Epals and Tools

Epals seems like a fabulous site, and an obvious yet necessary step in the development of education tools on the web. The two most valuable aspects of the Epals site seem to be: 1) the platform that it provides for classrooms and individuals to connect to other classrooms and individuals from around the world; and, 2) the projects that it has developed for classrooms to work on.

The site allows classrooms/individuals to use a world map to choose a country from which to contact other classrooms/individuals that are interested in collaboration. Collaboration can include sharing blogs or writing or emails, or working on one of the projects posted on Epals. The projects seem to include a main theme like global warming or habitat, for example, some activation and learning in the home classroom, an exchange of a series of emails between the new penpals, and then the building of a presentation to share.

I can think of a couple different ways to use Epals. For one, if I were teaching in an ESL classroom, I would allow children from different countries to work with people in their former countries, if possible, to help maintain their first language and links to their culture. Throughout this semester I've learned that maintaining a first language is very important for developing a second language both linguistically and culturally.

It would obviously be great for a Social Studies unit if students could interact with students from a culture or country of current study. The same goes for an English classroom if a story/poem/novel were set in a foreign country or another part of the US.

And for the teacher, the projects seem like a good place to get ideas and maybe save some time because the global outline is already finished.

Epals could also be used in collaboration with other tools on the web. I have previously investigated Survey Monkey and Animoto. I can imagine using Survey Monkey in a class with partnering classrooms from multiple countries. I would be fun and informative to make a survey on a given topic (e.g. household size and composition; ages at which people first drive, move out, get married, etc) and then distribute the surveys to the classrooms from around the world and perform comparative studies. Maybe then the classroom performing the study could compare their study to their textbook or their preconcieved notions.

Animoto could be used in conjunction with the projects from Epals mentioned above. Animoto is a tool that allows a user to upload pictures, video, and music and the site then mixes a fairly unique presentation for the user in a matter of minutes.