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Connecting Students

Back in the olden days when I was a student, we didn't have e-mail or cell phones. We didn't even have computers in the classrooms. In second grade we had a word processor (aka a glorified typewriter) to type stories on during ELA. We went to the computer lab once a week to play games from 5 1/2 inch floppy disks and learn about the abacus.
Image Not Mine
Image Not Mine
When it came time to do a letter writing unit we painstakingly wrote draft after draft until the teacher was satisfied not only with out spelling and grammar but more importantly it seemed, our penmanship.
Image Not Mine
Oh how the times have changed! Letter writing units are so much more fun with computers, tablets, and Google. I can simultaneously correct students writing in Google Docs while 2 peers are doing the same. The stress of writing the perfectly spaced and spelled handwritten letter is gone. Pen-pals are no longer of the pen but of the keyboard. Qwerty-friends?

ePals is an online platform to connect classrooms from all over the world with each other. It allows users to choose pen-pals based on mutual interests, content areas, class sizes, and languages spoken. There are different challenges the two classrooms can work together to complete.

One of the features I find to be the most interesting is how up-to-date it is with current events. The Hamilton Experience, anyone? Students research a historical figure and write their own rap history ala Lin-Manual Miranda.

The possibilities are endless especially if you are a part of a PLN and can bounce ideas off of others and see what their experience was like!
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Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 7, 2017 at 2:40 PM

    Do you think you would use this site? Also, I miss having real pen-pals. When I was in college it was the last gasp before email really took over. My friends and I would write over the summer because calling long-distance cost too much! What a blast from the past that is.

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  2. Meg.FatzingerOctober 9, 2017 at 8:34 AM

    E-pals? No I don't think I will use it. I use Soldiers Angels with my students, which connects us with active duty and veteran service men and women. It's an online platform to connect but then you send physical letters. This year I am also trying CAPSpace. https://projects.twice.cc/

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