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International Baccalaureate Chooses ePals to Create Innovative Online Learning Community

Posted on: Thursday, 25 June 2009, 08:27 CDT

Hosted community to foster safe, authentic learning and interactions while strengthening worldwide learning community

HERNDON, Va., June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Baccalaureate (IB) has selected ePals, Inc., to implement and manage a customized hosted learning community for IB students, educators, alumni, and other stakeholders. The innovative site will utilize safe and collaborative communication tools to create authentic learning experiences and interactions on a global scale. The rollout will be multi-phased, ultimately enabling members of the worldwide IB community in 2,600 schools and more than 130 countries to connect, share and collaborate.

The IB provides international education programs to a worldwide community of schools, working to develop the intellectual, personal, emotional, and social skills students need to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world. ePals will provide IB with - among other things - the ePals Distributed Learning Platform(TM). This platform will allow IB stakeholders to implement the exclusive learning community to foster in students the collaborative skills and learning required for success in the 21st century. The ePals Distributed Learning Platform is a unique collaborative environment optimized for global K-12 education. IB students and educators also will be able to connect and collaborate directly with the growing ePals Global Community of hundreds of thousands of educators and millions of students.

"At the core of our mission, we aim to promote intercultural understanding and respect as an essential part of life in the 21st century," said Jeffrey Beard, Director General of the IB. "We feel that ePals can create the ideal community and technology platform for ensuring that students and educators at IB World Schools can safely communicate, collaborate and learn with their peers regardless of geographic, cultural or language differences. In addition to our content, which will be hosted on the site, this new IB hosted learning community will allow our educators and school leaders to connect to exchange, hone and develop best practices."

"We are very pleased that a global educational organization of the stature of the IB is embracing the learning opportunities for teachers and students afforded by safe, collaborative online technologies, and has chosen ePals to provide it," said Edmund Fish, President and CEO of ePals, Inc. "Like many other educational institutions, the IB was seeking an online environment where students, educators and others could collaborate in a safe, purposeful and authentic manner - both within their own member-based communities and on a broader scale with a global community of learners. We're proud to bring our innovative technology and years of expertise to bear on such an important effort, and expect our joint work to encourage the development of new projects and learning experiences in schools around the world."

Following pilot trials and beta deployments throughout the 2009 academic year, the co-branded ePals IB hosted learning community is expected to be available to all IB members by July 2010. ePals also is working with the IB to provide professional development opportunities for IB educators, administrators and staff focused on creating 21st century learning environments.

For more information about ePals, Inc., visit www.epals.com, or for company information, visit www.epalscorp.com.

About International Baccalaureate

The International Baccalaureate offers three high quality and challenging educational programs for a worldwide community of schools. Over 40 years, the programs have gained a reputation for their high academic standards, for preparing students for life in a globalized 21st century, and for helping to develop the future citizens who will create a better, more peaceful world. For more information about IB programs, visit www.ibo.org.

About ePals, Inc.

The mission of ePals, Inc., is to support lifelong learning through collaborative experiences that empower and inspire. Through its technology, programs and services, K-12 students and teachers around the world build and exchange knowledge based on safe and protected communication tools, evidence-based curricula and authentic, collaborative learning experiences. The ePals Global Community(TM) (www.epals.com) 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 company's curriculum-based e-mentoring program, In2Books(R), uniquely builds reading, writing and critical thinking skills and embeds literacy instruction across the curriculum. These, and a host of partner products, are built on the ePals Distributed Learning Platform(TM), an innovative online collaborative environment optimized for K-12 audiences and learning. 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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