ePals® and Curriki Partner to Strengthen, Expand Open Educational Resources for Students and Teach

Sept. 18, 2012 - PRLog -- Washington, DC — September 18, 2012 -- ePals Corporation (TSX-V: SLN), an education media company and the world’s leading safe social learning network, today announced a partnership with Curriki.org, an online education community empowering educators, parents, and students through a vast collection of free Open Education Resources.  With ePals connecting 800,000 classrooms across 200 countries, and Curriki reaching more than seven million users in 192 countries with upwards of 45,000 digital learning objects, together the two provide educators and learners around the world with unprecedented scope and access to rigorous and engaging global online content.

The partnership maximizes the power of technology to offer top-quality 21st century participatory teaching and learning experiences through a variety of sophisticated tools and features.   The recently launched all-new ePals offers advanced global classroom matching, and private, safe, customizable collaborative workspaces with wiki, blog and discussion thread features to facilitate ongoing peer communication and project-based learning. Curriki, which pairs education “curriculum” with the power of a “wiki,” taps into the diverse expertise of educators globally for “best of breed“ peer-reviewed and classroom-tested lesson plans, games, videos, simulations and other digital learning materials that can be continuously honed and improved through its open source environment.

“We are delighted to be able to expand our interactivity and reach to teachers and learners around the globe with our new Curriki partnership,” said Ed Fish, president of ePals. “Together, ePals and Curriki are delivering quality content to learners everywhere who are increasingly looking to collaborative, internet-enabled environments that feature access to a broad selection of open education resources. This partnership helps advance ePals’ core mission to play a major role in educating the world, whether it be one school, one classroom or one student at a time.”

In addition to facilitating global learning, and the diverse perspectives named as essential for workplace success by the Common Core standards, the ePals-Curriki partnership reinforces mastery of the collaboration, communication and independent learning aspects of the standards. And for educators, the networking platforms offered by both companies afford even greater opportunities for teachers to connect for professional learning communities and the sharing of best practices.  

“ePals has been a fellow innovator in the development of a worldwide collaborative education community and we are pleased to be working with them,” said Kim Jones, Curriki CEO. "This partnership will advance both of our organizations’ objectives and will provide opportunities to educators and students who otherwise would not have access to the highest quality Open Educational Resources and a cadre of colleagues from around the world."

Educators who are interested in joining the network can visit http://join.epals.com/curriki


About ePals Corporation
ePals Corporation (TSXV: SLN) is an education media company connecting K-12 schools, students, teachers and parents around the world for shared, 21st century learning. ePals operates the K-12 market’s premier social learning network, connecting millions of users in over 330,000 schools for collaboration around high quality content and educational projects. ePals also publishes industry-leading children’s literature in physical and digital formats. These magazines, books and mobile apps are subscribed to by hundreds of thousands of families and approximately one-third of all US middle schools. ePals’ award-winning products and brands include: the ePals Global Community™; SchoolMail®365; LearningSpace®; In2Books®, Cricket® and Cobblestone®. ePals customers and partners include the International Baccalaureate, Microsoft Corporation, Dell Inc., IBM Corp. and leading school districts across the United States and globally. ePals reaches approximately 800,000 classrooms and millions of teachers, students and parents in approximately 200 countries and territories. For the ePals Global Community™, visit www.epals.com
About Curriki
A non-profit organization, Curriki is the leading K-12 global community for teachers, students and parents to create, share, and find open learning resources that improve teacher                effectiveness and student outcomes. A Computerworld Honors Laureate for 2012, Curriki was selected as the 21st Century Achievement Award winner for Digital Access. With more than 295,000 members and 44,000+ learning assets, Curriki reaches more than 7+ million users worldwide. Join today www.curriki.org.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Sue Hanson
Media Relations
ePals PR
Phone: (763) 657-0987
sue@susanhanson.com
Will Jarred
SVP, Marketing & Corporate Communications
ePals Corporation
Phone: (703) 885-3400
wjarred@corp.epals.com