Schools join ePals to collaborate with classrooms in 200 countries: Go Global!

[Rita Oates, PhD]

Get your students to share your enthusiasm for Geography this year, by connecting them with students their age in other countries. Egypt is a lot more than pyramids...and students there may be able to share eyewitness experiences with the January "revolution" and how it works to have boys in one high school, girls in another high school, living in a Muslim country.

“Pledge to Take Your Class Global.”

This year connect with learners in another part of the world. When students share and collaborate together from across the globe, they explore their curiosity about our planet’s diversity, get excited to use technology and cultivate invaluable 21^st century communication skills as they go.  Get students to think critically, to go beyond the textbook and ask questions from students their age in the places you are studying. Exchange emails, podcasts, videos, or send student magazines through the mail to share.

Teachers who belong to the ePals Global Community, a social learning network that connects classrooms around the world, have seen first hand how global collaboration improves student learning. 70% of Global Community students write more often, 75% write better. More than half of Global Community classrooms report a stronger grasp of the “real world” purpose of class lessons.

Submit your pledge here.  

Committed to authentic learning with global connections? Share your commitment by “Liking” the pledge on Facebook and encouraging colleagues to follow your lead.

 

It's free to join the ePals Global Community, to use collaborative projects, and to post student work.

If you want to learn more, sign up for a webinar: http://bit.ly/ePals101 or check out the ePals tutorials: http://bit.ly/learnePals

 

Here's one example of a project about US regions:

I Know My Region is a project aimed at connecting students in the United States that are studying regions with each other. Students generally learn about the five regions of the United States from their textbooks. This project allows the students to learn about each region from the students who live there. Using Virtual Field Trips, the classrooms collaborate and learn the unit objectives together. As the unit progresses, the students become more familiar with their collaborative partners, allowing the relationship to move from parallel learning to true collaboration when provided the opportunity to exchange questions that they have. In the end, the students will videoconference to discuss what they have learned during the unit and answer the region specific questions for each other. In addition, the students create a project (something that can be shared digitally) that demonstrates their knowledge of their region. The project aims at highlighting the information that is not necessarily found in a textbook, or information that is special but not necessarily well known, such as a special park or lake.

More info: http://www.epals.com/blogs/teacherspotlight/archive/2011/07/28/i-kn...

 

You can also see student-made videos from around the world, from Senegal and New Zealand to Idaho and Japan. http://bit.ly/StMedia

[Kay Conners]

Hi Rita, have wanted to take part in epals for years, and this year it is! Love the collaboration piece. Is there a permission that parents sign that you can share? Or anyone else? My district doesn't have a general one and my principal wants to create one. Thanks and look forward to learning about and using epals. Kay