ePals and TalkShoe for the Social Studies Classroom

ePals is a global Internet based learning community. Both safe and secure, students from across the globe can communicate. Students can read emails from students speaking another language through a language translator. ePals promotes cross-cultural collaborations and communication between teachers and schools.

The most useful part of ePals for a social studies classroom is the ability for students to learn about the global community. Diversity in the global community is a core element of the social studies curriculum at all levels. Students can "project share" and become pen pals with diverse groups of students across the globe. The blogs and email are designed for use by young people.

TalkShoe works in a similar way. TalkShoe allows students to better connect with a podcasting and blogging audience. This can be used to create a discussion or to join another discussion already in session. Older podcasts are stored in an archive that can be retrieved for use in the future. Students and teachers can chose a topic for discussion and invite others to participate. The conversation is automatically recorded as a podcast.

In the social studies classroom, this could be a project designed to incorporate both the global community and class curriculum. Students could brainsotrm a topic and design the agenda of the conversation with another group of students. Although previous arrangements would be made by the teacher with another teacher or group, the students would take command of the project. Students could also access the achival podcasts made by others from all over the world. In either case, students grasp the vastness of the world and how different cultures view issues and events.