E-Pals links students to the world, safely

"E-Pals", the world's online global learning community for classrooms, culture, contents and communications, was recently kicked off in Bangkok.

Tim DiScipio, the founder of e-Pals, said it was the largest community of global classrooms, mostly primary and secondary, that link up over the Internet. They can share projects, practise languages together and learn about their countries and culture from each other.

E-Pals consists of - SchoolM@il, Schoolblog, In2Books and their new, online collaboration and global communications environment called Learning-Space.

E-Pals connects students and teachers all over the world for cultural exchange, collaborative project sharing and communication through the Learning-Space product, safe policy managed e-mail and blogs and much more with a mouse click, all within the safe global learning environment.

Tim said the network was started in 1996 as a way to connect classrooms in electronic PenPal in 10 classrooms in four countries. Today, there are 20 million teachers and students in 200 countries worldwide. Each month the network logs 2,000 new school registrations from around the world. About 300 schools in Thailand have participated . |"It's a way for Thai schools to share their culture and history with other schools around the world, and for other classrooms in other countries to learn about Thailand. The relationships are going to be important when students can learn about Thailand from friends who live here" Tim said.

SchoolM@il is a unique e-mail system. The difference between e-Pals' SchoolM@il and other e-mail offerings is that students e-mail in a safe environment where they e-mail only other members of the e-Pals community. SchoolM@ail e-mail can be monitored by educators and parents and SchoolM@ail can be translated into other languages within the e-mail space.

Schoolblog is a safe, protected blog predetermining who can participate, access and post on it. It is great for writing journals, events and projects. Parents can have full or partial access. Teachers, students and parents can create their own blog to introduce articles and stories of varied interest.

In2Books pairs each student with an adult mentor. This e-mentoring program is designed so that informative, entertaining and challenging books such as novels and autobiographies are read and studied with the guidance of an adult.

E-mail, blog and access to the global social learning network are all free, but a school needs to pay about US$10 (Bt334) per student per year for Learning-Space if the school has a minimum of 500 students.

"Students are able to see how the world is different or how they are very much alive. They are able to see they're really very similar to other students at their age.

"The country [Thailand] has shown interest in working with us because when government and cultural officials see the power of e-Pals, we want to work with them and we will prioritise the country if they see the value of connecting schools around the world," Tim said.

LEAP Global is the partner in Thailand of e-Pals in the US. It will help e-Pals to get into more schools and help with the relationship with the Thai government and industry.

President Craig Hovendove said LEAP Global had a network of 3,800 schools in Thailand, including in Bangkok and Surin, and its goal was to take e-Pals to every school in Thailand including rural areas.