e-Pals

= Communication Tool: = Group Members: Jennifer, Jessie, and Jessica




 * Brief introduction of the tool**

ePals is a site that allows teachers and students worldwide to collaborate with one another. This collaboration can include book clubs, lessons, and projects. Some of the main features include SchoolMail, SchoolBlog, and Classroom Match. These features are school-safe and free. ePals allows teachers and administration to review all messages received by students as well as a tailored blocking solution, which can be used to block inappropriate words or websites. Research has proven that sites such as ePals build 21st century technology skills, promote verbal and visual literacy, are accessible to a wide range of students, and promote “real world” concepts and relationships.


 * ===//Advantages of the tool//===

Efficiency: This tool, ePals, can be considered an efficient tool. With ePals students are communicating with other student from around the world on different issues. Before this technology students would have to write letters which takes a lot of time to get a response. The students would have to mail their letters which would take days to get to the other students they are collaborating with, and then those students would have to mail their responses back. This would make the project stretch out for longer than it would really need to. With ePals the students are able to communicate in a more timely manner with one another, making the experience of working with students from around the world more enjoyable.

Effectiveness: The ePals tool is an effective use of technology because it allows students to interact with other students and teachers about global issues. It provides them with insight into what other parts of the world thing about different issues. This insight comes from students their own age who are dealing with and thinking about the same issues as themselves, which has more meaning to an elementary student than reading what an author of a textbook as to say about an issue. It also allows them to voice their own opinions and receive feedback on it from students outside of their classroom.

Enhancement: E-Pals is a very good enhancement tool. It will allow student to communicate with other students from around the world in a timely manner. This will allow students to have an awareness of the world outside of their school, community, or city. Students will be able to chat with other students about issues that are concerning them gaining great insight into what life is like for the foreign student they are chatting with. This provides them the change to go beyond what a textbook, their teacher, or even just classroom discussions can teach them.

Overview of the good things about e-Pals: · Timely communication with student from around the world · Students are able to gain awareness of the world outside of their school, community, or city · Keeps students attention better than a textbook or lecture about the views on issues from other countries · Allows students to talk with others their own age to gain knowledge from around the world


 * ===//Disadvantages (limitations) of the tool//===

Monitoring: A small setback with this program is that you have to take on a responsibility as a teacher to keep your kids protected. Although this is a protected site it is very easy to become a member and use it. Who will be monitoring your kids while these video interactions take place? There are so many debates and issues on children using social networking sites and there is a huge liability that you and your school take on allowing them to partake in this activity.

Barriers: Although it can be very interesting to be able to communicate with students all over the world you do have to take into consideration that there may be a language barrier. Even though you can reach students in South Korea this doesn’t mean that you will be able to communicate in a sufficient and educational way. This is something that can be discussed with the teacher of the foreign classroom before any of the actual video feeds take place.

Clutter: This site has so many great tools but this can almost become too cluttered. You have e-mail, projects, bulletin boards, video interaction, and forums. There is a fine line between where a site has lots of great tools and can be very helpful and a site that just has too much going on that you and your students are unable to keep everything straight.

Application of the tool in your subject area
As a teacher ePals can be a very useful resource. For example if you are working on a history lesson where the students are learning about conflicts between Germany and the United States, you can have students use the connections tab on ePals to collaborate with a class in Germany working on a similar lesson. This will allow students to see and understand viewpoints other than their own or what they have been taught. This is very beneficial in teaching students how to handle “real world” situations.

Find a tutorial video on YouTube
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//List of key features showed in the tutorial://
Registering for site Focus areas Connection with classrooms worldwide Forums
 * publication contest
 * Collaboration on projects
 * Pen pals
 * Book clubs

Useful Resources
http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/Global_Communication - this site describes how global communication works. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4422/is_5_16/ai_54577312/ - this site is about the advantages of global communication in the work force (Helps students to know why using global communication now as students is important) http://langwitches.org/blog/2010/01/24/globally-connect-communicate-21st-century-skills/ - this site tells you different ways in which to communicate globally