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Maine DoE and ePals Provide Students With Opportunities for 21st Century Learning

Posted on: Thursday, 2 April 2009, 10:55 CDT

Statewide partnership gives students and educators access to safe online community and high-quality, authentic learning experiences

HERNDON, Va., April 2 /PRNewswire/ -- The Maine Department of Education (DoE) and ePals, Inc., have formed a strategic partnership to transform learning in schools statewide through the safe and appropriate integration of digital learning tools and high-quality pedagogy. ePals SchoolM@il(TM) has been chosen as the provider of email for all students throughout Maine, delivering real life opportunities for them to safely communicate and collaborate with their peers online.

"Our goal is to provide students with access to the technology and content they need to build strong 21st century skills," said Jeff Mao, Learning Technology Policy Director for the Maine Department of Education. "We have been able to provide our students and educators with access to a variety of technologies and tools to supplement the curriculum through the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) and The Maine International Center for Digital Learning, which supports the 1:1 laptop initiative and opportunities for students and educators to collaborate with classrooms around the world. Through this partnership with ePals, we are able to make new tools available, while also providing the pedagogy and curriculum needed to truly integrate these tools across subjects and grade levels."

ePals also has launched a dedicated portal for the State of Maine, Maine Connects (www.maineconnects.net), to provide educators and students with access to safe and collaborative, Web-based communications tools in the ePals Global Community(TM) and curriculum that helps to build fundamental literacy skills and expand global awareness. In addition to ePals SchoolM@il(TM), Maine students and educators will have access to communication tools like ePals SchoolBlog, and collaborative learning programs like In2Books(R), the company's curriculum-based e-mentoring program that builds reading, writing and critical thinking skills.

"The Maine DoE has been leading the way in bringing technology into the classroom for the benefit of learning," said Edmund Fish, President and CEO of ePals. "They truly understand that it is not technology in and of itself that positively impacts achievement. Instead, it is the combination of effective pedagogy, collaborative applications, and Internet technologies that will make significant differences in the 21st century. ePals is proud to work with the Maine DoE and all Maine classrooms to help engage classrooms and students in the best uses of Internet technologies for meaningful learning."

The ePals Global Community is the largest online community of K-12 learners, enabling more than half a million educators and millions of students across 200 countries and territories to safely connect, exchange ideas and work together. The global community allows educators to access a variety of social networking tools and high-quality content that encourage students to communicate and collaborate with their peers around the world. ePals SchoolM@il and ePals SchoolBlog allow educators to create engaging learning opportunities that leverage the Internet to meaningfully and cost-effectively build 21st century skills in students.

In2Books is a curriculum-based, e-mentoring program that builds reading, writing and thinking skills. Designed for 3rd through 5th grade classrooms, In2Books is made available for free by the ePals Foundation to early adopting U.S. classrooms in under-resourced communities. In2Books empowers students to become curious, independent learners by exchanging online letters about books with carefully screened adult pen pals. Students choose age-appropriate, high-quality books from a list compiled by a team of children's literature experts for both the students and pen pals to read throughout the school year. In2Books helps students to build self-confidence and critical thinking skills, while expanding their world-views by sharing life experiences and thoughts on the books with their adult pen pals.

The Maine DoE supports the integration of technology into Maine schools through a variety of ways, including through MLTI. Established in 2001, MLTI has served as a successful ubiquitous one-to-one digital education project, working to transform learning by furnishing schools with mobile computers and wireless infrastructures. In addition, MLTI provides the professional development teachers need to leverage the use of technology across the curriculum. For more information, visit MLTI (www.mlti.org) and the Maine International Center for Digital Learning (www.mainelearns.org).

For more information, visit www.maineconnects.net for Maine Connects, www.epals.com for the ePals Global Community, and www.in2books.com for In2Books.

About ePals, Inc.

Founded in 1996 and merged with In2Books in 2006, ePals offers K-12 students and teachers around the world a safe environment for building and exchanging knowledge based on protected connectivity tools, evidence-based curricula and authentic, collaborative learning experiences. The company's mission is to support lifelong learning through collaborative experiences that empower and inspire. ePals is especially committed to enabling academically rigorous educational opportunities in economically disadvantaged environments worldwide through the ePals Foundation.

SOURCE ePals, Inc.

Source: PR Newswire

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