Great Resource if You Haven't Visited Yet: epals

I was exploring ways to engage with other classrooms outside of the standard blog/Skype experiences. One of the websites recommended by 21stcenturyschoolteacher.com was epals. I have been impressed, though I have not actually engaged in a collaborative project as of yet. As a teacher, you submit a profile. After it is approved, you can begin to seek out collaborative partnerships with other classrooms or you can submit your own proposal for a project. Within already created projects, you can search by topics, country, age and language. There are also a variety of forums presented by the site (some helpful, some not). Another feature I appreciated was the ease in which parents could participate/access the material. The parents of my students love to be involved but many of them have limited access and knowledge to computers. Attempting to explain blogs and involving them on Skype would have been difficult. This website, I found, was much easier to explain to them and get them involved in. If you haven't visited it yet, I recommend browsing to see if it would be a technology helpful to you.

http://www.epals.com