EPALS!

As a teacher, especially a Social Studies teacher, I try to encourage my students to be not just citizens of the United States, but to be global citizens. With the world becoming a more interconnected place, that responsibility of being a global citizen takes on a greater meaning and responsibility. To help students understand and achieve this goal, ePals can become a very useful tool.

The forums that exist on ePals is a great place to start students down the path of becoming global citizens. There they are able to interact with other students worldwide on topics that they find interesting. There they are allowed to experience and gain valuable information about other cultures and ideas that they may not come into contact with while living within their own community. The student forums are a great beginning for any student.

The Classroom Matching and ePals Projects are other great tools that will allow students to cooperate with other students from across the globe on projects that may not have existed without the help of ePals. All the tools found on ePals help create a more interconnected global community and at the same time allows our students to explore beyond their own horizon.

I would use the tools found on ePals for a wide variety of activities and reasons. The focus area located on ePals has numerous different activities that can be used with the field of Social Studies, an example would be Black History. By using ePals, students in my own classroom would be able to learn about different cultures and ideas concerning Black History through other students and teachers from across the globe. This would allow them to experience different cultures through first hand experience. The site has many other useful tools that can link directly back to Social Studies and it also allows the students to explore new cultures on their own on a secure website.