When I was researching NETS-T 4 for my Glog I came across ePals, www.epals.com. This a global community that connects classrooms all around the world by providing a safe and collaborative technology for schools to use as a means of connecting. Students from around the world can communicate through using ePals forms and blogs. Teachers, parents, districts, and students know that the conversations will be monitored and controlled by the teachers. There are also focus areas, where students can learn specific concepts thoroughly. Two focus area topics that ePals has explored have been issues related around black history and biodiversity. National geographic is a content investor and through that collaborative learning experiences have been created. Partners can be found from across the world through forums and searchers. Rich and extensive units have been put together for students to connect through the use of emails and other exchanges. The structured format allows for students to delve into the topic. Dynamic and interactive learning has also been created through the use of in2Books, which is an eMentoring program where adults and kids are matched in classrooms. The mentors and student pen pals read five books together over the course of the year. Then they exchange online letters about the important issues in the books. The adult mentors impact students through encouraging them as well as giving students who come from high poverty environments an example of adults using literacy in their lives. Through using ePals students have become independent curious learners and along with that their standardized test scores have also improved.
I think that ePals is a great way to connect with global education communities. There are endless amounts of topics which can be focus points and students would benefit from the use of technology. I’m not exactly sure if the Anchorage School District or the Mat-Su School District uses ePals, but it looks like it’s well worth pursuing. Maybe someday we too can be a part of this amazing global community!
I like the idea of epals. I did the penpal thing one school year, but not many times.I don't remember anything about it, besides the fact that we tried it. I like that topics are given and monitored to make sure students talk about appropriate topics.I looked up a gobal communiction tool to have an international book club and I think it would be fun to have the same group be epal too so a friendship can form over more talking time.
ReplyDeleteSo many people found ePals! I think this would be a great resource for us to use in our future classrooms. It's reassuring to know that teachers are monitoring the material on there, making it a safer environment for kids to learn. There are also so many different ways to learn about concepts on the site, I think it's awesome and will definitely be exploring it more.
ReplyDeleteSo many of us found Epals :). I think it is a great resource that can be used in the classroom for children of all ages. I also like how the site is monitored by teachers so that it is safe for students to use. I can't wait to explore it more myself.
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