EPals: A great way to learn about the world

I recently went on line to reaserach EPals and find out how I could use the site in my adult ESL classes.  I was very impressed with the website and the myriad of languages that students could use to communicate with each other.  I really thought that the different topics/ themes that the communication are designed to revolve around are academically sound(The Standards are addressed in each project) and also interesting. 

Students and teachers can choose to focus on topics like weather, natural habitats or maps.  Students can create projects, often in pairs or groups, and truly inform someone living in a different part of the world.  Although the website seems to be designed for K-12 learners, I think that I could use various projects that it presents with my adult learners.  One project is entitled Holidays and Festivals.  It has many links that provide information about how holidays are celebrated around the world.  Moreover, it introdues symbols and asks students to design their own.  Another project is Digital Storytelling that enables the user to create and post their own stories.  There is step by step directions as there are for all the projects.  I think that my students would really benefit from the Holidays and Festivals project as well as the Digital storytelling one as they can write in English but read in both English or their first language.  I do not think that they could correspond with students outside our classroom as the site is aimed at K-12 learners.

Creating Reading Books Using Bookr

Photo courteousy of James F. Clay

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesclay/3509154283/

Bookr is a great tool for creating books for beginning ESL students.  I created a short picture book for my beginning literacy students entitled Going to the Store.  Bookr enabled me to choose culturally relevant pictures and words that my students would be able to read and understand. I would use this in my classroom to teach my students vocabulary and literacy skills.  As shopping is an activity that all my students engage in, it is a shared daily or weekly routine that does not need a big introduction.

Copyright and Usage



http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeblogs/3020966666/

 Photo courteousy of MikeBlogs


There are various Creative Common Licences.  The first one is Attribution which means that although your work is copyrighted, others can distribute and display it but they have to give you credit.  Another license is Noncommercial which means that others can use your work but only for non-commercial purposes.  A third type of license is No Derivative Works.  This license prohibits people from altering your work but allows for your work to be copied, distributed and displayed.  Finally Share Alike is a license that means that others can use your work to produce new things but must use the same license that governs your work.