Students of the world
http://studentsoftheworld.info/infopays/menu_XNA.html
What is it?
This is a French non-profit website which started 1995. The aim of this website is that all children over the world should have an opportunity to learn about other countries. It is also that children should get to know people in other countries. On this website you can choose the country you find interesting and learn more about it. You can find much fact of almost every country in the world. One of the aims on this website is also that children should have the opportunity to choose a language and develop that knowledge. The site is mostly made for kids, students and teachers. There are many things you can do on this website, like read blogs from all over the world, have one or more pen pal, get homework help, read about schools in different countries, play games, chat, learn about different animals, jobs and sports and read and participate in different forums.
This website is opened for everyone and all services are free. You do not have to be a member; you can use all services anyway. Only if you want to have a pen pal you have to register yourself and fill in some things. Like your name, email and your age. The start page on this website is really clear and it is easy to find what you want. On the left side you will find all headlines about what you can do on this site.
How the resource can be used by teachers?
This website can be really useful for teachers. They can find much information about countries, animals, jobs, sports. Teachers can start many projects and different themes with help of this site. It can be a theme that is about the world’s countries, Scandinavian, Animals or schools in other countries. They can start cooperation with other schools and classes in the world. There is also a forum that is only for teachers, where they can discuss, change experiences and ideas.
How the resource can be used by pupils?
This website is a really good source of learning material for pupils. They can (just like teachers) find much information and fact. They can also get to know friends from other countries and chat with them or get a pen pal. They can get help to do their homework and play learning games. They can also participate in clubs with different themes. Most of the services are divided in age groups. If you want to have a pen pal for example you will find a friend in approximately your age.
To consider
It can be hard to work with this site if you do not have enough with computers, but it can work anyway if you have a smart board that everyone can see. Another negative point of this is that the site looks really boring and is not inspiring at all. You can do much on this site; it is only your creation that is the limit.
/Hanna Nygren
Hi Hanna! I really enjoyed reading about this website you choose to make your blog post about, and especially since I am not sure I had heard of it before..! I do however remember my Spanish teacher in High School giving us the chance to enter a similar website where we could also chat with people from other countries, in their languages. So, here are some comments on your blog post..!
ReplyDeleteStructure-wise I think you have done a good job on writing your blog post, since the sections are very clearly marked out with headlines, and I think you provide good information to what the website is and what features it provides. The idea is great, and I like how it combines information about the country you might be interested in, as well as the option to find people from that specific country to chat and communicate with.
My only concern there is how to regulate that the people who register are really who they say they are, and I would be a little uncertain whether to encourage my students to communicate with these people, or not. Would it not be possible for me (for example) to register, claiming to be an 8 year old boy from Scotland? Obviously if I would be to do that I would be doing it with good intentions, but there is no guarantee that others might not do the same, but with different intentions. ...Especially since it is a website which offers free registration, from what I understand. I think I would not introduce the chat feature to my students, for those reasons, since even if I as a teacher could supervise them while chatting during class, I would have no power over them once they went back home. I think there is just too much insecurity out there, and I would not like to encourage young children to enter into that would. It sounds great to chat with people from other countries, but I think as a teacher you need to set an example not to talk to people over the internet if you have never met them and don't know who they are.
I do however really like the idea of the students chatting with someone from another country, put I would prefer to do it using a few white lies. Perhaps team up with another English teacher (from the same school or so) who I could claim to be a friend of mine from England or the United States, and then the students could chat with that person. That way I would know who was chatting with my students, and that person would be able to adapt their language so that my students would get a chance to understand. I also think it helps to send out the message that it is okay to chat online, but only with people that you know who they are (since I would claim it to be perhaps the son or daughter of a friend abroad).
(To be continued... =) Haha)
(My comment was too long to be posted as a whole, so here comes the continuation.)
ReplyDeleteAnother idea if, for example with older children, wanting to actually find real chat friends for the students, I would contact a school directly. Perhaps one in England or the United States, to see if they would be interested in exchanging letters/emails/chat messages with my students. That way each student could be given a "penpal", but I would know that they were who they claimed to be, and that they were appropriate penpals for my students.
That is my main thought on this, and if in any way I've missunderstood and the chat feature is indeed more "secure", I'd be happy to rethink my opinion. Besides this though, I think the website sounds great, and I would definitely consider using it when teaching English. I think it sounds fun to learn about different countries, play games and such things, and I think it would be very useful when working with children. It is however concerning that the website has such a boring and uninspiring look, since there is a risk children might feel unmotivated to use it for those reasons. I know you already thought of this, and I agree with you. Hopefully someone will decide to give the website a face-lift someday!
I would have liked to see some more examples here in your post of potential learning activities or tasks that this website could be used for! Like I mentioned before, you have done a great job structuring your post and I really like it, but I would have enjoyed to read some more examples of uses in a classroom. It isn't necessarily needed to explain the website and its functions, but it would have added an inspirational touch to your post. For example, I would perhaps give the students a task to find a certain fact about a certain country, and allow them to use the website to search for it. It could give them the chance to practice using the internet, as well as reading and understanding the things written in English.
What age group would you recommend to use this website? Personally I think it seems to be the most suitable for a little bit older children, perhaps 11-15, so that they would be able to read and understand the content. However, it could also be useful for the teacher in terms of looking for information to use in a class and such.
Great job on your blog post, and the website is a great suggestion. I will explore it further, and definitely use it someday in the future! Thank you so much for sharing.