ePals® Challenges Students Globally to Participate in Elections Through the World Elections Center

Oct. 17, 2012 - PRLog -- ePals Corporation (TSX-V: SLN), an education media company and the world’s leading safe social learning network, has recently launched the ePals World Elections Center, designed to involve students in a range of interactive activities to help them learn about, share and exchange information on election processes, candidates and issues globally.
Interactive and Student-Centered
The ePals World Elections Center includes projects and activities for both whole-class and independent learning and reinforces problem-solving, critical thinking and the cultural awareness emphasized in the new Common Core Standards. Among the multimedia offerings available for students to explore are videos on: the recent French presidential inauguration; the campaign trail with 2012 Venezuelan presidential candidates; and the U.S. Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Students can also tap into a variety of safe social media features that enable collaborative projects, discussion forums around election topics, quizzes, polls, and other interactive communication elements.

Encouraging Student Voices
A primary area of the World Elections Center is Students Speak where students can share their thoughts and feelings about the elections, leaders and issues in their countries with peers around the world. Student voices are showcased through a variety of media including writing, artwork and videos. In this area students can create collages illustrating the candidates’ platforms, videotape a reading of an original poem about peace, or craft a persuasive essay explaining their personal political position. Special Challenge sections ask students to craft election slogans, campaign rules or a video-based Presidential Minute, where they have 60 seconds to address the leader of their country with advice, concerns and issues of importance to their families. For examples of Presidential Minute challenge videos created by students for past elections, visit: http://www.epals.com/worldelections/?studentsspeak



Classroom Projects and Teacher Support
Making it easy for teachers to integrate the World Elections Center into the curriculum is a Teachers’ Corner where educators from around the world can find partners for collaborative projects on a range of election-related topics. Sample projects include exploring primary election issues, researching candidates’ viewpoints, and looking at the U.S. presidential campaign from a global perspective. Students can also get a kid-to-kid viewpoint on leadership through projects where they research and share detailed information on their country’s candidates and how their current leaders came into power. Independent investigations can also be part of projects, with students interviewing parents and grandparents to learn about their immigration stories and how these affect their attitudes towards candidates and issues.

International Curricular Focus
Additional elements of the World Elections Center include Fact Pages for countries that have had or will have Presidential elections in 2012. Fact Pages include detailed curricular material focusing on each country’s political structure including its form of government, election processes, terms of office, voting regulations, predictions, and result implications. Countries with elections in 2012 include the Russian Federation, the U. S., Taiwan, Mexico, Slovenia, Gabon, South Korea, France, Sierra Leone, Venezuela, and more.

“Every teacher understands the power of the teachable moment,” says Nina Zolt, ePals Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer. “The World Elections Center provides a terrific opportunity for students around the globe to explore, communicate with peers and generally become involved in 2012 elections and issues around the world that will have a direct impact on their futures.”

To learn more about the ePals World Election Center, visit http://www.epals.com/worldelections

About ePals Corporation
ePals Corporation (TSXV: SLN) is an education media company and the leading provider of safe social learning networks (SLN). Focused on the K-12 market, ePals offers elementary and secondary school administrators, 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' award-winning products include: the ePals Global Learning Network; SchoolMail®365; LearningSpace®; In2Books®, a common core eMentoring program that builds reading, writing and critical thinking skills; and popular children’s educational publishing brands including Cricket® and Cobblestone®. ePals customers and partners include the International Baccalaureate, Microsoft Corporation, Dell Inc., IBM Corp., National Geographic and leading school districts across the United States and globally. ePals serves approximately 800,000 classrooms and reaches millions of teachers, students and parents in approximately 200 countries and territories. Visit www.epals.com. For In2Books, visit www.In2Books.com.

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Sue Hanson
Media Relations
ePals PR
Phone: (763) 657-0987
sue@susanhanson.com
Will Jarred
SVP, Marketing & Corporate Communications
ePals Corporation
Phone: (703) 885-3400
wjarred@corp.epals.com