From Pen Pals To Epals!

Project based learning, specifically the Project Approach is one of the prime teaching strategies of the 21st century.  Learning through projects creates a collaborative classroom community that allows students to engage in active learning as well as participate in creating something unique and meaningful with their peers. There are many educational organizations that give classrooms the opportunity to collaborate with other classrooms and students around the world.  One particular site that I have explored is epals, a global classroom that give teachers access to educational tools and the opportunity to connect with classrooms all over the world to engage in collaborative project based learning.  One tool that this site offers teachers is a wiki.  "A wiki is an [online] place where students work collaboratively with other students, adding and editing subject related content."  An example of a project approved by epals that uses a wiki is Collaborative Detective Story--A Community Inspired Project.  This project was initiated by a class in Pakistan who wanted to collaborate with another class from any where in the world to write a detective story.  This is a year long project and it begins with the students from their respective classrooms getting to know each other through a questionnaire and emails posted on a specific wiki.  Once the students get to know each other then one of the classrooms, preferably the one who is learning the language of the other students ( for example English) will write an opening paragraph for the story.  The other class will then proof read and edit the paragraph and then brain storm ideas for the next paragraph.  The process will continue until the story ends.  A wiki is a great tool to use for any classroom because it allows students to communicate on group projects outside of class.  Another project featured on this site is a Level 2 French class in Missouri looking to collaborate with a
classroom in France in order to complete a comparison of a high school in America with one in France.  The completion of the project will involve the students in America creating a video showing the different parts of their high school.  This site also offers a media gallery which gives teachers a place to upload digital files such as word processing files, pictures, power points etc.  This is a great tool to use as an archive of students' work that was completed throughout the year.  This site is amazing and allows for so many learning and teaching opportunities, specifically the opportunity to learn with and from other classrooms all over the world!