Saturday, September 26, 2009

ePals is Up!

I am very excited to announce that I received all the information needed for epals.com and I have finished creating user names for my students. I am very excited to start with this project in my classroom. I now need to set up assignments and forum topics for my class and we are good to go!

Epals.com came with some pleasant surprises. Awhile back I was commenting to a colleague that it would be so nice if the students had email on the district server so that they can send and receive school related emails at school. I also commented that the teacher could send announcements this way to the students and it would be safe because district email is monitored. Well, my wish came true and I didn't even plan it that way. My class now has e-mail through epals.com. The great thing about it, is that it is teacher monitored. I can go and see what the students are sending and receiving and block messages if I have to. This is great because it is only supposed to be used for class.

As a side note this is the beginning of networking for my students and I am very excited to facilitate their networking and hope they can carry this on in their middle and high school careers.