ePals for better collaboration and communication.

ePals is a virtual workspace that provides opportunities for students and teachers to connect with people from all-round the globe who share the same interests. It is designed to promote safe global teaching and learning while using technology in a classroom.

 After surfing through the website I  realized that implying ePals in language classroom will allowed my students to not olny improve their language skills but also to learn about different countries and cultures. In addition, they would also be able to connect with students from different countries at the same age and hopefully develop some friendships.  For a teachers, this program provides and opportunities to connect with other teachers from different countries and to share their work and experiences.

I've already done a cultural project about holidays and different Spanish traditions in a Spanish language classroom. Except we didn't have an opportunity to connect with native speakers and to discuss what interests the students the most; how does it look like in a real life. Moreover, students could pick the subject that interests them so they explore and learn about it more. Also, I like the fact that beside common subjects in a language classroom such as culture, there are projects such as global worming, environment issues, weather or habitats developing critical thinking skills.

More fun in a classroom.

            More and more I am impressed  with what technology has to offer in terms of making teaching and learning more effective and enjoyable. When I go back to the time when I was learning English I remember a text book and grammar exercises, that is all. Today, thanks to technology, learning can be so much more divers, creative and moreover, effective.

   For example, I was planing a lesson that would create an opportunity to use a food and kitchen vocabulary and to teach adverbs of sequence( first, next, then, finally).I was thinking about creating a class cook book with the recipes of my students's favorite food.
http://www.pimpampum.net/bookr/index.php would be ideal to do so and to add pictures of the dishes. Thanks to Flickr, students would be able to find a pictures of the food from their home countries. This would be picture of my favorite polish food- pierogi.

Creative Common

Photo by Valentina

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