ePals

Wow, the possibilities with a global communication site like ePals are endless.  When exploring the site for myself I noticed some major components that educators would tap into.  First, you can create an account for your class or school allowing you to, as a group, connect with another school or class when exploring a common topic.  Educators can create their own individual profiles in order to share lessons, request lesson ideas, or communicate with another teacher from somewhere else on the planet.  Students are also capable of making "ePals" much like "pen pals" in order to communicate with students their age from possibly a different country or continent.  During my search of the site I found two teachers who were collaborating on lesson ideas when reading Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."  One teacher was from California, while the other was from Israel.  The teacher from Israel shared the idea of creating an additional scene to the play in the PowerPoint program.  The teacher from California loved the idea and even posted her distant colleague's projects on her personal webpage.  

I think that it is easy for any individual to forget that we are only 1 of about 6 billion people on this planet.  A global community site, such as ePals, allows anyone to reach out and bridge the gap between cultures, languages, religions, and political issues for the common idea of educating children.  I think it is essential that children understand that they are a part of something greater than they can truly conceive.  Giving our students authentic experiences to communicate with students from other regions or countries, or explore different content areas using another teacher's lessons builds their concept of the global community that they are apart of.

Bubblr!

Bubblr is an awesome online tool that can be used to create comic strips.  You may search images on Flickr and insert word bubbles.  I feel that this could be used across content areas and engage students in creating fun, informative comic strips about any topic. I utilized Bubblr to make a short strip about the "Pax Romana". I hope to use this tool in my Science class to help students better understand abstract concepts.

In English, students could use Bubblr to create short summaries about texts or chapters they have read. They could also create alternate endings.  In Social Studies they could recreate certain time periods like I've done or discuss current events by making a comic strip.

Whichever method you choose, Bubblr is for sure to be a great learning tool for students!



Photo by -yury-

Flickr- Attribution License

Photo by fiveforefun