Technology In The Trenches!

Well let's face it, this is not my first blog - I've kept a personal one on another service for about two years now. I password protect it, only because well I feel more protected. I've neglected that blog for the past few months so having to sit down and blog here is hard to remember to do because I'm on a blogger vacation of the sorts, but hey I don't get a grade for my other blog...so here's my topic this week - discuss it amongst your selves...

I've found a NEATO website that I would like to share in enhance your 21st century learning experiences and perhaps you can kick it back to your classroom for all you teachers out there. The site is ePals. ePals is the largest and fastest growing K-12 online community for meaningful learning. More than half a million educators and millions of learners across 200 countries and territories safely connect, collaborate and build community. Schools around the globe use their school-safe email and blog tools. Deep learning is catalyzed through collaborative learning projects and experiences such as In2Books (launching Fall' 08), ePals' research-based curriculum-aligned eMentoring program. They also have a partnership with National Geographic !

As part of the wide-ranging agreement, National Geographic has made a strategic investment in ePals. A representative of NGV and ePals will join the Boards of the other and the organizations have entered into a multiyear alliance and content agreement. Designed to revolutionize the way the Internet is used to foster safe and effective multicultural learning exchanges across media platforms, the first focus is to thread high quality digital content from Nationalgeographic.com throughout ePals.com to create unique learning experiences.

Initial topic areas of focus for the new alliance include maps & geography, habitats, global warming, natural disasters, people and culture, great leaders, water and weather. In each area, classrooms and teachers will be able to choose among projects that emphasize collaboration, 21^st century skill building, and the use of school-safe communication tools to seamlessly work with learners around the world or down the block. Users will be encouraged to get into the act by building and sharing their own projects for use broadly within the community. In addition, ePals will enable users in teacher and student forums, blogs and other community areas to "Explore More," delivering quality information in highly contextual ways, propelling learning forward.

So take a trip over to ePals and sign your kids up. I'm going to let my homeschool families in on this website if they haven't already heard, as many of them utilize the computer in their teaching.