KOREAN AND SAN FRANCISCAN STUDENTS MEET IN CYBERSPACE ON SOUTH KOREA'S 'KID NET DAY'; 'Net Day' Activities at Pacific Bell's Model Site Foster Korean Event.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 7, 1996--This past weekend, 61 schools throughout South Korea were wired to connect to the Internet as part of the country's first "Kid Net Day" event. Patterned after California's successful and collaborative "NetDay96," Korean businesses, community volunteers, schools and government worked together to help connect a significant number of their schools to the Information Superhighway.

To participate in Saturday's "Kid Net Day" event in Korea, students from San Francisco's Bryant Elementary School and San Francisco educational leaders and Korean community leaders gathered on Friday evening to accommodate the 16-hour time difference. Bryant's students spoke with some of the more than 300 students who were part of the event's interactive videoconference at Seoul's Han-yang Elementary School. All participants were audience to a live speech given by South Korea's Prime Minister Lee Soosung.

"We are all really excited about this international event. Our students studied and prepared for this first-ever opportunity to meet and talk live with their fellow students in Seoul," said Virginia Davis, the Technology Resource Teacher at Bryant Elementary School in San Francisco.

Bryant Elementary is one of more than 1000 schools and libraries participating in Pacific Bell's Education First program, which is helping to provide all California schools and libraries with a high-speed digital onramp to the Information Superhighway. For more information about Pacific Bell's Education First program, call 1-800-901-2210 or access the Internet Web site at http://www.kn.pacbell.com.

Organizers of Korea's "Kid Net Day," said their event was in large part spurred by the success of California's statewide "NetDay96" event, which took place on March 9. During a visit to San Francisco, Woosuk Choi, a journalist for Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper and one of the "Kid Net Day" organizers, attended "NetDay" activities at Bryant Elementary School.

"I was so impressed with the commitment and the energy that California's businesses, schools, community members and others brought to California's `NetDay96' that I wrote several articles about it for my newspaper in Korea. A large group of volunteers formed in my country to start planning a similar effort to be staged in South Korea," Choi said.

The Bryant Elementary and Han-yang Elementary Schools' videoconference was an important part of Korea's "Kid Net Day" event. Students in both countries conversed about their hobbies and interests. Managers from Pacific Bell's Korean Customer Service Center volunteered to help with the students' language translation needs.

"We communicate with thousands of Korean-speaking Pacific Bell residential and business customers each year," said Jimmy Kim, manager of Pacific Bell's Korean Business Center. "But this was the first time I used my Korean language skills to help communicate during such an important international videoconference. I was as thrilled as the students were," he added.

"Interactive videoconferencing capabilities greatly enhance the students' learning experiences," said Anastasia Mary Zita, principal of Bryant Elementary School in the San Francisco Unified School District. "Since we started using the videoconferencing facilities, our students have been talking live with subject experts and other students throughout our country, and this event marks our first venture to interact through videoconferencing with new friends in a foreign country," she added.

Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified telecommunications corporation based in San Francisco.

CONTACT: Pacific Bell - Ethnic News Media

Donna Robillard, 415/545-1574