export Council, Continental Airlines, Asia-inc. magazine, and Mexico’s APEC and ABAC Secretariats.

During the three day program, the @APEC students and teachers will work 12 hour days in small teams from a mix of APEC Economies. They will develop real world strategies for connecting businesses and communities across the Pacific. For example, a Mexican and American student may be on a team with a New Zealand teacher and a vocational counselor from Brunei working online or via video-conference with a General Motors executive in Korea. The students internet-based Apple Learning Interchange – http://ali.apple.com At the VTM’s Apple Learning Interchange site, you can see the VTM @ APEC 2002 California Global Classroom in Brunei, Darussalam.

The U.S. Delegation includes:

As the daughter of Philippine and Mexican parents serving in the Army, Nicole Mayoras from terry Sanders High School, North Carolina, represents the possibilities of cultural interdependence within APEC. "I am anxious to meet new friends and expand my international experience by participating in the @APEC 2002 Mexico Program," said Mayoras. "I look forward to learning from other students and teachers and sharing my own experiences and ideas with them."

"The Asia Pacific Economies represent a 24/7 marketplace and our onsite/online format linking the Pacific Rim schools make this @APEC Classroom a 24/7 cyber learning system," said Noel Gould, Cofounder and CEO of the VTM Foundation.

Apple’s digital camera iBook systems let the students and teachers from all the schools co-produce real time curriculum as they learn between and within the different time zones, cultures, economies and communities. As an example, the Mexican and U.S. teams onsite in Monterrey will create a 5-minute video of their tour of a major trade center and e-mail it to the Brunei and New Zealand schools. While the Monterrey-based team is sleeping, the Brunei and New Zealand teams will be adding their own work and sending it back. The next day, the Mexican and U.S. students will see what their APEC teammates have contributed to the project and start the cyber cycle again. It is "e-learning" and this is how they will be working one day in a Trans-Pacific company.

For more information or to arrange media interviews, please contact Noel Gould or Alisa Becker at the Virtual Trade Mission Foundation at 202-220-9768.

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