March 23, 1999

NEWARK STUDENTS LINK UP WITH PEERS IN IRELAND
FOR A TRIP INTO CYBERSPACE

NEWARK - March 23, 1999 -

     Not all Irish eyes will be smiling and dancing this week. Some will be preparing for a visit to cyberspace.

      A group of students from Omagh, Northern Ireland will be traveling through cyberspace on March 23rd to join New Jersey students from St. Vincent's Academy, Newark and Essex Catholic High School in a videoconference hosted by New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The project focuses on the impact of computer technology on travel, jobs, and communications.

      The meeting will be interactive, with comments from both sides of the Atlantic. Dr. Peter R. Smyth, head of the Northern Ireland Bureau of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. will be the keynote speaker via videoconference from Washington. Bell Atlantic is providing the bridge (MCU) and network support (four ISDN ports). New Jersey Institute of Technology will manage the link-up.

      NJIT's Center for Manufacturing Systems will present a manufacturing overview and then take both sets of students on a live video field trip to Greenville South Carolina for an interactive tour of Hartness International's plant and demonstration of the packaging plant's automated operations.

      To add to the adventure of this learning event, the students will be issued "virtual" airline flight tickets, which they will use to enter the "virtual field trip departure terminals" at the Technology Education Centre (Omagh) and NJIT (Newark).

      Both locations will have travel posters (New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Northern Ireland, Omagh). In addition to developing an insight to the computers, telecommunications and manufacturing, the excursion will reinforce geography and the students' other studies related to regions being visited.

      The students will be cooperating as a unit in the quest for knowledge (and adventure) and thus will be building a camaraderie which will contribute to reinforcing the Northern Ireland peace foundations.

      St. Vincent's and Essex Catholic are inner city magnet schools. Minority students comprise the enrollment of the two Newark area schools. While the two schools are Catholic administered, the enrollment is largely non-Catholic students.