What other technology is needed?
This question is for Scott Massey and Pete Smith:
I did part of my student teaching in Columbus Junction, Iowa, and part of it in Tawa, New Zealand. When I went overseas, I'd intended on creating a pen-pal session between my stateside students and my overseas students. Due to time constraints, we were only able to get one letter to and one letter from the reciprocating students. (And the 'one letter from' hit my NZ school's mailbox about the same time I was going through customs in California! So, I never actually got to see those, and although my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Pearl, said that the kids were very excited and that it was definitely a positive experience for them, part of me wondered if there could have been a better way to approach it.
When I left New Zealand, Mrs. Pearl and I said that we would pen-pal with our upcoming students. I have been in touch with her, and she is all about it, and so am I! How neat would that be for my students to make the world just a little bit smaller, by communicating with children who live on the other side of the earth?! Especially since I know the reciprocating teacher so well, I feel confident that this would be a highly valuable and treasured experience for the children involved. I get so excited when I think of the possibilities. :)
My question is, what is the best method (electronically) to go about implementing pen-pal letters?
Thanks for your presentation today; I look forward to our next Technology Tuesday.
Catie
I did part of my student teaching in Columbus Junction, Iowa, and part of it in Tawa, New Zealand. When I went overseas, I'd intended on creating a pen-pal session between my stateside students and my overseas students. Due to time constraints, we were only able to get one letter to and one letter from the reciprocating students. (And the 'one letter from' hit my NZ school's mailbox about the same time I was going through customs in California! So, I never actually got to see those, and although my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Pearl, said that the kids were very excited and that it was definitely a positive experience for them, part of me wondered if there could have been a better way to approach it.
When I left New Zealand, Mrs. Pearl and I said that we would pen-pal with our upcoming students. I have been in touch with her, and she is all about it, and so am I! How neat would that be for my students to make the world just a little bit smaller, by communicating with children who live on the other side of the earth?! Especially since I know the reciprocating teacher so well, I feel confident that this would be a highly valuable and treasured experience for the children involved. I get so excited when I think of the possibilities. :)
My question is, what is the best method (electronically) to go about implementing pen-pal letters?
Thanks for your presentation today; I look forward to our next Technology Tuesday.
Catie
posted by Scott S. Floyd @ 6/20/2006 10:00:00 PM
3 Comments:
At 6/21/2006 2:57 PM,
Pete Smith said…
Epals is a good reference (thanks Scott!) and several more can be found on this page:
http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Penpals_and_Communicating_with_Others/
Email pen pals (and now Skype pals!) are a hot topic in language education, to be sure!
At 6/21/2006 6:31 PM,
Janelle said…
You might want to check out tappedin.org as well. We learned about this as one of our state retreats. You can monitor chats.
At 6/25/2006 8:43 PM,
Scott S. Floyd said…
Also, Gaggle offers free email accounts for classrooms. You can monitor all of the emails as much as you wish. They have a word bank that each email is screened with to check for inappropriate dialogue. Any questionable email comes straight to your email box instead of them. You can choose to forward it on to them if you find that it is okay. Just a thought.
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