ePaLs -- The World's Largest K-12 Learning Network!

ePals is “the leading provider of safe collaborative technology for schools to connect and learn in a protected, project-based learning network.”  ePals allows teachers to sign up and use this resource collaboratively, allowing for learners to connect not only locally, but also nationally and internationally as well.  Currently there are classrooms registered in over 200 countries and territories!

There are many available features apart of ePaLs.  Especially if you are a foreign language teacher or social studies/history teacher, there are many awesome opportunities of how you could integrate the use of this resource within your classroom!   In my opinion, those content areas would probably have the most benefit of using this website because having the ability to connect with other people from across the world can quite the learning experience!  One of the best ways to understand something can be to experience it firsthand…so how about working with students from another culture you are currently learning about, to really understand the heart of their culture and way of life?  Or how about learning the accent and pronunciation of a particular language – and having the ability to Skype with students that are fluent in that language?  Maybe the foreign language teacher teaching a classroom of students has not traveled to the countries of origin, so having the ability to connect with natives and rely on them for “primary source” type of information about culture and way of life can be very beneficial.  Or how about interacting with students who live in an area that has experienced natural disasters or inclement weather…talk about really being able to understand content?  It can be so much more effective than by just simply reading about something historical from a textbook or hearing about something in a lecture in social studies. 

Some specific features of ePaLs include “We Are ePals,” a monthly collaborative activity for available to the ePals Global Community.  If you as a teacher are thinking of a way to begin working with ePaLs and integrating it into your classroom, this looks like a great start!  Every month you could focus on the designated topic and get your students involved.  They would be able to learn from other participating classrooms across the world and be able to compare and contrast various responses!  Some of the most recent ones were:  How do we greet friends? What are we reading? What holidays do we celebrate?

Another feature is teacher collaboration.  If you are a teacher thinking of a certain project idea that would ideally involve another perspective…maybe from another culture or from a different location, this is for you.  You set up a profile regarding your location, classes you teach, ages of students you teach, number of students you teach, and what specifically you are interested in looking to collaborate with.  There is a search tool, for people to find your specific profile and contact you.  Or you can search for teachers that already established that they are looking for someone to collaborate with.  I particularly was interested in the involvement of teachers within New York State (because a lot of the curriculum would match up), so I decided to do a search.  My results found that there were 5,193 matches for meeting the criteria of being in New York State.  I could have even further searched using an advanced search to limit my results to be more specific…such to match the level of students I teach.   

I am still unsure as to ways of how I could integrate the use of ePaLs into my mathematics classroom.  I’m pretty sure with more exploration of the site and from looking to see what other math teachers have done, I will come up with some ideas.  I did a search to see how many profiles would match my criteria of being teachers within the United States, but also would have something to do with mathematics.  I found 230 matches for those criteria. 

Some ideas of a project I could have my students get involved with, related to mathematics, could be to find out how students of different cultures use math in their everyday lives.  I think that project would be pretty interesting and meaningful to students…especially because a lot of times students like to whine about "how they do not see math being important to them."   Through ePaLs, students would be able to learn a lot globally about mathematics.  Another idea has to do with currency…if I was teaching about rates and proportions I could have students interact with students of different cultures to find out about their currencies, and then have my students practice converting money amounts.  It would be very interesting to see how prices seem so different in areas with different currencies.  Also, I know that in many other cultures such as  Chinese and Japanese, students are a lot more advanced in their mathematics at an early age.  If I would have my students interact with students of those cultures, they would probably be in awe seeing how much more advanced those students are at such a younger age.