ePals

ePals is a great reference for educators. The goal for ePals is to connect learners around the globe in a safe environment. I actually just started using this program. I connected with a school in Southern France, and we will be doing a series of cultural and communication projects. The feature I find the most useful is the ePals LearningSpace. There are many web 2.0 tools available including blogs, wikis, forums for discussion and a digital dropbox.

I can (and will) use this to expose my students to an authentic audience with a genuine interest in reading their writing. Students will share their background, passions and memories with students. Then we will do compairison/contrast cultural projects with the students in France.

Animoto: A Digital Story

This week, I introduced myself to Animoto.

Make your own slideshow at Animoto.

I thought that Animoto was relatively easy to use. One issue that I had was with the text. I wanted to write at least a sentence, but only a certain number of characters were allowed. This tool is fun, and I think I would like to use Animoto as a forum for my students to teach each other spelling or grammar clues. We could also use it to share nonfiction pieces, and digital photography. There is a great site called Dear Photograph, and I would like to have students complete the project in video format.

There are so many options, I cannot wait to consider even more ideas.