ePals Corporation, an education technology company and safe social learning network (“SLN”), today announced the launch of LearningSpace 2.0, the next generation of its social learning platform.
LearningSpace2.0combines consumer collaboration and social networking with SchoolSafe™ technology-enabled safety and privacy controls to manage online social interaction. In addition, LearningSpace 2.0 contains enhancements that optimize the platform for educator mediated and peer-based learning.
Customization of Learning Communities Through Educator Controls and Easy Scalability
ePals’ patent-pending technology offers administrators and teachers several customization options for creating appropriate degrees of “open” or “closed” learning communities, depending on the participant’s role. For example, administrators can set different communications permissions for teachers and parents, or for students at varying grade levels.The new version of LearningSpace 2.0 ships with a suite of enhanced collaboration tools and apps, and incorporates a framework for adding new applications for peer learning as they become available.
Global Classroom Connections
LearningSpace 2.0 also enables connections with other classrooms around the world via integration with the ePals Global Community™ (www.epals.com). Connecting approximately 700,000 classrooms in 200 countries, the ePals Global Community is a K-12 social learning network where students and educators can find educational resources and safely connect for collaborative projects.
Range of Social Learning Capabilities
In this release, LearningSpace ships with more than 40 customizable apps for communication, collaboration, moderation and site formatting, which gives district administrators and educators the ability to modify the platform to suit their needs – including combining apps to create both private and public-facing school pages. Other collaborative features include enhanced grouping functions for classes, organizations and team projects; integrated assignment and project support; multi-level blogs, wikis, forums, and media galleries; and dynamic events and calendars. At ePals, app creation is ongoing, with more currently in development. The LearningSpace 2.0 framework allows for rapid deployment of new learning apps and features.
More About LearningSpace 2.0
·Enhanced Groups –Streamlined ability for educators to create, organize and navigate hierarchies of safe, Web 2.0-enabled groups for classes, projects, collections, school clubs, special interest groups and local and global collaborations;
·Advanced Web 2.0 Tools– Ability to add and remove multiple Web 2.0 features such as blogs, media galleries, wikis and forums within each group for multi-model teaching and learning;
·Assignments and Project Support– Assignment and homework dropbox features for teachers to easily manage, assign and send updates about school work;
·Dynamic Calendars and Events– Event management tools and dynamically populated calendars for students, parents and educators to track events, due dates and deadlines across the groups and classes relevant to them;
·School and District Websites –Ability to create externally facing school-branded pages from easy-to-use templates to manage public communications.
