CU-SeeMe Illustration
As part of the "UK-LA '94" festival (a 67 day celebration of British arts, business, education and technology in LA, CA), student ambassadors from Global Schoolhouse Project classrooms in California, Washington DC, England, and Australia participated in a live interactive video-conference over the Internet (using the CU-SeeMe application), which was supposed to include the Prince of Wales. Prince Charles canceled at the last minute, but the children from the UK, LA, DC, and Australia schools went on with the show, explaining how they use the Internet and how it benefits them in their studies. They also got to interact with the President and CEO of Cisco Systems, John Morgridge, who participated from Cisco headquarters in San Jose, California. At Mr. Morgridge's request, the LA students sang a song they wrote about the Global Schoolhouse Project (sung to the tune, "The Brady Bunch" :-) ).
Thousands of people from all over the world observed this historic conference which was broadcast over the Internet via CU-SeeMe reflector sites and the Multicast Backbone (MBONE) as well as listening to it courtesy of a phone conference bridge provided by MCI. For this particular event, Cisco worked with Pacific Bell and CERFnet/General Atomics to establish the Internet connection at the LA hotel. The developers of CU-SeeMe at Cornell University, Sprint and hundreds of other volunteers, also contributed to make the videoconference happen.
This was yet another successful example of how business, education and government organizations are working together to improve the quality of education in schools worldwide. Cisco Systems is proud to be a sponsor of the Global Schoolhouse Project, which is dedicated to demonstrating how internetworking technology and a connection to the Internet can be used to create a worldwide classroom without walls. In the words of John Morgridge, "The information highway eliminates the boundaries of time and place when it comes to access to information and education. In the networked world, the only barrier to entry is the capacity of oneีs own mind."
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