WASHINGTON, DC -- (Marketwire) -- 11/14/12 -- ePals Corporation (TSX VENTURE: SLN), an education media company and the world's leading safe social learning network, today announced the launch of News Now, a new learning center on www.ePals.com/journalism dedicated to helping high school students learn professional news and editorial reporting skills. The center provides resources aligned with "real world" journalism practices and communications standards such as the Common Core Standards in the United States, and encourages students to develop and showcase their own reporting and journalism skills.

Writing and Reporting -- For Students By Students
Collaboration is at the heart of News Now with students encouraged to contribute articles, and critique and share comments with peers from around the world. A series of topic areas and "assignment desks," organized by genre, allow students to publish and learn simultaneously as they create and post their own work alongside that of professional journalists.

"ePals is committed to helping grow and support the next generation of professional journalists on a global scale," says ePals Co-Founder and Chief Learning officer Nina Zolt. "With News Now, we invite students from around the world to participate in activities that will help them build the professional critical thinking and ethical reporting skills so vital to maintaining civil discourse, dialogue and debate on important local, national and international issues in the 21st century."

News Now provides a safe, collaborative and interactive environment where students can:

• Read and comment on professional and student-generated news organized by topic areas including World, Sports, Science, Travel, and Lifestyle
• Access content around media/news literacy to get students thinking about what they are reading with a critical eye
• Gain critical college and career skills by writing and publishing their own stories to the website, and maintaining a portfolio of work they can share with others
• Review and analyze different types of journalism with a toolbox that helps them generate hard news, opinion editorials, special interest pieces, and features
• Participate in assignment desks -- thought starters and challenges to help students get inspired

"ePals Learning Centers bring together people, resources and activities on educationally relevant subjects," says ePals President Ed Fish. "Our News Now journalism center, combined with the global scope and perspective of ePals provides a unique environment for aspiring young journalists to report on topics that affect them, learn best practices and share perspectives on issues that impact their futures in a connected world."

About ePals Corporation
ePals Corporation (TSX VENTURE: 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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