ePals Project Participation

           ePals is a very unique website that promotes students as global citizens and the idea of a global society in an unprecedented way. A review by TeachersFirst cited the website as the worlds largest global community and highlighted ePals' global reach writing, "(ePals) offers students the chance to connect with other students around the world (200+ countries)". (TeachersFirst.com, 2013)

             ePals allows you to select a project to work with or to make your own and wait for interested people to contact you. Many of the ones I found to be most interesting had to do with cultural and language exchange. As a language and cultural assistant I found the opportunities  to teach my students about American culture and customs to be very interesting. Although none could be completed because I am currently on summer break. In the future I would love to participate in a project that was designed to exchange cultural information with different geographic parts of the United States to create a broader view of American culture.

               ePals is also designed to promote major social change. ePals can be used to combat many global issues, TeachersFrist cited many, "The "Focus Areas" include Biodiversity, Black History, Election/Inauguration, Geography Central, and Human Rights. In addition, you can click on the "Projects" link to find several ready to use projects (Habitats, Maps, Natural Disasters, Water, and others)" (TeachersFirst.com, 2013) It is truly amazing the collective power that ePals could have if all schools participated in the projects. In my opinion major social and cultural progress would be achieved in much faster time.

TeachersFirst. (2013). Teachers First: Thinking Teachers, Teaching Thinkers. Retrieved from http://www.teachersfirst.com/single.cfm?id=10090