Ask a thousand educators to get together and create the describe what the perfect “school” should be like, and some big common themes will emerge: school should be engaging, have a genuine connections to the real world, should nurture different talents, help kids no matter what their strengths and weaknesses and, of course, be safe.
Ed Fish, president of ePals, spends a lot of his time thinking about that beautiful, shimmering image of school—and then all the puzzle pieces that need to fit together to make it possible. ePals has had some stunning success: it boasts that it is the largest online community of educators and students, delivering mail and other communications services to 600,000 classrooms around the world and 25 million students. (About half of those are in the U.S., Fish says.)
ePals partners with Microsoft
Today ePals said it was teaming up with Microsoft to try to create another puzzle or two piece—namely how to shore up the foundations underlying school email and collaboration technologies. There’s a second element of the deal, too: Microsoft took a minority ownership stake in ePals (less than 10%), making it the second outside investor in the privately held, 14-year old firm. (National Geographic made a similar investment 18 months ago.)
Online Voice Conferences & Meetings 