Communicating with others
One of the major advantages
of the Internet for education, apart from being an important source of
information, is its capability to promote contact between students, schools
and teachers and their participation in different international communication
activities, ranging from simple pen pal, or rather "key pal" exchanges
to full-blown multi-cultural projects. Other resources other than email
are also available on Internet to facilitate students communication and
cooperation.
email
email projects
Since the late eighties, schools
world-wide have used e-mail for international communications activities
and projects. Email is a way to practice writing and reading, but its major
attraction is speed, as participants need not wait days or even
weeks for a response, but can receive them in a matter of minutes. This
fact usually leads to motivation to write and to maintain contact with
the foreign students. There are many different sites on the web which
can lead you to the right email based collaborative project or to
find people who can participate in your own project. Visit my favourite
sites:
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Centre
de Recursos de Llengües Estrangeres. Begin with
this site and read about different projects aimed at using and improving
the foreign language. Go to Correu
electrònic where you will be able to contact the people who
can help you to find contacts (for more information e-mail Neus
Lorenzo ) and link to the Punt
de trobada (contactes i alumnat) where you will find more information
about projects and key pals.
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Intercultural
E-Mail Classroom Connections. The IECC (Intercultural
E-Mail Classroom Connections) mailing lists are provided by St.Olaf College
as a free service to help teachers and classes link with partners in other
countries and cultures for email classroom pen pal and project exchanges.
I recommend this site as one of the best place where to announce your project
in order to find the partner/s to collaborate with you. You are also able
to consult the list of on-going projects and see if there is one which
meets your needs.
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E-Pals Classroom
Exchange - (K-12 Education Resource).
E-pals Classroom Exchange (ECE) provides students with an opportunity to
meet and have correspondance with other students from around the World.
Search its online database of classrooms or add yours to its search engine
for free. You can search by School Name, the classroom's First Language,
Grade, or the City or Town, State or Province, or the Country that they
live in. You can then send an email or visit their home page to find out
if they would like to become your classroom's pen pals.
Expo
2002 - School Projects Registry. From the search results
by student age and country you will be able to email the school directly
and ask for partnership. You can register so that your school details appear
in the web site. You then may receive messages by groups of students or
teachers asking for a partnership.
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E-mail
Projects Home Page. This is a page aimed at helping learners
world-wide link together and produce meaningful publications. You can choose
from a list of about 15 on-going projects, read about them and ask for
participation in any of them.
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I*EARN
. This is a truly international (it has member schools
in over 30 countries), non making profit interactive network of both schools
and youth service organizations which is open to elementary and secondary
schools, committed to making a significant difference to the world as part
of the educational process, using telecommunications.This network coordinates
more than 40 structured projects in different areas and also gives you
the opportunity to design your own project and seek partners throughout
the world.
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Global
School Network Projects & Programs. This network
offers a list of ready-structured projects which visitors can consult and
register on if desired.
To know more about international
networks aimed at enhancing student' communication and improvement of the
English language through the use of computing and the internet visit Selecció
de Webs i xarxes educatives a Internet . I recommend you to go to European
School Project. Among other projects this site promotes
The image of the Other,
a teletrip focussed on the English language as a second language with ready
to use materials for the students. I myself have carried out this project
between Dutch and my own Spanish students. The experience was brilliant!.
key pals
Apart from the projects which
are usually set up by the teacher, and which involve groups, students can
also have their key pals with whom they can exchange electronic messages
in a more or less systematic way. Visit those sites in order to find individual
or group partners around the world for your students.
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International
House Barcelona offers a comprehensive guide to penpal
sites with advice for students and teachers on how to write good e-mail
messages and on how to organise classes exchanges.
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Its-online
Key pals. The its-online pen pal section is designed
to be used by students of English around the world and native English speakers
who would like to exchange messages with students of English in other countries.
Students can become an "Its-online pen pal" by filling in
the register form, or can just contact somebody by reading and answering
other people's messages. And it is free!!
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Dave
Sperling's ESL cafe Student Email Connection. Students
can participate in this section by adding their names and email address
to this list so that they can communicate with ESL students from all over
the world. I think this is a good place to begin looking for key pals.
It is also free.
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Search
2 [Internet FL Partners] , where students cannot only
find a key pal but also search for people by language, level of ability,
the type of Internet resources they want to use (e-mail, chat, web page..)
and their interests (music, movies, sports, books...). It is free.
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Linguistic
Funland Penpal postings, which has postings by teachers
describing
their students and what
sort of pen pals they are seeking for. There's also a link there to the
form
where you can post your
own request.
WWW
Web pages can be a complement
to email collaborative projects. The creation of student homepages on the
web adds the possibility for students to practise writing for a large audience
and to invite responses to their writing. They allow the integration of
other features apart from text, like images, videos, sounds, etc., and
this offers students a more "lively" approach to their exchange, as they
can see their partner's pictures, listen to their voices and so on (video-tapes
have also been used as a complement to simply e-mail communication). Although
not so widely used as email, Web creation for exchange and collaborative
projects is being more and more used nowadays. Visit the following sites
to get an idea of what can be done with this resource:
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The
Global Thinking Project, to see an example of an interdisciplinary
and collaborative project where students of different countries share their
knowledge about many areas (science, social studies, Catalan/Spanish language
and maths) in the same web page. (for more information ask the coordinator
of this project in this country Núria
Brichs).
discussion
lists
Discussion lists are simply
computer programs which allow individuals with a common interest to share
information. A subscriber sends an email message to the List, which is
then transmitted to all members. Any response is posted to the List itself,
(responses can also be sent to the individual) and is in turn forwarded
to all participants. There are some good ELT lists which are worth visiting
as teachers:
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NETEACH-L
(teaching ESL/EFL on the Net) NETEACH-L is a list for international teachers
of English as a second or foreign language to discuss Internet-assisted
teaching & learning. At last count, the list had over 400 members.
This is an excellent place to get started learning about how to use the
Internet with your English students. NETEACH also has a web
page as well as a list of "Cool
Sites" that list members have found useful. Highly recommended!!!
Discussion lists can also be
a good resource for students, although not very handy at the moment especially
if our students do not have an individual email account. Instead, they
can use the "message exchange" for students in some popular sites:
newsgroups
Newsgroups are similar to Discussion
Lists inasmuch as they are composed of individuals with a common interest.
But whereas Lists require participants to subscribe before reading or contributing
to the discussions, newsgroups are open to everybody. The user has to make
the decision to visit the group, download those items which interest them
and share opinions or offer advice readily at no charge. There are several
newsgroups related to ESL and EFL. I advise you to try misc.education.language.english
, lively and informative on all aspects of English usage and ESL teaching.
There is also a web site with information about the newsgroup.
In principle, newsgroups
can be used with classes. Groups of students with particular interests
(politics, music, cinema, and so on) could follow discussions for a few
days and even post their own messages and await responses. Nevertheless,
the group should be carefully chosen as some have very poor quality of
both language and content, and are, sometimes, even offensive. Perhaps
this is the reason why most teachers tend to be wary of allowing access
to this Internet facility.
For a complete list of newsgroups
visit Deja-News The Source for Internet
Discussion Groups
IRC
(Real Time Communication)
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) allows
multiple users to communicate more directly than with email or newsgroups.
Users can communicate in real time, by splitting the screen into
two parts, with the writer's input displayed in one half of the screen
and the interlocutor's in the other. Many people can "chat" about many
different topics by using different "channels".
IRC appears to be extremely
appealing to many students. Its instant gratification, anonymity, attraction
of a new medium, and so on, makes IRC one of the most popular Internet
facilities. Nevertheless, it has the limitation that students, or teachers,
from different parts of the world, must coincide in time, which is
sometimes impossible. Try a simulation of a real chat with KIDLINK
IRC , a system in which kids and adult educators from around the world
can talk together, without fear of negative influences and harmful interruptions
from the outside.
A group of teachers from
Granollers (Barcelona) in "El
Pati" organize CHATS for students every Friday morning in Catalan and
Spanish language. This is a good way to start using this resource. It might
also be organized in English, later on. For more information patinet@vallesnet.org
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report dead links to dpermany@pie.xtec.es
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