Wait, What Am I Creating With My Pen Pal? LIS568

Being an educator in such a connected world poses many opportunities to connect our classrooms with different cultures around the world.  One great resource that allows for such a connection is ePals.  Free to sign up it seems like a no brainer to join.  It’s not everyday you come across a resource which its sole purpose is to connect your classroom with another classroom anywhere you please in this world.  Whereas there are other pen pal resources, ePals takes a fantastic approach with allowing for more than just communication.  With ePals not only can you have a pen pal exchange, but you can also have your students partake in an “experience” as well.  While ePals offers a safe and secure network for students to interact on, it also provides educators with an organized location to ask questions, share tips and advice, and overall be part of an unique networking experience.

A specific function of ePals that I find most intriguing is its “experience” opportunities.  Students are able to work through inquiries with other students from all over the world.  Honestly, how cool is that?  I remember doing pen pals in elementary school and I can tell you that their was no collaboration in terms of solving an inquiry based project, and it was certainly not via the World Wide Web!  Talk about basically an instant response.  No more waiting for days as the USPS does their job.  There are many pre-made projects through ePals, however if you deem necessary you have the function to create your own projects from scratch.  The pre-constructed projects are very well thought out, organized, and offer a diverse range of subjects.  Students can partake in a language based project such as folktale exchange, in which students explore and compare folktales with partner classes from all parts of the world and actually create their own storytelling traditions.  Students can be part of a science lesson where they explore how scientist study animal traits to create robots, ultimately creating their own robots to achieve a certain goal in their partner class’s environment.  Not only are students gaining cultural understandings, but they are also gaining a significant level of digital competence.

When you think about the level of digital literacy and responsibility that students must gain and obtain in order to achieve success in their globally connected inquiries it is quite impressive.  Personally, teaching my students every year to achieve a sense of digital literacy is paramount, and being a social studies teacher it is critical for me to educate my students with a sense of cultural diversity.  For me, having my students partake in projects through ePals allows me to “kill at least two birds with one stone.”  On top of being able to provide my students with such an unique experience, I am able to network with other teachers from all around the world.  As professor Ronald Burt states, “ Instead of better glasses, your network gives you better eyes.”

Happy teaching!