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News & Reviews

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Lauer Learning Oral History Project “56 Stories” is presented at Annual Itt Ott Conference Celebrating the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Mother-Daughter Team Pays Homage to Stories by Revolution's Freedom Fighters

CLEVELAND - August 12, 1006 - As part of a commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, Andrea Lauer Rice, founder and CEO of Lauer Learning, and Edith Lauer, Chair Emerita of the Hungarian American Coalition, were speakers at the annual Itt Ott Conference. Over 130 Hungarian Americans attended the conference, held at Lake Hope State Park in Zaleski, Ohio each year. The conference focuses on providing a forum to discuss cultural issues and promote national pride.

Lauer Rice founded Lauer Learning, headquartered in Roswell, Ga., a multimedia educational company that creates interactive products to teach children foreign languages, cultures and historic events through experiential learning.

“We were honored to introduce this group of prominent Hungarian Americans to two projects that have been in development for over a year”, said Lauer Rice, who, with her mother Edith Lauer, led the session entitled 'Commemorating 1956 in Multimedia'. Edith Lauer introduced the creation of “56 Stories” a collection of personal testimonials from participants of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and their family members. The book will be published to celebrate the heroes of the Revolution as well as create a historical record of the event and capture and preserve the spirit of 1956 for future generations.

Lauer-Rice discussed the development of FF56! an interactive educational game that mixes historically-accurate narrative with first person gaming. “The game connects teens to the amazing story of 1956. They learn about the historical events of the Revolution, as they absorb themselves in the history and meet key personalities of the Revolution”, she said.

In addition, Ilona Somogyi, a costume designer and Yale University professor, chose several submissions from the 56 Stories website (www.FreedomFighter56.com) and created a Hungarian-language oral history drama which was performed by ten conference participants on the last evening.

The Itt Ott Conference was originally developed over 40 years ago by The Hungarian Communion of Friends to provide a forum for people in the America to speak openly against communism. Today it continues to be held annually as a week long gathering that encourages promotion of cultural issues and appreciation of the history and legacy of the Hungarian people.

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Lauer Learning is a multimedia educational company that creates interactive products to teach children foreign languages, cultures and historic events through experiential learning. FF56! a bilingual, historically-accurate, educational computer game for teens about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was launched in the fall of 2006 and “Kis Majom” or “Little Monkey”, a Language Learning Packet consisting of DVDs, books and flashcards, to help parents raise their toddlers bilingually will be unveiled in 2007. All products, including “56 Stories”, a collection of personal testimonials collected through the FreedomFighter56.com website are available for purchase through the www.LauerLearning.com website.

The Hungarian American Coalition was founded in 1991 as an educational and cultural non-profit 501 (c)3 organization. Its Office of Information in Washington, D.C serves over 20,000 organizational and individual members across the United States. Its mission is to promote public understanding and awareness of Hungarian American issues. The Coalition partnered with Lauer Learning on the oral history endeavor. For further information, please go to www.hacusa.org.

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