Four key words or terms that can be associated with the website ePals are collaborate, communities, social learning, and secure. These four terms/phrases really help to describe what the website ePals has to offer when it comes to teaching learners in grades kindergarten through 12th grade.
This website serves as a platform for teachers, mentors, and parents to help motivate learners with authentic materials and learning experiences that is done through connecting learners globally with each other or mentors. Teachers can benefit from the technology-related ideas ePals offers classrooms that can assist a curriculum or provide professional development topics to discuss or add to. ePals' mission is "to support lifelong learning through collaborative experiences that empower and inspire". ePals attempts to follow their mission statement through the use of Global Community, a free community that connects classrooms around the world, LEARN365, a K-12 email platform, CRICKET, which offers digital subscriptions of children's magazines, and in2books, a common-core e-mentoring program based around books.
As a future language teacher in the United States, I would be very interesting in using the in2books program to help my students develop their reading and comprehension skills among other literacy skills. The idea of e-mentoring is somewhat new to me, so I feel this tool would be a great start to working with that strategy. This program matches students in grades 3 through 5 with adult pen pals who read the same books and then exchange letters online about the book they read or questions they may have. As a teacher, it's nice to be able to have a program like this where I am able to monitor the letters for appropriateness as well as be able to see my students' thoughts on a story they read or their ability to comprehend the story without flat-out asking them. This also helps improve students writing skills as they learn to write letters and communicate online.
I would also be interested in learning more about the program called CRICKET. This program though ePals offers fourteen children's magazines in the form of digital subscriptions that students can browse through according to genre or level. I feel students would be very motivated to read more if they are able to choose from a variety of magazines and articles. This would serve as a great resource for my classroom as they are available to students both inside the classroom and out.
The most fun part about ePals is browsing through all of the "projects" that are available to join as a class. There are SO MANY ideas that come to mind for classroom projects I could carry out through this website just I get just from browsing the projects already begun. I found one project titled Class in Country of Georgia Seeks English-Speakers for We Are ePals Project. This project got my attention because the idea of it is to have students improve their writing skills by engaging them in real-life activities, such as writing emails and arranging video conferences between the classes once a month. I love this teacher's view of engaging students in meaningful and authentic learning experiences and feel as though this project aligns well with my philosophy of teaching language learners.
In2Books is funded in many US school districts through the local United Way. So if you are in an upper elementary classroom when you start teaching, see whether the United Way would support you in getting In2Books.
ReplyDeleteCricket and the other magazines are widely known as print products in US schools; in fact, 75% of all middle schools subscribe to one or more of these magazines in print format! The digital format is new in the last year. As schools are moving to apps, new digital and app versions are also available.
I'm so glad you mentioned the Teacher Spotlights! They are truly inspiring. One of the spotlight teachers, Joli Barker, is presenting in a free webinar on Thursday, April 18 at 4 pm ET, if you would like to hear her. Here's how you can sign up: http://bit.ly/418Joli
She was 2013 Texas Technology Teacher of the Year and also a Microsoft Partners in Learning winner, with some terrific ideas for her gr. 2 students!
There are also some archived webinars on the edWeb site featuring ePals-using teachers. First you have to join the edWeb site: http://edweb.net/epals
Then check out the archived webinars: http://www.edweb.net/.59d03661/Files/
I highly recommend #1, which features an elementary tech coordinator and a former gr. 4 teacher talking about what they did in various collaborations.
Thanks for the informative reply, I will definitely need to check out the Joli Barker webinar. Hopefully in the future I will be able to incorporate In2Books into my school of employment if they don't already use it!
DeleteI hope that you work in a school that In2Books in the future. I participate as a mentor in the program each year and read the same books as a young elementary student. Sometimes the teacher has all the students read the same books and sometimes the students choose them.
ReplyDeleteThe student that I am assigned to that year reads a book and then writes a letter to me about it. I also read the book and write my impression and ask the student some questions. It is very gratifying to exchange letters with a student and we only exchange letters every 6-8 weeks. Even if you do not use In2Books in your own classroom, you may want to volunteer to be a mentor. My adult daughter started doing it this year and she really enjoys the experience.
I think acting as a mentor in this program would be really interesting and beneficial for the students as well as my knowledge base of literacy instruction. I wonder if there are schools that participate in In2Books year-round that I can begin with this summer?
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