Böcker

Website: Students of the world

What the resource is ... 

http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/menu_pres.html is a project which was started out in 1995 by a team in France. Their aim was, and still is "To open the doors of World's cultures - To further communication between young people all over the World". In French the association is called Etudiants du Monde and it is non-profit association. The idea is to reach their goal by providing schoolboys, schoolgirls and students with pen-friends in a suitable age. In this way pupils all over the world will have a chance to discover new cultures and improve their knowledge of foreign languages or learn a new one.  In 2012, they have had more than 200 million visitors, and their database includes near 1 million penpals + 12 000 blogs.

How it works ... 

It works in such that it is a webpage, open and free for anyone to explore and use. 

The website contains nine different subpages; 

• About us. Where you can read about the idea of the website and the people responsible for it. 
• Penpals of the world. (for kids, students and teachers only! Anyone over 25 not explaining in their add why they are there will automatically be deleted) Where you can create your own penpal area. The penpal area includes a profile, a friendlist, a mailbox, forums (of your chioce) an introduction of your country. You don't have to submit your email or any personal informartion in order to create this area. 
• Countries of the world. Where you can read very detailed information about all countries of the world. For example it provides geopolitical, cultural and tourist  information.
• Schools of the world. Where schools from all over the world can share their school webpage or create a blog. Here teachers are also able to create ads in order to search for or start penpal exchange programs or other school projects. 
• Games. Where you can play educational games or puzzles concerning topics like; animals of the world, , products of the world, astronomy, dinosaurs and ancient egypt. 
• Blogs. Where you can read all the different blogs provided by the website. The blogs are written by penpals who are active on the site. 
• Chats, clubs and surveys. Where you can join a current group or club. Divided into age groups of 5-15 (primary and middle school) and 15-25 years old (high school or higher years). You can also take part in a survey/quiz or create your own. 
• Forums. Where you can discuss and interact with others. The forums are divided into different categories; teacher ads, homework help, hobbies and debates. There are also "expert" forums where you can talk about your favorite sport, animal or your ideal job. 
• Links. Where you can find useful links about; penpals, countries of the world, educational sites, games and greeting cards, directories and links to the website itself. 

What you need to make it work ...

In order to make it work you don't need many resources. Mainly a computer with internet connection, although it could be useful to have more than one computer. Nothing else is needed since everything is provided by the website. Although, other resources that can be useful would be a camera in order to take pictures and send to the penpals. A scanner in order to scan in documents or drawings you would like to share with your foreign friends. A printer is good to have if you have few computers and would like to print the letters and work with them in the classroom instead. Furthermore a projector and a screen could be useful because then the teacher can show the website to the pupils and use the projector while giving instructions regarding the website. 

How the resource can be used by teachers …

This resource is very useful to teachers, especially since it is developed for school work and teachers and students. As a teacher you can use it to get connected with other teachers and schools all over the world, which is good when you want to start an exchange project or other school project where you want to get in touch with other techers and schools in the world. I personally think that projects like these are very motivating and exiting for the pupils to be ivolved with. It is important to use these rescources because you connect your classroom with the real world, instead of just talking about other countries and read about them in books. This technology we are provided with today is a great opportunity that we should take advantege of. The teacher can initiate and develop an correspondance between their class and another class in a different country. The teacher can also let the pupils explore the website on their own and create different tasks for them to carry out while they interact with the website. The page countries of the world  contains a lot of information about all the countries in the world. A task would be for the pupils to read about a country of their choice and make a presentation, this task could be connected to both English and geography.  

How the resource can be used by pupils ...

Pupils can first and foremost use this resource in order to correspond with pupils from various countries all over the world. This correnspondence may be lead by the teacher, as mentioned above, or it can be entirely done by the pupil on its own. The site is created to be a safe environment for children and schoolstudents to interact with others in their own age with different nationalities. Moreover pupils can create their own penpal area, read other blogs or write in their own, read and take part in discussions on forums, take or create quizzes and surveys and play games. They can also read about different countries. Most important is that they get to interact with "real" English language, since almost the entire page is written in English. 

Other considerations when using this resource …

The website holds a warning text. where they describe different things to be avare of while using the site. Even though they work very hard to keep it a safe environment for children, it is easy for adults (who do not belong there) to take advantage of the system and initiate inapropriate contact with children. The creators of the site states very clear that they do not take responsibility neither for page contents, nor for the consequences of your publications. Authors have to take on their own responsibility. They strongly recommend not to include your personal address & phone number in your messages. If you choose to introduce your pupils to this website, I think it is also your responsibility to discuss these matters with your pupils and explain to them what might happen if they publish private information in the site. It is important to explain that the purpose of the site is to make new friends, not to get involved romantically in any way with anyone on the site. Remind the pupils that they are using the site in a school context and they are therefore representing your school and in a way they are also representing your country. I recommend you to openly discuss this with your pupils. What does this mean? How do we want our school to be projected? Remember, that this should be an open discussion. By this I mean do not make your mind up about these things in advance, then the pupils will have really no reason at all to discuss this with you. They will notice if you have already decided what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in these contexts which increases the risk that they will not listen to you. It is supposed to be a mutual agreement between you and your pupils. I think this is important to remember since the Swedish curricula emphazise democracy and pupils' power to influence their school situation and way of working. 

I hope you find this useful, I know I do! 

Regards 

Ann-Sofie Brage