WASHINGTON, D.C. /eNewsChannels/ — On Wednesday, January 30th, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and leaders of thirteen government agencies and NGO’s will sign the “Declaration of Learning” on the historic Treaty of Paris desk in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State. The signing formally announces their partnership as members of the Inter-Agency Collaboration on Learning.
Led by the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State, the signing ceremony will recognize the institutions for their commitment to work together to utilize historic artifacts in their collections, as well as their educational expertise, to create digital learning tools that can be accessed from computers, tablets, and cell phones. Non-digital learning tools will also be created for classroom and public use.
This initiative will give students, teachers, and life-long learners the opportunity to explore historic objects and access new learning resources digitally, helping ensure that tomorrow’s leaders better understand the events, ideas, and movements that have shaped our country and the world. The group has selected “Diplomacy” as the first topic around which learning resources will be created. A new topic will be selected every two years.
The institutions participating in the Inter-Agency Collaboration on Education and signing the Declaration of Learning include: National Archives, Library of Congress, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institutions, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, Newseum, American Library Association, National Center for Literacy Education, National Council of Teachers of English, National Council for the Social Studies, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State.ã??
This ceremony will also honor Secretary Clinton for her role in making this possible through the completion of the $20 million “Patrons of Diplomacy” initiative, which established the first permanent endowment for the Diplomatic Reception Rooms and the initial funding to launch educational initiatives to share the Diplomatic Rooms, their historic objects, and the work that occurs in the Rooms with people around the world
