WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Smithsonian Institution and ePals Inc. today announced a partnership to deliver Smithsonian resources and expertise in science, history, art, and culture across the entire ePals social learning platform and product suite. Educators, students, and parents around the world now have a place to collaborate on educational content from the world’s largest museum and research complex. The content comes via a protected cloud-based, enterprise-grade platform from ePals, a leading provider of safe social learning technology for K-12.
As part of the new relationship, Smithsonian content will be threaded throughout ePals LearningSpace®, ePals SchoolMail®365 and accessible to all ePals users in the ePals Global Community™. LearningSpace users can explore and collaborate on Smithsonian projects and exhibits using a variety of safe, policy-managed social media and Web 2.0 tools, with the ability to share, store, and manage projects and files on ePals cloud-based platform for anytime-anywhere access. SchoolMail users can get weekly emails delivering interactive Smithsonian reading and writing activities targeted to topic and grade level. All Smithsonian on ePals subjects include lesson plans for teachers, step-by-step collaborative projects for classrooms, and media galleries where students and teachers can publish and share completed work. ePals classrooms can also directly connect with Smithsonian experts and curators online for lessons, discussion, and enrichment. Both organizations will work together to produce classroom projects and activities.
The host of the leading social learning network (SLN), the ePals Global Community, ePals embeds community access throughout its product suite and reaches more than 25 million students and educators worldwide. With the addition of Smithsonian’s resources, the ePals platform now provides schools and districts with a safe, award-winning, scalable social learning platform that automatically integrates world-renowned educational content, provides rich features to support project-based learning and schoolwork, and readily facilitates global collaboration to create powerful and engaging learning experiences.
“The Smithsonian Institution is excited to be fusing our rich educational resources with ePals’ industry-leading social learning platform,” said Stephanie Norby, Director of the Smithsonian’s Center for Education and Museum Studies. “By working together, we’re not just delivering Smithsonian content to a broad community of learners: we’re creating new opportunities for discovery, collaboration, and meaningful learning experiences.
“Smithsonian and ePals are two of the world's most significant 21st century educational resources and combining efforts provides a powerful tool for schools across the globe,” said Tim DiScipio, Co-Founder of ePals. "The Smithsonian Institution, with its unparalleled educational media, inspires and invites participation. Integrating Smithsonian resources across ePals social learning product suite connects the largest online community of learners to a great educational organization in an environment proven to engage students more deeply in learning.”
“Smithsonian and ePals bring together two important resources needed urgently right now in schools,” said Dorothy Arnold, 5th grade teacher at Forrest Brook Elementary School in Hauppauge, New York. “As a teacher who uses Web 2.0 technology in the classroom, having access to curricular resources is terrific – but to be classroom-accessible, that content needs to be in an online environment that is safe, designed specifically with K-12 digital use in mind, and that can enable home-to-school access. The ePals-Smithsonian offering is the first of its kind to do that. It is very exciting.”
"The integrated ePals-Smithsonian offering creates a tremendous venue for learning,” said Erica Zigelman, principal at the New York City Department of Education and founding principal, The Renaissance Leadership Academy. “Educators can easily incorporate world-class resources into lessons, and students can interact with those resources meaningfully in a collaborative, hands-on environment. It’s a clear example of how great content plus context can lead to more enriching learning experiences at school and stronger home-school connections."
Smithsonian and ePals are co-exhibiting at the ISTE 2011 conference in Philadelphia, PA June 26 - 29. For more information, visit Booth #331.
About ePals, Inc.
A privately-held education technology company, ePals, Inc., has created a leading K-12 social learning network. ePals offers primary and secondary schools, teachers, students, and parents worldwide a safe and secure platform for building educational communities, providing quality digital content and facilitating collaboration for effective 21st century learning. ePals is used by approximately 700,000 educators and reaches approximately 25 million students and parents in 200 countries and territories www.epals.com. Corporate information is available at www.corp.epals.com.
About Smithsonian Institution
Founded in 1846, the Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum and research complex, consisting of 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park and nine research facilities. There are 6,000 Smithsonian employees and 6,500 volunteers. Approximately 30 million people from around the world visited the Smithsonian in 2009, with 188 million visits to the Smithsonian websites. The total number of objects, works of art and specimens at the Smithsonian is estimated at 137 million. For more information, www.SI.edu.