The Milken Family Foundation has opened its Milken Educator Virtual Workspace site as a free online educational resource to educators and students around the world.

The MEVW site is designed as a collaborative teaching and learning center.

It offers a variety of Internet tools, including e-mail, bulletin boards, chats, Web publishing, project management information, calendars, document sharing and editing, and evaluation applications.

The MEVW site previously was available only to recipients of the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award. Foundation officials decided to open the online center for the benefit of educators worldwide.

The site was launched in 1996. It has since hosted more than 45 online educational communities and more than 500 Milken Educator Award winners.

The foundation gave 160 educators unrestricted grants of $25,000 each last year as part of its annual award program for teaching excellence. It has given nearly $30 million to 1,330 educators since the program started in 1985.