Utilizing+ePals

I learned about ePals at the end of last year, I did not have time to implement it then. So, I decided to use it this school year.

At the beginning of the year, I planned on having the students work in collaborative groups with students from other countries to help them better understand life in other places and cultures. I ran into a couple of complications. Finding a class to work with was more difficult than I expected. I think this was partially due to my inexperience with the site. I plan to take a deeper look into the site this summer and try to achieve a more complete implementation next year. Another issue was lack of regular access to their student accounts. This issue will be solved with the one-to-one computer initiative we are beginning next year.

Students were able to correspond with children from other countries through a protected e-mail and monitored discussion boards available on the site. Several students wished to continue using the service after school was out. Any student that wished to do so was allowed to keep their account.

One of the positive aspects about this system is that all the e-mail and discussion boards are monitored by the teacher and National Geographic staff. The staff does not allow messages that violated the rules reach the discussion boards. In addition, they provide student with feedback about why their post was denied, and ask them to resubmit it with the necessary corrections.