Thing Fifteen

On your blog, review and reflect on one collaborative project or opportunity that could align with part of your curriculum. Where might you incorporate one of the collaborative document tools for students to work together?

After exploring the multitude of online collaborative projects, I am most intrigued by “Epals.”  Epals seems to be a good fit for early childhood classrooms and appears to be a good starting point for teachers who are new to online collaboration. 

As I explored the Epal site, I found an area in which teachers can look for classrooms within a certain profile (such as age range or number of students), country, or type of project.  As I probed further, I was encouraged to find multiple early childhood classrooms from all areas of the globe who are participating in Epal projects.  I was also able to find several types of projects that fall under the theme of “People and Culture.”  One project helps children to explore, compare, and contrast different types of cultural festivals and traditions.  Another project allows children to explore their own similarities and differences with peers from other cultures.

These projects would align with the following Social Studies outcomes:

*recognize similarities and differences in people (gender, family, race,

culture, language).

*increase capacity to take another’s perspective.

*grow in understanding of and respect for differences among cultural

groups, as well as their contributions to society.

*begin to recognize that people celebrate events in a variety of ways.

These projects would also support the following Language Arts and Technology outcomes:

*understand that ideas can be written and then read by others.

*understand that printed materials have various forms and functions; e.g.,

signs, labels, notes, letters, types.

*begin to develop an understanding of purposes for writing

*understand that some people communicate in different languages and

other forms of English.

*begin to understand the value and enjoyment of being able to

communicate in more than one language or form of communication.

*talk, ask questions, solve problems, and share ideas with peers and

adults, when using computers and other technology tools.