Microsoft, ePals team up on collaborative

toolsBy: La’Sheika Weatherspoon

Microsoft Corp. has announced partnership with ePals

“Alliance could spur use of education technology for communicating and sharing online.”- Dennis Pierce

ePals Learning Space platform provides 600,000 educators in 200 countries

Less than 10% of schools have given students tools for communicating and collaborating online

“This is one of truly amazing bi-products.”- DiScipio

Engaging students through online collaboration

The ePals Learning Space provides eMail, blogs, wikis, shared portfolios, media galleries, and language translation in 35 languages

It’s partnership with ePals could give Microsoft a boost in its competition with Google

Live@edu is Microsoft’s answer to Google Apps for Education

“ePals will help take us to the next level in making the cloud come alive in a learning scenario.” - Anthony Salcito

The deal will benefit schools and will make sense for both of the companies

It could spur more widespread use of online tools for communicating and collaborating within K-12 education

ePals customers will be able to take advantage of popular productivity software

Educators and students are able to store and share online sources

The deal helps it address several key concerns, such as security.

These tools let educators define features such as document overflow and permissions

Both companies will involve adding the kinds of policy management tools