ePals

ePals is a website setup to connect students across the globe through the use of email and it supplies pre-planned lessons to aid in doing so.  Teachers create profiles about their classroom where they can share their leaning objectives in hopes of finding a good class to partner with.  Once a connection has been made, the participating teachers can prepare plans for their students.  This can be anything from having a global buddy to discuss a book with, to more in depth culture studies.  Needless to say, ePals is an excellent source for meaningful social studies exploration.  

ePals, along with National Geographic, offers topics of study such as “People and Culture,” “Culture and Literacy,” “Habitats,” “Geography,” and much more (www.epals.com).  Questions for student communication can be found within each lesson and allow for students to share their knowledge about a particular topic and how it relates to them on a personal level in their part of the world.  This real-life dialogue is a way for students to see that their words can be used to provide useful information to someone else.  Likewise, the information they receive from their buddy holds a lot more weight than simply pulling a fact from a book.  Creating lessons through ePals also provides teachers with many opportunities for differentiated instruction and learning extensions based on student interest.