Kenya Ministry of Education to Use ePals to Connect Kenyan Schools Worldwide

   ePals to provide Kenyan classrooms with the largest social network for

                            meaningful learning



    BOSTON, July 15 /EMWNews/ -- The Kenyan Ministry of Education will

provide the opportunity for their students and educators to safely connect

with schools around the world through ePals (http://www.epals.com), the

largest and fastest growing global network for meaningful learning.

Leveraging the safe, protected and collaborative learning and e-mentoring

tools available through ePals, Kenyan students and educators can connect

with classrooms in 200 countries and territories, conducting cross-cultural

exchanges, language learning practice, and project-based collaboration to

build the 21st century skills necessary to succeed in a global economy.



    "We've watched the impact some of our schools are having using ePals

and feel it is critical we empower all our educators and students to

collaborate with peers around the world," said Barnabas Sang, Head of ICT

for the Kenyan Ministry of Education. "ePals offers a large and diverse

online learning community, a safe environment and a set of collaborative

learning activities and projects that are grounded in best practices for

building 21st century skills. This enables our classrooms to make

meaningful learning connections with other schools worldwide."



    Through thousands of ePals exchanges in Africa and ongoing pilots in

Nakuru, Kenya, the company's continued efforts provide African students and

educators with the ability to create free cross-cultural pen pal and

project-based collaborative programs in a safe, protected context using

ePals.com and its rich set of leading school communication tools. ePals

also has partnered with National Geographic to bring rich digital content

to the ePals site, providing in-depth projects and enhancing global

perspective. In addition, ePals' safe learning community, connectivity

tools and digital literacy curricula give educators the opportunity to help

their students' build 21st century digital literacy and learning skills.

The company also recently partnered with Intel to offer access to its safe

and connected Global Learning Community to users of the Intel-powered

classmate PC worldwide, including schools throughout Africa.



    "The Kenyan Ministry of Education is dedicated to preparing their

students to become global citizens, and ePals will enable that

collaborative connection to help Kenyan schools embrace those learning

opportunities," said Tim DiScipio, Co-Founder of ePals. "ePals provides

educators worldwide the opportunity to bring safe social learning networks

into the classroom and begin collaborative project sharing that enables

21st century learning regardless of geography, cultural background or

economic status. This helps students become important contributors to the

global experience, and ultimately, benefit the global workplace."



    To support educators in transforming learning, ePals is providing

professional development opportunities to educators interested in

incorporating social networking tools for meaningful project-based

learning. Barnabas Sang will be speaking during a special ePals

pre-conference event during Alan November's Building Learning Communities

2008 Conference hosted by ePals. The one-day event, held today in Boston,

Mass., also will feature ePals executives, educators and instructional

technology directors. Speakers will address language learning, digital

literacy, cross-cultural pen pal projects, district-wide implementation,

how to post podcasts on blogs, and how to connect families with teachers

through blogs to help support learning outside of the classroom. For more

information about the ePals Globally-Connected Classroom Conference, visit

http://www.epals.com/conference.



    For more information about ePals and activities within the global

community, please visit http://www.epalscorp.com.

    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 ePals

Global Learning Community(TM) (http://www.epals.com) is the largest online

community of K-12 learners, enabling half a million educators across 200

countries and territories to safely connect, exchange ideas, and work

together. 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 -- provider of In2Books, the company's flagship literacy

e-mentoring program.