Nortel LearniT and Curriki Form Alliance to Bring One of the World’s Largest, Free Online Resources to Educators

Collaborate on Curriculum and Technology to Better Equip Teachers and Tomorrow’s Workers.

TORONTO – Working to ensure today’s students are prepared to compete globally in the 21st century, Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT] LearniT and Curriki have formed an alliance to co-ordinate their websites into one of the world’s largest, free online sources of educational materials.

Nortel LearniT is the key philanthropic initiative of Nortel, designed to introduce teachers and students to the positive impacts digital technologies can have on learning. Curriki, originally founded by Sun Microsystems**, is an independent non-profit organization whose global mission is to make curricula and learning resources available to everyone online at no cost.

The Nortel LearniT-Curriki alliance provides a free forum for creating and sharing online instructional materials that integrate the latest digital technologies such as imaging and video into all subjects ranging from math to social studies to languages. For example, a teacher can bring to life a traditional lesson plan on the science of weather through digital satellite imaging, showing students how systems interact globally. The teacher can then upload it to the Nortel LearniT and Curriki** websites, making it available to any teacher anywhere.

“While students are often very tech-savvy, many teachers want to better leverage these new tools to enhance and energize traditional approaches to learning,” said Mike Zafirovski, Nortel president and CEO. “Nortel LearniT’s alliance with Curriki provides a free global online forum to help educators teach essential skills that students will need when entering the workforce in an increasing technology-based Hyperconnected world. It also shares educational resources that integrate these digital technologies into powerful multimedia learning experiences.”

Curriki founder and board member Scott McNealy said: “This alliance with Nortel is critical to helping Curriki meet its mission of providing students, teachers and parents with free and open source content and curriculum for K-12 education. Curriki provides the curriculum, and Nortel’s LearniT program will ensure teachers are connected to those resources to improve education and opportunity for kids worldwide.”

According to Curriki executive director Dr. Bobbi Kurshan, the lack of qualified instructors and sufficient instructional materials has a profound negative impact on a community’s graduation rates, health and crime. One educational non-profit group, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, notes that a widening gap has formed between the knowledge and skills students are acquiring in schools and those needed to succeed in the increasingly global, technology-infused workplace.

As part of the alliance, Nortel LearniT will gain access to Curriki’s award-winning curriculum publishing platform, hosting and marketing services. Nortel LearniT will provide Curriki with its comprehensive science, technology, engineering and mathematics teacher training program as well as tools to train new and current users on the integrated use of technology in the classroom.

Nortel LearniT partners include The National Institute for Aerospace, One Laptop Per Child** and numerous regional school boards. More than 3-million unique visitors click through its website, www.nortellearnit.org, each year from 40 different countries. Curriki’s partners include Learnthings Africa, National Repository of Online Courses and Merit Software. Nearly 35,000 members contribute and use Curriki’s 10,000 free learning resources, including everything from lesson plans to complete textbooks.