About ePals
ePals Corporation is an education technology company and the leading provider of safe social learning networks for elementary and secondary school. ePals connects teachers, students, parents and educators from around the world, enabling them to communicate and collaborate on academic and cultural projects and establish international friendships.
ePals serves approximately 700,000 educators and reaches millions of teachers, students and parents in approximately 200 countries. The global size of ePals' network offers teachers, students and parents amazing ability to facilitate teaching and student learning by sharing projects and practices, connecting with other classrooms and learners around the corner and around the globe, and accessing content and lesson plans designed for an increasingly digital and networked world.
ePals is a platform designed to promote meaningful teaching and learning, showing teachers and students how to use technology strategically to academic achievement. This involves creating a safe and secure environment that challenges students and educators to research smartly, collaborate with other learners of all ages, think critically, problem-solve, and communicate their learning. ePals capabilities include for example pen pals in other countries as well as digital storytelling. All this builds up reading, writing and critical thinking skills.
Enter the website here: http://www.epals.com/
What you need to make it work.
This is a cloud based solution and the only thing you need is a Web 2.0 technology.
How the resource can be used by teachers.
This website is a great tool to get in touch with classrooms worldwide. The teacher has the
opportunity to introduce it to the students by joining the community for free. By
monitoring a school-safe email for all students they will get the opportunity to
communicate with English-speaking pen pals.
ePals also possesses a teachers forum, and it is an excellent forum to discuss technical
issues related to the website, to share their teaching and communicating with other
teachers on an international level. There is also a part called Community Media, and there
you can see how other teachers work and share your own work for example by uploading,
sharing and viewing student work. The ability to find inspiration for their tuition is also
available for teachers in the section classroom match which is a tool to find collaborative
partners.
How the resource can be used by pupils.
By getting a school-safe email for correspondence the pupils will get the opportunity to interact worldwide online in a safe, educational environment. By obtaining pen pals the whole class can correspond with friends across the world, which enables them to communicate and collaborate on academic and cultural project and establish international friendship.
Another source of the page is digital storytelling. This a way for the pupils to share knowledge, understand themselves and understand others. At ePals, they want them to share their stories. Share stories about their culture, their traditions, their country, and their families. Therefore the pupils will learn from each other, and, together, create many more stories to share. This is based on ePals Projects Page, and each project there is designed to be used as customized to your classroom’s needs.
The students also have access to a forum where they can ask questions that may interest them, which gives them a global awareness.
Other considerations when using this resource
I see a large amount of advantages to use this website in my own teaching, especially because you can use it in all classroom situations. Depending on the pupils ability you can either choose to work as a whole class or in peers/individual to communicate with your pen pals. According to the website the students are more engaged in the learning process because they are interacting and working together with peers and educators within these groups. In addition, students learn how to use key social media tools for education purposes on one central platform.
However digital storytelling can be a bit more limited, since it requires some pre knowledge of English, but according to the website storytelling have always been an important part of a community. There is so much you can learn by listening to and telling a good story. In conclusion I think this is the ultimate way if you would like to get to know new people and their culture better, then you can exchange ideas with others and at the same time the pupils will improve their language skills.
ePals Corporation is an education technology company and the leading provider of safe social learning networks for elementary and secondary school. ePals connects teachers, students, parents and educators from around the world, enabling them to communicate and collaborate on academic and cultural projects and establish international friendships.
ePals serves approximately 700,000 educators and reaches millions of teachers, students and parents in approximately 200 countries. The global size of ePals' network offers teachers, students and parents amazing ability to facilitate teaching and student learning by sharing projects and practices, connecting with other classrooms and learners around the corner and around the globe, and accessing content and lesson plans designed for an increasingly digital and networked world.
ePals is a platform designed to promote meaningful teaching and learning, showing teachers and students how to use technology strategically to academic achievement. This involves creating a safe and secure environment that challenges students and educators to research smartly, collaborate with other learners of all ages, think critically, problem-solve, and communicate their learning. ePals capabilities include for example pen pals in other countries as well as digital storytelling. All this builds up reading, writing and critical thinking skills.
Enter the website here: http://www.epals.com/
What you need to make it work.
This is a cloud based solution and the only thing you need is a Web 2.0 technology.
How the resource can be used by teachers.
This website is a great tool to get in touch with classrooms worldwide. The teacher has the
opportunity to introduce it to the students by joining the community for free. By
monitoring a school-safe email for all students they will get the opportunity to
communicate with English-speaking pen pals.
ePals also possesses a teachers forum, and it is an excellent forum to discuss technical
issues related to the website, to share their teaching and communicating with other
teachers on an international level. There is also a part called Community Media, and there
you can see how other teachers work and share your own work for example by uploading,
sharing and viewing student work. The ability to find inspiration for their tuition is also
available for teachers in the section classroom match which is a tool to find collaborative
partners.
How the resource can be used by pupils.
By getting a school-safe email for correspondence the pupils will get the opportunity to interact worldwide online in a safe, educational environment. By obtaining pen pals the whole class can correspond with friends across the world, which enables them to communicate and collaborate on academic and cultural project and establish international friendship.
Another source of the page is digital storytelling. This a way for the pupils to share knowledge, understand themselves and understand others. At ePals, they want them to share their stories. Share stories about their culture, their traditions, their country, and their families. Therefore the pupils will learn from each other, and, together, create many more stories to share. This is based on ePals Projects Page, and each project there is designed to be used as customized to your classroom’s needs.
The students also have access to a forum where they can ask questions that may interest them, which gives them a global awareness.
Other considerations when using this resource
I see a large amount of advantages to use this website in my own teaching, especially because you can use it in all classroom situations. Depending on the pupils ability you can either choose to work as a whole class or in peers/individual to communicate with your pen pals. According to the website the students are more engaged in the learning process because they are interacting and working together with peers and educators within these groups. In addition, students learn how to use key social media tools for education purposes on one central platform.
However digital storytelling can be a bit more limited, since it requires some pre knowledge of English, but according to the website storytelling have always been an important part of a community. There is so much you can learn by listening to and telling a good story. In conclusion I think this is the ultimate way if you would like to get to know new people and their culture better, then you can exchange ideas with others and at the same time the pupils will improve their language skills.
Enjoy!
Yours,
Anna Sandell
I really appreciate this very useful ICT resource you introduced here. There would be less complicated preparation compared to paper-based pen pals. By communicating foreign people through the screen must stimulate pupils and it will motivate them to learn English more for sure. Some students might be unfamiliar with writing a sentence in English. For those who need help, teachers can create a worksheet where there are questions and answers that students can use for writing a message. In addition, exchanging information about their country, culture and trends will definitely something new to pupils. Getting to know one person from England is much more interesting and real than reading a book about England. There would be challenges that teachers have to deal with as well. Many young pupils won’t be able to communicate in English or other second languages easily with those who have them as mother tongue. Probably it will be important to consider the level of English of each pupil and choose the right pen pals. For example, Japanese students in the 5th grade knows only easy vocabularies and grammar in English, so it will be better to have students in the grade 3rd or 4th from English speaking countries. Furthermore, there would be ‘time difference’ between countries which makes it difficult to deliver message smoothly, thus teachers have to be aware of it and see whether all students succeed in getting a message regularly.
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