CEA Virtual Platform and Tablets

Hello Members,
 
The announcement below from Steve Steurer, the Executive Director of Correctional Education Association (CEA), went out to CEA members last week and is an exciting new development in the advancement of the potential applications of technology in secure classroom settings.  I left Steve's contact information at the bottom of the message intact and the CEA website is www.ceanational.org.  Please feel free to reach out with questions, and to post questions, comment and/or concerns here.
 
Announcement:
 
Friends,

It is with great pleasure that I publicly announce that CEA has signed multi-year agreements with JPay and Union Supply to provide secure education tablets and a virtual school platform for all prisons, jails and juvenile facilities. 

John Dowdell, Jerry McGlone and others have been working behind the scenes with JPay to move CEA into a strategic position in the correctional field. Also, some of this results directly from the recent White House meeting on technology for correctional education. Other ideas came from work that a number of CEA members have been doing with technology during the last year or two. It all came together after the CEA conference a few weeks ago where JPay, Union and a number of corrections and others brainstormed the use of technology. The result, we believe, will be a giant step forward for education in prisons, juvenile facilities and jails. 

More details will be announced over the next few weeks, but basically CEA is the exclusive content advisor for both JPay and Union Supply. CEA and Union will continue to sell and enhance the content for the secure iPEP tablet which is locked down and does not operate on WiFi or connect to a platform. At the same time CEA and JPay have partnered for their open tablet and an agnostic secure virtual school platform. 

One of the major stumbling blocks has been the funding to develop the platform. JPay has agreed to finance the secure platform for correctional settings. JPay promises to allow any tablet maker to access their platform.  CEA will work with Union and JPay to bring aboard all major publisher and software providers.  That is what we mean by agnostic.  

The implications of all this are enormous. CEA is now intimately involved with the two major approaches for using tablets and advanced technology to enhance educational opportunities for the incarcerated.  Union had developed a secure tablet, locked down to prevent excursions onto the internet and then partnered with CEA to load it (iPEP) with quality educational materials.  JPay decided to created an agnostic and secure virtual school platform and allow educational publishers and educational service providers to link their websites to correctional sites. Both companies recognized CEA's pivotal role in the field of education for the incarcerated.

If all this is too much to swallow don't worry. We will be sending out more information as things develop.

Much thanks to Union and JPay who both agreed to hire CEA as their exclusive content provider and advisor.
 

Steve

Stephen J. Steurer, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Correctional Education Association
8182 Lark Brown Road   Suite 202
Elkridge, MD  21075
443-459-3081 tel
443-459-3088 fax
www.ceanational.org