ePals Online Community Building Cross-Cultural Collaborations and Language Learning...

ePals Online Community Building Cross-Cultural Collaborations and Language Learning Exchanges Between Chinese Students and Their Peers Around the World

ePals Executives To Demonstrate How Chinese Students are
Collaborating Through ePals Learning Community At Intel Developer
Forum in Shanghai, April 2-3
SHANGHAI, China--(Business Wire)--
With hundreds of classrooms in China now using the education
applications of ePals, Inc., teachers and parents worldwide are
accelerating the frequency of online collaborations with Chinese
students for their K-12 students in regular course work and various
independent learning activities. Active in China since 2000, ePals is
the largest network of interconnected classrooms in the world,
reaching more than 13 million educators and students in 200 countries
and territories.

Ed Fish, President and Chief Executive Officer of ePals, said,
"China's importance in 21st century world trade and the global
economy, the approaching 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing, and
rising demand for literacy in Mandarin are key reasons why educators
and parents in western industrialized economies in particular are
voicing great interest in connecting with Chinese classrooms through
ePals. We're hearing from parents, teachers and students around the
world that they have a very strong desire to meet and learn from
Chinese peers online."

Fish and Tim DiScipio, ePals' Co-founder and Chief Marketing
Officer, are attending the Intel Developer Forum this week in
Shanghai. ePals, based in Herndon, Va., announced in February that it
is one of several companies partnering with Intel on the Intel-powered
classmate PC. The classmate PC is an affordable fully functional
laptop designed to support collaborative learning environments for
students in emerging markets.

"We are working with Intel and its partners to incorporate the
global community and learning resources of ePals with Intel's
classmate PC," DiScipio said. "We also are working with other
companies that are supporting education on Intel-based machines, and
look forward to collaborating with Intel-based OEMs to target the K-12
education market." ePals was the first company to introduce education
applications on the classmate PC that are dedicated to creating a safe
online environment. Among these applications are ePals' global
community for learning, SchoolMail(TM) and SchoolBlog(TM).

Demonstrations for Conference Participants, News Media

At the Intel conference in the Shanghai International Convention
Center, Fish and DiScipio will be demonstrating how elementary, high
school and even college students in China use ePals to connect with
and learn from students in other countries. The students'
communication is often greatly enhanced through ePals' SchoolMail(TM),
which uniquely provides an embedded, instant translation capability
for email texts and now accommodates nine widely used languages. This
high-quality translation feature encompasses a total of 72 different
language pairs. Mandarin to English and English to Mandarin, and
Spanish to Mandarin and Mandarin to Spanish are among these pairs.

As of March 28, ePals had catalogued and posted more than 2500
requests from teachers, parents and students for collaborations with
schools or students in China. Here is one example from a mother in San
Jose, California:

"I am looking for an ePal for my daughter. Anywhere in the world
is fine as long as the ages are between 11-13. I am especially
interested in ePals from China (my daughter is learning Chinese), the
UK (she loves Harry Potter) and in Asia. Thank you!"

Also as of March 28, ePals had posted more than 550 requests from
within China for collaborations with students in other countries. Here
is one from a high school teacher in Qinhuangdao, a popular Yellow Sea
resort city located 270 kilometers (167 miles) east of Beijing:

"My students are sophomores majoring in English. Their first
language is Chinese. They have studied English for 8 years, but have
no chance to communicate with others. They are interested in
exchanging culture with others. We are looking for any classes at the
same English level around the world. We prefer to correspond by email
and to write twice a month or once a week. We look forward to hearing
from you!"

Leading Online Community for Connecting Chinese Classrooms Around
the World

ePals quickly became the leading online community for connecting
China's classrooms with other classrooms around the world after it was
first introduced in China in 2000.

Yaodong Chen, an English teacher at Guangxi Polytechnic College in
Liuzhou, a city in central-southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous
Region, first began using ePals for web-based language learning in
2002 and since then has worked with more than 700 students.

"ePals is introducing Chinese students to authentic English," Chen
said. "It will revolutionize the teaching and learning of English as a
foreign language in the Chinese context." Chen's students exchange
emails with students in the U.S., U.K., New Zealand, Australia,
Canada, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany, Italy, Iceland,
Ireland, The Netherlands and many other countries in Asia, Africa and
Europe.

In addition to multilingual activities and matching classrooms
locally and internationally for collaborative learning, ePals fosters
critical thinking, reading comprehension, writing skills as well as
21st century skills such as digital literacy and cultural
understanding. It includes a wide range of curricula, ranging from
self-organizing to highly structured.

The collaboration with Intel is part of ePals' ongoing initiative
to accelerate the growth of its global community for learning. Last
September, ePals made its award-winning connectivity tools and
curricula available at no cost to educators and school systems. This
shift from subscription to free access has rapidly accelerated the
growth of the ePals community. ePals safely connects more than 350,000
teachers and their classrooms from 200 countries and territories
around the world, and is adding more than 2,000 new classrooms each
month.

High-quality digital content from National Geographic was threaded
throughout ePals.com earlier this year. Initial topics in the National
Geographic content include maps and geography, habits, global warming,
natural disasters, people and culture, great leaders, water and
weather. ePals also has been embraced by the New Partnership for
Africa's Development Council to provide African students and educators
with the opportunity to connect with classrooms worldwide through the
ePals' Global Community.

The ePals demonstrations will be ongoing during the conference.
They can be viewed at the ePals exhibit booth from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
on April 2-3 in the Shanghai International Convention Center. The
booth is located at Booth BU30 in the IT/CPG area of Level 1 in the
Mandarin Hall. Members of the news media are invited to view the
demonstrations to see how real Chinese students are learning with
students from other countries through the ePals education
applications. Fish and DiScipio also are available for interviews
during the conference. (To arrange an interview, please call (+86)
13917140427 and ask to speak with Ed Fish. For a back-up contact,
please call Amy Gross at (001) 718-813-8053.)

For more information about ePals and its products, please visit
www.ePals.com or the corporate site www.ePalscorp.com. More
information about the Intel classmate PC initiative can be found at
www.classmatepc.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) (www.ePals.com)
is the largest online community of K-12 learners, reaching more than
13 million educators and students across 200 countries and
territories. The company's mission is to support meaningful learning
through collaborative online experiences that empower and inspire.

Primary in Shanghai, April 1-3:
Ed Fish, (+86) 13917140427
Exhibitor Booth BU30, IT/CPG Area, Level 1, Mandarin Hall
Shanghai International Convention Center
or
Alternate for China-based and international media:
Amy Gross, (001) 718-813-8053
Agross@rlmnet.com
or
U.S.-based media:
Rebecca Kilduff, 703-885-3400
RKilduff@corp.epals.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008