Donna's Blog

Keypals Near and Far

Description

Keypals are similar to traditional penpals. Students work in pairs and communicate with each other electronically, usually by email. Students often suggest their own discussion topics. Besides just writing to each other, students can also share items such as pictures of themselves or artwork. Another way keypals can communicate with each other is by using a real-time text-chat tool such as IRC.

Key Findings from Readings

Harris says that keypal exchanges can be very time-consuming. If email messages are sent through a single class account, it can be hard for a teacher to manage. Likewise, having the class time and resources (such as enough computers) for all students to check and respond to email daily could be difficult. On the ePals Classroom Exchange site, descriptions are given of several different types of "pal" activities that can be done. One is ePals School Mail, in which students can email their pals. It also features discussion boards and has built-in language translation, which would be very useful when communicating with students from a foreign country. Another activity on the ePals site is School Blog, which allows students to have a safe place on the internet to collaborate with others. A third section on the site is ePals Mentoring, which connects students to businesses in their communities and experts. Safety is emphasized a lot on ePals, and would definitely be an advantage to using it, since the internet can be a scary place for students, especially in the elementary grades.

Applications for Teaching

There are a several ways I would like to use keypals. First, I'd like my students to become keypals with students at a school in a different region of North Carolina, such as the mountains or the coast, so that we could all share information about the state. Second, I would like to have keypals in another region of the U.S. to help with learning U.S. geography and history. Third, it would be really neat to correspond with students in a foreign country, especially if we could find a class to talk to in the native country of an ESL student in our classroom. I think this would really help my students make the connections between cultures. Of course, all of this couldn't be done at once due to time constraints. I would probably start with finding keypals in North Carolina. Keypals would also be a great way to integrate writing skills with social studies and technology. For example, writing in correct letter form could be taught, as well as "email etiquette" and how it is different from writing a traditional letter. We could also pull in blogs to provide more in-depth descriptions of our lives and locations, which would require students to write longer pieces that we could take through the writing process.    

Posted at 01:46PM Jun 20, 2006 by DEAL, DONNA in General  |  Comments[1]