EPALS:EXTENDING YOUR CLASSROOM TO THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY

Susan Cintra

What is ePal?

Connects classrooms across the world Allows students to interact with other students

who are working on similar/same projects or ideas

Allows teachers to control the encounters Allows for collaboration between teachers

across the world in all content areas. Allows students to publish and share their work Built in forums for students to share ideas Email accounts can be set up for students

How to:

Go to www.epals.com Click on “Join Now” Type in email under the “Adults” side Continue filling out information, must

include school information to proceed Go to “Create Classroom Profile” Fill out this information about your

classes, you can always change it or adapt it later.

How to:

Go to “Add students to ePal roster” This will allow you to add your students,

when you get them. I made some generic students just to play with it.

For each classroom profile, you can add different students, so for instance 1st period, 2nd period, etc. This way different classes can work on different projects.

Get started:

Once you’ve created your profile, begin browsing profiles to see who is out there that your students can connect with.

Go to “Collaborate” tab you can search specific countries, topics, projects, or profiles.

Once you find one that’s interesting, click “Contact” to begin correspondence with them.

Posting Teacher Work:

If you would like to submit a project, go to “Projects” and click “Upload your own project” Follow the instructions from there.

If there are other teacher documents you want to share, go to “Teachers” and click “Share Teacher Work”

You can also post on teacher forums and discuss teacher-related ideas.

Posting Student Work:

Once your students are in and have activated accounts, they can publish their work, whether it be a website, audio, video, or documents.

Students go to “Student” tab, and click “Share Student work” to upload their work.

Once their work is posted, others can comment on the piece.

Other features:

There are a lot of other features with this website that can be worked into to any content. One is “My Minute to the World” where students submit a piece that is meant to be a minute in length discussing their message to the world.

Play around with this website and see how students from all over the world can connect, share ideas, collaborate, and publish their thoughts, ideas, and pieces.